iamthird

Ok, ive read, watched movies, cleaned, talked with friends, surfed the net, slept, journaled....and every time I come to a quiet moment, separated AH pops in my head. Thinking of him, wondering what he is doing, who he is with, if he thinks of me and our child, if he thinks about turning his life around and getting sober again....

What the heck is wrong with me? I know I deserve better and I am not acting on these thoughts, but its honest that these are my thoughts. Is this eventually going to fade over time? We have been separated for 9 months and i feel like I should be further along.

My higher power is helping a lot right now but the wheels turn in my mind. I wonder how he can just walk away from wife and child and latch on to a new girl who enables his terrible behavior. I go from missing him to anger to hoping he feels the pain of the damage he has caused.

I guess I just want to know when this gets easier...it doesnt feel like it hurts any less than the first day he relapsed and walked out.

Miggie

I am also nine months out and the pictures and thoughts still pop up uninvited but the feelings do not. There is nothing more to figure out. I just accept the memories the same way I remember anything else that pops up. I let them pass and do not re-examine them. That would be giving them power that does not really exist. wouldn't it?

Seren

(((Iamthird))) there is nothing wrong with you at all!

What you are describing is completely normal--although frustrating, I know. When my ex-H moved out and started the divorce process, I was a cleaning machine! I'd even go help my Mom clean her house

One thing that helped me at first was to have the radio playing soft music at night as I was trying to fall asleep or the tv going on one of those all-night channels (I dd not have cable). Both at really low volumes so that they weren't intrusive if I actually did fall asleep.

Another thing that would help me was to just go for a walk. I realize, however, that strenuous exercise might not be approved of by your doctors during your treatment.

Slowly but surely, the obsessing did decrease and eventually stop .

Hope you were able to get some sleep last night!

LifeRecovery

I am close to three years out from everything hitting the fan, and just past the two year point from the divorce.

I also am not trying to juggle kids and an illness.

In the last six months I have stopped feeling bad as my baseline. I am not yet feeling good on a regular basis...but this was a turning point for me.

My recovery also involved an affair and that support offers that it takes 2-5 years for recovery. That has helped me to not feel so overwhelmed with time. When two years in the minimum.

Tuffgirl

I think the fact that he is your "AH" and not an "RAH" speaks volumes. He is doing what he is doing because he is an addict and this is the way they act. They don't face their stuff the way normies do. They numb themselves and find replacements to not feel anything. They spin tales to keep them in victim mode. They do everything but face the bodies left in their wake.

When you start to obsess, try to remember this. It does help to rationalize it all by accepting that what you are going through is not what he is going through as an alcoholic.

Oh, and have some faith that karma is a b!tch and what comes around, goes around.

m1k3

I am 2 years out and doing a lot better. Doesn't mean those thoughts don't still pop up but they don't have the same power any more.

What helped and still helps is when I catch my self hopping on the hamster wheel is to redirect my thoughts. At first it was simple stuff like asking myself 'who are you talking to?' or 'why do you care about that?'. Now I have a couple of mantras I use to distract the monkey mind with something shiny. I have even found on a couple of occasions the mantra starts almost on its own without the compulsive thought even to have a chance to get started.

Your friend,

firebolt

Bleh - time is the worst when there are those kinds of feelings. It will get better I promise - and you are doing all the right things, keep at it! Those thoughts will slowly start to fade. Oh yeah, and rest assured with Tuffgirl's fact - Karma is a b!tch!

ReflectingOnMe

I spent all of last week tearing up and fighting against the memories, yesterday - I didn't even get out of bed. I still love him. I have good days and bad days. I, too, have read that it takes 2 - 5 YEARS to get over a betrayal; which is just rotten. I am sure at this very moment (my) xabf is getting off work, drinking it all down and will soon be in the arms of my replacement. The thing is...there is nothing I do can change that. I let the memory in and make a point not to obsess over it - i let it stay there - but make sure I add REALITY to the false-completely-sparkly memory. Makes it not quite as powerful. Hugs to you.

ninja07

Some moments are easier than others... we have to cling to the ones in which we are sane to get us through the rest of it. The worst part for me is that I still love him and that he loves me. In some ways I feel selfish for leaving but I can't live with the way I am when he's drinking, anymore than I can live with how he is. I think it will get better with time.

iamthird

Since I came home today ive been reading these threads repeatedly. Somehow separated AH has me convinced I should be grateful for the scraps he has given me.

I am a good woman and mother. I was a good wife to him. I deserve a husband that should be loving me and taking care of me in my time of illness. I deserve to be going through my illness without having daily fights with him or hearing from mutual people about this picture or that picture that his new enabling gf he cheated on me with posted on FB. Why do I even want such a man? I guess because this is not the man I want. I want the man he used to be.

The hardest thing is to grieve and let go of someone who is right in front of your face. Its also hard when I have no family of origin and my friends are already over the entire subject of him entirely.

I have to take some self responsibility and figure out why I put with as much as I did for as long as I did. I literally told him today that I would rather die alone than continue the cycle of emotional abuse anymore. Now, its time for me to live up to my words. Like Ghandi says, I need to be the change I want to see!

FeelingGreat

iamthird, your original post in this thread resonates with me because I went through a very traumatic break-up with lots of complications, which took me literally years to recover from. One of the things that bugged me most was obsessive intrusive thoughts. I just couldn't leave it alone. After a year or 2 I went to a psychologist who did a weird thing where he swung a pendulum like a hypnotist in front of my eyes and got me to go through the worst episodes. I wasn't hypnotised. Strangely, it worked, although neither of us knew whether it was just the act of telling the story, or the method.
It's early days yet. You're probably having repetitive intrusive thoughts all the time, and I think that's natural. But if they don't recede after a reasonable period, you might want to seek professional help.

iamthird

Feeling Great, thank you for that. But i guess that is what i was trying to figure out...what is a reasonable period? I feel like i should be futher along than i am but some people are saying a few years? So maybe I am not so weird after all!

cr995

Iamthird I know exactly how you feel and I asked myself the same questions a little while ago that you are asking now. I was at an open AA meeting this evening and asked the question - why did the recovering A's on the stage treat their loved ones so badly and also why were they so relieved to get away from them (one speaker said he felt relieved to get away from his family every morning). They answered that they basically felt that they did not feel that they deserved to be loved and that made them feel bad. And secondly that they knew what they were doing and being around their wives and kids was hard to bear because they felt so much remorse and guilt until they got drunk again. So they were just relieved to get away! They felt so ashamed of themselves for their behaviour and the best form of defence was attack - hence they attacked their families straight off.

I a few months ago felt jealous of my STBXAH's relationship with new gf and asked they same questions - how could he do this. Today after having contact with him for the first time in a year - I looked at it differently - he is uncontrollably drunk, alone - drunks cannot really stay in a relationship that long, and in pain. If I had not left when I did and go through that pain of separation I would be stuck with him now - with nowhere to escape when he went on a binge and started raging at me. With no job, with no money of my own and I would be suffering a hell of a lot worse than I feel I am now. Hope that helps.

pattyG

Iamthird -
I have struggled with wondering WHY I put up with such a terrible relationship for so long - 4 1/2yrs. While others on here describe SOs that were nice or wonderful when not drinking, that wasn't the case with my XAGF. It wasn't just me that suffered the abuse - but my 5yo daughter and my best friend who has AIDS. It is even harder for me to admit that I saw that and didn't leave when it affected those I love. I then saw a post about betrayal bonds or Stockholm Syndrome. I did some reading. It explained that sometimes the brains resonse to abuse is to bond with the abuser. I imagine this is a survival mechanism. Anyway, it helped me to forgive myself and see that I wasn't crazy but had been put in a crazy situation. I have only been gone 6 weeks and my trigger was when she filed for custody of MY children in family court. At the time she and I were still together. It took the possibility of losing my children to make me go no contact. Anything less and i would've probably stayed. Hang in there....focus on YOU and your child. While this is hard...I always note that the longer I stayed the higher the stakes got. I wish I had left the million or so other times she broke up with me.

FeelingGreat

Hi iamthird, if your thoughts are obsessive and really interfering with your life, then a session or two with a therapist, just focussed on that aspect, might be helpful. If you can't find the resources, seek out a friend with a sense of humour and try to make AH's behaviour into a joke. He is a bit of a black joke, behaving like a baby with his huge dummy spit.
How long is too long? Well you're right in the middle of it now so you might have a way to go. But you'll get there, step by step.

mdkathy62

Good morning iamthird,

Thank you for sharing. There is no timeline for recovery. Please don't beat yourself up because you feel you should be further along. It really is different for everyone. While a lot of our experiences with alcoholics may be similar, they are also very different in depth and how they affect each of us, so there is no universal timeline for when you should be recovered.

I felt that way for awhile initially after leaving my XABF. It would only be noon and I would have already done everything possible, cleaned the house up and down, and find myself not knowing what to do. In those moments, thinking was a bad idea, but of course sometimes your mind just goes. It took a lot of push and practice, but whenever I started to think about the good times, or things I missed doing with him, etc, I had to forcibly remind myself of all the bad times, all the things he did not do with me because he was drunk or hungover. It's a reconditioning of the mind and that is definitely challenging. I had to force myself to be alone with my thoughts, that it was ok to miss him, but that I would not act on those feelings because the end goal was for me to be happy and he did not contribute to that.

It sounds very cliche but it only gets easier with time. Now I'm used to being alone, not having him around all the time. Do I still miss him? Absolutely, but I've reconditioned my mind so that I can keep myself from falling into a deep depression when I do miss him. I focus on something else, something more positive. Focus became my mantra. Whenever I find myself resentful, angry, or missing him, I just tell myself focus, focus, focus.

Hope you have a good day today. Take care and keep coming back!

firebolt

Someone once told me that it takes about half as long as the relationship lasted to truly get over someone. By "truly over it" I mean actually genuinely caring about their happiness (from a far distance as an acquaintance rather than an ex ) Don't take that as gospel, but I am a serial dater and it has proven partially true for me for more 2 - 4 year relationships than I care to count.

I would say things get way easier (for me and everyone is different) within 4 or 5 months. My thoughts become mine again, and they are *mostly not a part of them anymore. Hope that helps, but don't bank on a timeframe - just keep focusing on your health and happiness, and I promise thats the quickest most direct route to get there.

AnvilheadII

i think our healing journey starts when we stop asking WHY or HOW (why did he, how could he, why me, how will i survive??) and accept it for what it is..........OVER.

it is often wondered here why THEY can't just quit and stay quit - with their alcohol or drugs. and yet we have struggles of our own, don't we? obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, deep dives into depression, magical thinking that "if only" everything would be all better. we romanticize the past, long for it, almost worship it.

one of the best gifts i received after working the steps was how to look back over my life and stop assigning blame, stop finding fault and grudgingly embrace it all. detach from the past, not drag it with me. i can see it all fine from here, i don't have to relive it over and over.

there's a saying - what we resist, we become. resistance being large amounts of negative energy exerted against another object or force. the more resistance, the more negative energy we put out, and the more bonded we actually become with the object or force.

second saying, take off on first saying - there are no problems, only resistance. same theory. the nanosecond we stop fighting AGAINST the problem or issue and step into the solution, it's no longer a problem.

bottom line, i am third, crass or brutal as it sounds, HE LEFT. he showed his @ss while hightailing it outta there. is what it is.

my 1st husband left me with a barely one year old baby on my shoulder.
took off with my best friend at the time.
we all worked together.
for his folks.
our house was just back across the alley - sort of mixed residential/industrial area).

i tried to keep working there, but them driving in together every day and me trying to act like that was normal just didn't work.
so i quit my job. and me and the baby moved back in with my mom.
and it sucked. for a while. took a couple years to get it all sorted out, the visitation, and support payments and re-learning how to be civil to each other. had to restrain my mom once when she lunged at him with a potato peeler in her hand! (never trust a p*ssed off irish woman in her apron!).

eventually ya just get over it. cuz thinking about THEM and their life gets pretty boring. pretty quick. it's exhausting and really, who CARES? let them HAVE their lives, and do their whatever - YOU have your very own life to live! a very rich full abundant life indeed.

Rosiepetal

I find it weird that after being separated for 6 years I still dream frequently about being alongside my husband as if he never left.
We were together 20 years mind you.
I never think about him during the course of my day though, that's long gone.
I guess everybody heals & moves on at different rates.

iamthird

Mind is spinning again! Rather post on here than lose my mind and make contact!!!