Mambo Queen

I've been trying to analyze which thoughts, exactly, keep me stuck in unhealthy interactions with my XAH, and which thoughts take up too much of my mental real estate and make me believe I need to "help" him. One of the major ones I've uncovered is that I feel super de-duper sorry for my XAH. I read posts sometimes about people whose exes dumped them for somebody else, which I'm sure hurts like hell, but God help me, I get jealous, because I think, "I would kill to feel like my ex had moved on from me and had at least a modicum of pleasure in his life." Or just the other day, I read a post from someone who felt bad because she wanted her ex to feel bad. I am like 180 degrees from that. I feel bad when I know my ex is hurting badly. I don't say this in any way to pat myself on the back, because i think my way of thinking has only kept me stuck longer. I wish I could get to the place where I wished him ill, or at least didn't care if he was so depressed or whatever.

My XAH's parents are both dead; his father died when he was in high school, and his mother died nearly 20 years later when he was married to me. He's burned so many bridges it's not funny, and seems to have a real problem connecting with people for any length of time. He's a smart man, but not the most attractive anymore--alcoholism and bad genes have seen to that. I just . . . pity him, in the worst way. And he doesn't help matters by making sure I know just how miserable he is whenever I have contact with him. And I do have some contact with him now, because he's sober at the moment and has been wanting to see our daughter more. Although I've limited it greatly . . . in fact, the last time I saw him, he saw my cell phone, and I've been lying to him for over 6 months that I didn't have a cell phone as a way of limiting my contact with him. Well, now he knows that's a lie, and now I feel some measure of pity for him about that too. He knows I feel the need to lie about it rather than listen to him. When he got in my car the last time, as I was driving him and dd somewhere so they could spend time, he was just a torrent of talking, and said it was because he doesn't have anyone else to talk to. Stuff like that makes me pity him so much, and that contributes to my feeling stuck.

Another one is that I have I identified within myself that feeling lonely fills me with so much anxiety and dread. Like, if I think about myself feeling lonely and with no one to talk to, it gives me a panic attack almost, imagining it. At this point in my life, I don't have to deal with that for myself, because I am raising my daughter, living with my parents, working a job where I have contact with people and friends, have a bf I speak to every day, and have friends that I maintain relationships with. So then I transfer this panicky feeling I think I would feel if I didn't have those things, onto my XAH. I do feel like it's projecting, to a large extent, because if I was in his situation, I would be doing things differently. But because I have so much dread of that situation, I think it intensifies any feelings of guilt or pity I have for him, because I feel like by not being with him I left him "all alone" which in my mind is the most terrible thing.

I plan to talk to my therapist about this, and am going to go back to Al-Anon in the very new future, but I was hoping to gain some Experience, Strength, and Hope from you good people in the meantime about these kind of thoughts, which I feel are at the root of my "stuck-ness".

suki44883

You have such a good heart, mambo. The thing is, you are not responsible for his happiness. His own bad decisions put him in the position he is in. Only his own better decisions can get him out. Many, many smart but not so attractive men have very good lives. He can too, but until he is willing to make the necessary changes, nothing is going to change. He is not destined to continue on the same path he is now on. He has the intelligence to turn things around. He has the key to his future and it's never too late to improve his lot in life. Perhaps you need to change your way of looking at the situation. He chooses not to make his life better.

chicory

Mambo Queen,

I can so absolutely relate to your feelings! My adult son, who does not drink, due to no funds, but is not healthy for me and i am not for him. He too, has no bridge left unburned, has no friends to turn to, all due to his behaviors, tho he does not admit this. He chatters to me all the time, for he has no one else, except online friends, and obviously we need more that that, we need real people-real touch-real caring.

I try to believe that when he is gone from here, he will reach out to someone. Hopefully that desire to relate to someone will help him to survive the loneliness. If I let him stay here for him, and he only has me, that is no life for him, and keeps him stuck.

I feared being alone, being my own breadwinner, being able to find a place to live, etc, etc, until I was forced to do it. have been that way all my life. so, i guess that is why i hate this for my son so much.


I figure my son will have friends when he learns how to be one, and when he is desirous and able to give to others.

It is not your fault that he does not have the things that you would wish for him. It is not your fault that you have people, friends, etc, and he does not. Those were due to choices he made.

I am finding that pitying my son is keeping him stuck, as well as myself. It always makes me do the things that I should not do. Pity is seeing them as helpless.
They can sense our pity, I think, and perhaps that keeps them from believing that they can do anything.

I am sorry if this seems too elementary and simple, but I just wanted to say that I saw that same reason in myself just yesterday, for being afraid for my son. it came from me feeling the impossibility of the situation. I remember saying a lot, in my childhood "I can't do it!", when I see kids everyday who are not so afraid to try things. I envy that spirit of adventure. But I only anticipated failure. Maybe cause my folks never taught me to try anything, and only existed, by luck and by kindness of family who took us in , a lot. I have always felt like I was in a box, or that the ceiling is sitting right on top of my head-no possibilities-no where to go.

so sorry for the long post. it helped me, to hear you put into words what i am struggling with myself.

hugs
chicory

fourmaggie

in my blogs the SERENITY PRAYER goes into much details of the sentences...(this will help) read this and say it many times a day...it works...sentence by sentence

God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things
I cannot change, COURAGE to change the things
I can and the WISDOM to know the difference

StarCat

Since I went no contact with XABF, I find myself better able to move on when I imagine that he is getting better, and doing well, and finding the help that he needs.

Thursday afternoon on the way home from work I received a call from his sister, asking me if I would call his daughter (who had tried to call me herself, but can't get through, because I blocked her number), because they were taking him to a psychologist and his daughter wanted to know some details about how he treated me so that she could make sure XABF told the truth with the psychologist.

My sponsor talked me down out of feeling guilty for not wanting to talk to her (the last time I spoke to XABF's daughter, I felt worse than the last time I had spoken to XABF, and that's saying a lot since my last true interaction with XABF had me so depressed that it was my sign I had to leave the relationship). I did call the daughter, to tell her that I would not be talking to her, but that she could give my phone number to the psychologist and I would consider talking to him if he thought it would help.

In reply she sent me an email (to my work email) later that night, she respected my decision, but that the psychologist couldn't talk to me without XABF's permission, and that she didn't want XABF to know that I was willing to talk to the psychologist because it would give him too much false hope about maybe the two of us getting back together, so she'd have to proceed without the information I could provide. That hurt enough, but there was one phrase in the email that just ripped my heart out.

I just want to get my father the help he needs before it's too late... although I think it might already be too late.


I know that going to the psychologist now won't be much good anyway, since if he hasn't had anything to drink since the day he went into rehab (Christmas) he hasn't even been sober for five months, and since I smelled liquor on his breath when he cornered me at my desk at work, I'd drop the optimistic guess to two months without alcohol. It's still affecting his brain.
I know that she can't force the psychologist to solve everything, because it has a lot more to do with XABF than it has to do with what she wants out of this whole thing, and that if XABF doesn't want help (and his daughter is very controlling herself, so I'd say that she's forcing him to go), nothing good will come of this.
I know there's nothing I can do anyway, whatever I say still holds less bearing than what XABF says to the psychologist, lies and all, especially since we've gone no contact. I don't have any real information that would be useful to a medical professional with enough experience in the proper areas, and if the psychologist doesn't have enough experience then the whole effort is useless. I can't change it.

But her email ripped down the wall I had built up.
Now I can't pretend that he's doing awesome anymore, because I know he's not.
And I can't pretend he'll be doing awesome soon, because I know he's sunk too far for this to be easy.

And that one sentence... That one has been haunting me ever since her email.
It's hard. I'm not going back, I'm never going back... But it's still hard to move on sometimes.