stigmatized

I'm still laughing about reading the letter to a wall. Well put. I have had the letter for a couple of days and when I go back and read it I think, you know what, I'm tired of being silent, supportive, not stating how I feel. It's so easy to get wrapped up in how he feels. When I think, wait and see if I still want to send it, I then think, why? Why wait? But then a small part of me thinks, if I tell him all this he will hate me. If I tell him all this, he will relapse. If I tell him all this, he will use it for justification. On and on. I keep waiting for the anger to dissipate but it doesn't. He's like an arsonist that lit a fire and then walked away and left everyone else to put it out. He tears apart our life together and then goes to rehab where from morning til night he has people to help him piece himself back together and I get the burned out building. I think I'm going to rewrite it so that it's not going to give him ammo but still get my point across. Maybe make it a little nicer with the gist still there. Thanks for the responses. I realize now that I have to really be prepared to not care about the response, but to focus on the need to say it. I highly doubt a light bulb will go off for him, but I can at least feel like my anger is directed at the source and not just bottled up inside. I think that I also need to work on it from my end so that I am able to use it in a healthy way. I need to pay attention to WHY I'm angry. I think the anger is trying to tell me something and I need to listen.

inpieces314

Anger is a secondary emotion. Something always causes it.

It is usually fear.

BlueSkies1

One of the hardest things to accept is a bad return on an investment. You know that he has the power to give you a good return on your investment, yet is choosing otherwise. It really is like being used.
At the same time, for him to find sobriety and not relapse, he has to limit his views of himself to the positive of what he can become. For awhile at least, I think that in early recovery they have to release themselves of any guilt, or they may relapse. I'm talking about guilt coming from within. Any guilt that you may convey in your letter is not why he would relapse if he does. That you feel you got a bad deal out of it all, he knows already, and wouldn't be surprised at you taking jabs at him.
Thing is, it's out of your control. Write the letter as if he weren't even going to read it, and that he would throw it away. Realize that is an option for him, he can read it and take it in, or he can reject it. It's his power alone to decide that.
What would you tell a person that invested in the real estate market 8 years ago and is now penniless with the fall? You'd say--reinvent yourself.

vinyl

I didn't read all the responses, so sorry if this was already pointed out, but being "selfish" in recovery is a very important part of the process. It's not a time to be taking care of what others think or need. It's a time to take care of you, the person recovering. What is perceived as selfish is personal healing, so one day that person can be sober and begin to love and take care of other's. Right now, they do not know how because they haven't even learned how to love themselves yet.

Learn2Live

Beautiful!!
Burned out building over here too. I wish I could have your anger. I feel it might help me some. All I do is turn it inward, and that = depression.

stigmatized

Actually Learn2Live, I got that from my mother. There was a time about 3 years into the relationship where things were going (what I thought was) well. He had gone to rehab and moved into his own apartment and we were dating. He talked about moving back in and us getting married. Even me quitting work and going to school full time as opposed to part time. I thought we had turned a corner and things were better. HOPE. This was everything I wanted in LIFE. Everything I had hoped for. Then I got a call from his work about 2 weeks after this conversation and found out that not only had he been missing work, he had borrowed money from his boss to get his "teeth" fixed and he hadn't shown up for work that morning but that someone had broken in and stolen money. So needless to say all those dreams went out the window and I was crushed. My mom had to come and pick me up off the floor. So, as I was sobbing to her she said, " I know you're hurting, but where's your anger?" A light bulb went on for me and that was when I truly started to see codependant ways that had evolved as a coping mechanism for living with an alcoholic, and how very toxic they had become.