Marytherboo

I thought I had wrapped my head around leaving AH. He's gone since Sunday, and I meet with the lawyer today to file the papers. My heart is full of guilt and pain and grief, but also of hope and relief. This is already a much healthier situation for me than sharing a house with a man totally subservient to his addiction.

So why am I all tore up over--get this--buying him cigarettes? For some reason my heart and mind are totally at odds. My mind tells me I'm stuck in my old codie ways and I believe it. But my heart refuses to play along. It's telling me, "what would Jesus do?", reminding me that he's sick and homeless and in the shelter, and that it would be an act of simple kindness to provide that comfort for him. ARGH!

He's not asking me to do it at all, he's actually being a lot more stoic than I ever expected. Which makes it even more tempting to go drop off a carton of smokes and walk away. But I know that's a slippery slope and I don't want to go there. How can being kind to someone be such a messed-up awful thing?

Feeling like the more I understand the less I know...

Seren

Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry......

When my husband divorced ME, I had the same feelings of guilt and pain. It is natural, and it will pass.

If your husband is in a shelter, his basic needs are being taken care of....cigarettes are a luxury, not a necessity. I think you are being kind to him by allowing him the dignity to become responsible for himself and all of the consequences of his actions.

I hope you will extend your kindness to yourself through all of this. You are in pain and suffering, too. Take some time today to distract yourself by doing something you enjoy!

Hugs, HG

LifeRecovery

I spent the fall of 2010 worried about my qualifier who was also in the midst of an affair.

I was so focused on him still that I did not really process my own feelings about the situation.

For me it was small things the way this showed up. His mail coming to the house, would he have enough to live on etc.

Recognizing it for me was the first step. I can't work on something I don't recognize.

Also for me the stoic behavior of my loved one did not last. Actually it was some of my loved one's indignent anger about the situation that made me reexamine my worry.

Take care of you.

wanttobehealthy

Hydrogirl- I really like the perspective you offered that we are giving them the dignity to do for themselves what they are capable of by stepping back and not letting codie guilt dictate our actions...

I have waves here and there (momentary but waves nonetheless) of "am I being too harsh" or "am I being callous" (I know the answer is no-- obviously it's a safety matter for me) and in the future I will remind myself that being as NC as possible with stbxAH gives him the chance for dignity and doing for himself what he should as a grown man...

Marytheboo- I understand that struggle between what your mind says and what your heart says... Over time I have realized that what I thought was my heart's voice was actually codie behavior and guilt and a desire to try and control what stbxAH would do (ie: if I do x to be nice he will not be awful to me kind of thinking) in order to protect myself from his wrath. Just something to consider. When I realized that I could be a loving and kind and good person AND still set limits with AH and that doing so did NOT make me uncaring, it helped the guilt dissipate tremendously.

Freedom1990

For a long time, I didn't recognize the difference between being kind, and doing something for someone else out of pity to temporarily make myself feel good.

Before I finally got serious about my recovery from codependency, my life was filled with doing things for others that really wasn't healthy for me in the end.

My dad is a devout Catholic and uses the same thought "what would Jesus do" while enabling my AD for years and years.

It was frustrating for me as an RA because my parents almost loved me to death while I was in active alcoholism/addiction.

I like the question that mlk3 often asks himself when faced with a decision. "How does this help my recovery?"

Sending you hugs of support.

naive

mary-

please remind yourself that this is the kindest thing to do: to permit him to suffer the consequences of his choices in the school of hard knocks.

the worst thing you can do is to continue to enable the disease by providing him an environment and resourses to do this.

buying him cigarettes permits him to use any money he has on alcohol, as he now has cigarettes.

as for what would jesus do, i remind you of the 10 lepers who he healed. only one returned to thank him. and jesus said "where are the other 9?" and then said that their disease would return to them, as they forgot gratitude and hadn't changed internally.

please note: he didn't go track them down and continually heal them. he left them to the school of hard knocks. and he went on his own way.

trust that the divine plan for humanity forgets no one and leave your alcoholic husband in the care of your HP.

naive

nodaybut2day

Knowing that Jesus was the son of God, who is said to be omniscient, do you truly think that he would want to prevent someone like your partner from finally hitting his bottom and finding his way to recovery? I mean, I don't know Jesus, but seems to me, from the literature I read, that he's no enabler...

I've discovered, by being married to an alcoholic (and by parenting a stubborn toddler!), that loving someone often means letting them find their own way, even if it causes pain.

Marytherboo

Thank you all. Once again you've restored my clarity. No cigarettes. I suppose the same principle applies to a bus pass?

The man isn't afraid to walk, I'll give him that much, but the shelter is literally miles from anywhere including job center, welfare office, etc. and he has no access to AA meetings...our local central office doesn't coordinate rides at all.

Thumper

He is able to figure those things out on his own. He's a grown man. He can figure out how to get a bus pass if he wants one.

I know it is hard. I've done things that in hindsight did not make anything better and only prolonged the terrible enabling dance we were in - and it did NOTHING to better the situation for either one of us.

nodaybut2day

Mary...remember the part about giving him the dignity to find his own way? Bus passes fall under this category...*If*/*when* he does work his way through this, finds recovery and sticks to it, he's going to be so.damn.proud of himself. Don't take that possibility away from him. Step back. Waaaaaay back and let HP take care of him.

naive

anvil makes an excellant point that the cigarettes could be bartered for booze. believe me, i learned that one the hard way. when i first arrived in this little town, all naive and everything, there were so many alcoholics that had no electricity. here, we buy little electricity cards that we put into a token meter.

self, i thought, who are you to have electricity when your neighbor (alcholoic) below shivers in the cold winter's night. so, i bought him electricity tokens. yet, the electricity didn't turn on!

regarding the bus pass, the only bus ticket i would buy him would be a one-way ticket back to his family.

if he wants to go to AA, he can call the hotline and explain his circumstances. AA is all about active service and in most cases, someone would come and collect him or come to where he is to 12-step him.

naive

Marytherboo

Thanks yet again, you voices of ES&H. I have done so many things that only "prolonged the dance," I don't want to do any more.

NYCDoglvr

Separating from the alcoholic in my life was similar. I learned that it's much easier to focus on someone else than face my own loneliness, low self-esteem and fear. I suggest going to Al-anon and therapy to start the hard work on yourself.