hillindy

Have so much swirling around in my head and just need to get it out. What’s love and how do you tell the difference between that and codependency. You think I would know but the lines have been blurred for so long. I left my AH 20 months ago. He got sober 7 months after I left and still is (+1 yr). In the mean time I met someone who is not an alcoholic. We clicked and I started to move on with my life. I feel guilty because I will always wonder if we could have worked it out now that he is sober. Then I need to tell myself he could have fought for me, he could have called/seen his daughter more, he could have apologized, yet he didn’t do anything. We are supposed to meet at the attorney’s office tomorrow, he has been putting me off since April but I feel panicked. There is no reason for us to stay married but yet part of me doesn’t want the divorce but I don’t know if it’s because I still love him or because I worry about him. I worry he will be all alone. He does not have family or friends outside of work. He even told me not to worry about him, so why don’t I listen? Why do I always think I know what’s best for him? For the longest time I thought there was no way he was happy in this marriage and it hit me a few weeks ago that he was fine, but I was unhappy. Why do I think I know him better than he knows himself? Such an annoying habit I have with him and I don’t know how to stop it. What the heck am I holding on too??? Sorry just had to vent.

honeypig

Certainly I'm no expert, hillindy, being fairly new here myself, but those things I highlighted sound way more like codependency than love to me.

I'm sure he WAS happy in the marriage, as long as he was carrying on with his addiction and you were there to take care of all the work. Not surprising that he was OK w/it and you were unhappy...

dandylion

hillindy, you can have compassion and empathy for a person without being in love with them (husband and wife sort of way). And, you can be "in love" with a person, but that doesn't mean that it is right or workable to live with them --or even be married to them.

Also, it takes more than just sobriety for a marriage to be a healthy or workable one.

Be careful of misplaced "guilt". Guilt trips up many of a co-dependent. It is the devil in a sunday dress.!!!!!!!!!!

It does sound, to me, like you are beginning to catch on to what co-dependence means.

dandylion

fourmaggie

be careful with owning his feelings and behaviours...(they are not yours)...

WHAT ABOUT YOU? use i statements...
definition by Melody Beattie:
a codependent person is one who has let another persons
behaviours affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling
that persons behaviour

do you have Melody Beatties "CoDependent No More"?...time to
purchase it...and the steps for us codependents...it will reveal so much

ps...maybe your marriage time has passed...remember its only 1 year recovery and that is a whole lot more work ahead...some people say it take up to 5 years...

spiderqueen

The above is so, so true. You're doing fine, Hillindy. This is just a teeny setback of old-habit feelings. Feel them, and let them go.
SQ

lillamy

This is not love. This is codependency.

This is not love. This is codependency.

You don't see him as an adult. You see him as one of your children. And he makes you feel needed because the poor bugger can't handle LIFE himself. So you have a mission in life when you're with him. If he starts drinking again, though, it's a suicide mission.

If he stays sober and becomes an amazing human being who is madly in love with you and has changed -- you can always remarry him.

hillindy

Thank you everyone. It is guilt and I don't know how to let go. We met with the attorney this morning and it just felt like business. I would like a little closure on our 17 years together and he says 'it is what it is, no reason to rehash everything' I should be use to that, since communication was always lacking or missing. I read co-dependent no more years ago, but I need to re-read it. I think I didn't quite understand as much as I do now.

wiscsober

When I try to control people it seems
my life becomes more out of control,
not their lives but mine.

People do remarkably well without me!!!

Letting go isn't too hard.

Accept and enjoy your new relationship.

lillamy

Here's what I learned from the breakup of my alcoholic marriage:
"Closure" is something you will have to create for yourself.
I can guarantee you that if you sat down with him to talk about what went wrong, you would walk away from there feeling less heard, less understood, and less closure-d than you do right now.

I found that I was never in the same marriage as my AXH.
He was in a perfect marriage with no problems.
I was in hell, severely depressed, and on a couple of occasions, suicidal.
He was completely caught by surprise that I left him.
I couldn't believe I stuck it out 16 years past the first time I wanted to leave his drunken a**.

The closure I got was "thank GOD I'm out of that marriage."

So your AH is sober. Maybe you'd get a bit closer in your views of your marriage. But I wouldn't bet on it.

dandylion

hillindy, meeting with the lawyer and dismanteling a marriage is "business"--legal business. To the society, at large, marriage is a legal contract. To us, personally, it is very emotionally based. Most people find the divorce process very sad and grieve the lost dreams and futile efforts to a certain extent. It is something that one must go through if this is what is needed. Short term pain for long term gain.

I think your reaction is to be expected. It is misplaced guilt if you are feeling guilty for acting for your own welfare.

dandylion

izzyrose05

I guess the easiest way for me to figure out if it is love or if it is codependency? If I keep thinking about the rejection and feeling the hurt of being refused, then I chalk it up to codependency. being hurt by rejection is not the same as wanting him back and wanting that life with him back. Guess that is the easiest way for me to figure it out. Sorry you are stuck honey.

Hugs

fourmaggie

*brite light moment*
aah you know this goes for alot of stuff that are not "settled" and
i hate to say this but for me, its in death....wow!