Trying so hard...
 

I have been trying so hard to keep busy so I don't think of or want to contact RAH. I have been in and out of tears all day and I'm trying to keep out of the house so I don't think of him and our daughter won't ask for him but it really is so painful. I hate that this is so easy for him to walk away and he is enjoying his freedom and the rest of his family suffers and he pays no consequence. I have never felt so conflicted and loved someone and hated them all in the same moment. If I did not have this site as an outlet for my feelings, I really do not know where I would be...Off now to my friends for dinner with kiddies in tow trying to make the most of this sadness and anger I feel.

Aww, sweetteewalls....

I wish I could send young big hug. Hang in there. It hurts, don't deny yourself feeling it... Walk through it and let it push you to grow. You are stronger than you realize.

One step at a time... Keep taking care of you. I'm glad you're going to dinner with a friend!! Time for love and laughs with someone who cares about you!!

Treat yourself to a big fat dessert!!!

Happy Mothers Day to you, sweetie!!

Thank you for the mothers day wishes! =)

I notice I keep wondering what he's doing, if he's drinking, if he's with her or if he even misses me. Then, I just realize even if he was crying begging me back, I wouldn't believe a word he has to say. So like everyone has advised me, distance is best. I guess there are consequences to his actions after all, he has lost his wife and family...

Forward movement...I deserve someone who will know my worth and not let me go.

My exabf also jumped from me to another woman, who is his enabler. She drinks a lot, just as much if not MORE than he does, and smokes pot all the time.

She's really a loser.

He's kept her around as a backup our whole relationship-long story. Anyway, I am the same way-I would NEVER take him back. Even if he got sober and went into AA, I do not think I could trust him. He's pretended to want to change too many times.

Yeah, she's been around for almost 2 years hanging around whenever he gives up with me and I used to hold her responsible a lot for being an interloper and I realized finally that my true anger lies with RAH. He is the one who brought her into our lives.

That's exactly what someone on SR told me about my exabf's girl (she's an ex of his), because I too, have had so much anger towards her.

OF course, he was all too happy to blame her for interloping when I'd get mad about it, but now I know the truth. He called her a "wack a mole" but now I know, he's the one who rushed to her. Whenever he's alone, he'd rather be with that loser than have to face his problems.

Yup...he ran to her night he left my home and I was getting obsessed with her...like did he really love her, not me?? Then I step back, breathe and know that he did love me but just loves his alcohol more and she is his vessel to get it. She's a young girl all too happy to spend her money footing their partying episodes. They're unhealthy and they deserve each other.

...or perhaps it is true that these guys were never capable of "Love" at all after the addiction took over....and never will be again until they experience the spiritual awakening that AA speaks of. I believe it's true that only by the grace of HP will they ever be restored. Addiction is THAT powerful.

I agree completely. I think the HP is what my RAH struggled with in AA and until he works his steps and accepts the program, he will continue this irrational behavior. Addiction is powerful, enough to tear my family apart. I just pray I have the follow thru to continue with my own steps in Alanon. Its easy to get swept into old patterns.

We're just like them, in the sense that, we have to want it bad enough. If we want it bad enough, we'll work on our recovery and keep working on it.

Abandonment withdrawal
 

I have found a large part of my problem was that I kept thinking he is out drinking and having fun. He is living life large and I am here with no life. Mine is boring. Mine is sad. Mine is....

I stopped and started thinking back. I realized I need to be honest with myself here. He is miserable. He has lost yet another wife. He cannot nor will ever have a successful relationship where a real sense of intimacy is maintained.

He will never know that love. He will never know the joy of raising and nurturing a child.

I thought back to the words he said to me. Many times he stated how desperate he was to have and maintain those things. At the time it was not clicking in my brain that he was truly unhappy inside.

I go over his miserableness in my mind to remind me he is not happy.

If he is in a bar, he is around people who are nothing to him. No intimate ties whatsoever. No love. He may hookup or date, but he will never successfully be able to give or receive love. I know he will be lonely again and again, the rest of his life. He will die alone, unfortunately. I know his relationship with his neighbors is superficial at best; with his family, strained and sparse; with his coworkers simply acquaintenances. I know he will spend holiday after holiday in a sympathetic coworkers home surrounded by people he barely knows.

I know he is not having fun like I keep telling myself he is.

That is when I was able to begin to let go, to control my desire to drive by, check up, call. He is in a bubbling stew of loneliness, unhappiness, sadness, misery. So be it.


Abandonment:
Abandonment is about loss of love itself (in our cases I would suggest perceived love is a more appropriate term...we all know an A cannot truly love unselfishly) that crucial loss of connectedness. It often involves breakup, betrayal, aloneness.

Stage two: Withdrawal
Withdrawal is is when you crave the other person after the initial shock of separation has worn off. Mediated by the brains own opiod system, what you feel is similar to what addicts feel when they can't get a fix.

During the worst of it, you can't get away from your conviction that without your lost loved one, your life is over. The child in you keeps telling you that you must get your loved one back at all costs.

A primary relationship is a matter of survival for the child in you. You may try to reconnect with your lost partner many times. Even if you don't take action, you fantasize about it. You keep going back because you're not convinced that the one who left is no good for you.

The child within clings to false hope to ward off feeling of isolation, banishment, and loss.

Symptoms of withdrawal are intense. Many abandonment survivors are prepared to bargain, petition, beg, manipulated, do anything to get their loved one back.

Relationships are, in fact, mediated by the brain's own opiod system. Most people are familiar with the opiate drugs, narcotics like morphine, heroin, and opium.

Our brains produce their own morphinelike substances, including endorphins Both narcotics and the brain's own natural opiates help to block pain.

According to researcher Jaak Panksepp, when you build a close relationship, your brain produces more opiods. Conversely, when a relationship ends, the production of certain opiods decreases, and your body goes through physical withdrawal.

Biochemically speaking, then, your closest relationships are a form of endorphin addiction. What you feel during abandonment withdrawal-- the craving, yearning, waiting, and wanting, of yor lost loved one-- is psychobiologically akin to withdrwal from heroine or morphine.

The difference is that when you are in love withdrawal, you assoicate your symptoms with your emotional loss rather than with a narcotic.

In other words, the difference is the context-how you interpret the withdrawal symptoms-not the physical symptoms themselves.

Being in withdrawal is being without-without the security and percieved nurturance that you counted on or hoped for.

The irony is that people can be as devastated by the loss of a bad relationship as they are by the loss of a good one.

From: Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson

I posted this on another thread too, but I wanted to be sure you saw it!