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denial was his bottle, and other realizations, including some serious progress!



denial was his bottle, and other realizations, including some serious progress!

Old 11-03-2013, 12:20 PM
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denial was his bottle, and other realizations, including some serious progress!

hello lovely SR members. although i read this forum daily, i have only posted once, and it's been a couple months since then. i wanted to share some insights i've had on my situation and hope that maybe some of this will be helpful to those who read it, and also hope that maybe some of you have some ESH to share as well.

it's been six months since my XABF (who was dry, but not in recovery) and i broke up and a little over five months since he moved out of our place. i went total no contact with him after he was snide and hostile towards me a couple months ago when i asked him for the first time if he would be willing to talk about a few things to help me get over stuff. the NC hasn't been particularly hard since he hasn't been reaching out to me either, though i did have one weird encounter with him a few weeks ago when i ran into him on my commute. he saw me and had this big affectionate smile and waved like he was really happy to see me, which made absolutely no sense given the tenor of his last communication and how things were left (he declared he was happy alone, i told him i still loved him and that if he decided he was not happy alone at some point i hoped he would reach out, which was met with total silence). i maintained no contact, though, i smiled slightly to acknowledge him, and then walked away from him to the other end of the train. thankfully my stop was next, and when i got up to get off there, he was still standing in the same place, i could see him looking down at his book, frowning. he didn't look up when i got off the train. it was pretty sad, but i was very proud of myself for taking care of myself (i didn't want another encounter where i would just be open to more hurt from him) and sticking by the boundaries i had found (no contact to protect myself, no contact as long as he's not in AA, no contact as long as he's going to be arrogant and dishonest and use an encounter with me as an opportunity to act pompous/grandiose, etc.).

so here's one realization i really wanted to share with this community. a lot of people here live with active alcoholics who are drinking, and who experience the anguish of their As choosing the bottle over the relationship, their own health, etc. my XABF was not, at least to my knowledge, actively drinking, but he was very, very active in his disease (by the time we broke up he'd not been to a meeting in at least four months and was exhibiting all the signs of a dry drunk to a T). we lived together and i knew something was very wrong - he was not acting like himself (or perhaps was acting more like himself and just wasn't concealing it as much anymore?), was resentful, insistently distant, irritable and his moods seemed to be pretty erratic. he had also become very controlling. when i'd ask him what was wrong, he'd deny anything was amiss. if i pushed it, he'd become even more resentful and withholding and distant.

when i tried to communicate to him that i was concerned for him and for us, wanted to be there to help and support him and tried to explain the effect all this was having on me, he'd get silently angry but then deny he was angry at me, with occasional outbursts of being sick of "having to apologize all the time." i really just wanted to have a conversation about what was going on, see what we could do to work together in our relationship and sort out conflict. although i had resisted bringing up his lack of AA attendance (i'm in al anon, so did my best to let his business be his business), in the end i practically begged him to go back. i couldn't try to ignore that something was very wrong and sweep things under the rug (which is what he admitted he wanted to do).

in the end, he declared that he wanted to spend his time how he wanted to spend it, that he didn't feel like going to AA, that he didn't have any problems because he wasn't drinking (though i suspect there was a relapse last december), and that he didn't care if all this meant the end of our relationship. so we broke up.

and now, finally, HERE IS MY POINT: i realized that with my dry drunk ex, DENIAL WAS HIS BOTTLE. and ultimately, he chose denial over our relationship. upon reflection, it seems he couldn't stand a situation where his issues and whatnot were being brought to the light. he couldn't stand it that i wanted to talk about things. he couldn't stand it even though i told him again and again that i loved him, would support his continued recovery, that i wasn't scared of his demons if he was going to deal with them because we've all got them and the trouble is when we don't deal with them. and eventually, even when i didn't react to something mean he said or did, he STILL resented me, i think because he knew what he did and my very presence was evidence of it to him. he told me again and again that he preferred to just avoid dealing with this stuff, that he wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, that he wanted to just ignore it in the hopes that issues and conflict would just go away. and it was clear that when i tried to bring things up in order to resolve conflict, he became very angry with me.

another dynamic that has become clear is that he would vascillate between acting like a defiant teenage boy and treating me like his mom, or would act like an emotionally withholding disapproving father and treat me like i was a bad daughter. gross. i do not want to be someone's mom, nor do i want to be treated like a bad little girl. i have realized that i want someone who will celebrate my nurturing AND playful qualities and not respond to those qualities (qualities i like about myself quite a lot, actually) in such a distorted manner.

so i see all this now. and i also see how utterly unacceptable such a dynamic is for me. intellectually, i am grateful that we broke up and that he ignored my attempts to reconcile. i can see that things would only have gotten worse, and it was headed in a pretty bad direction when we broke up (with there even being an instance where he was briefly physically inappropriate with me during a fight). now i'm thinking more in terms about whether i should bother trying to get him off the lease (because that would mean interacting with him) and less in terms of wishing he'd go back to AA and come back to me. i'm still grieving the relationship, but now i'm grieving more about what it had become and how i was treated rather than grieving the fact that he's not around anymore. i want to heal the parts of myself that allowed me to be blind to the dynamics that were at play, how i was compelled to fill in so many blanks with illusions of happiness and health when really it was a very unhealthy and unstable situation and had been for a while.

i also made a plan for myself in case he does the boomerang act he's done in the past (though i'm doubting that's going to happen this time given how long it's been since we broke up). i want to protect myself if it happens because i know i'd still be vulnerable to his promises if he showed up again. my plan is that i have to make voice contact with at least three of my al anon friends, then i have to read the letter i've been writing to myself detailing the various unkind things he did to me and unhealthy qualities of our relationship (it's gotten pretty long) at least twice. then i have to read at least three chapters from the getting them sober books. after that, and only after that, may i then decide whether, and if so, how to respond. i have finally reached a point where i can see that this person is not good for me, and that he will only hurt me again and again. i have managed to get out of the gorilla's cage, so to speak, and it would seem immensely unwise to try and dance with said gorilla again. metaphorically speaking, the gorilla only somewhat roughed me up this time - next time he might maim me.

more importantly than just wanting to avoid awfulness, i also am starting to look forward to what a healthy, reciprocal relationship might look like, and want to care for myself so that i might actually be able to attract such a relationship. i'm taking more time for myself professionally and have noticed that my career has been expanding and developing a lot over the last few months through greater focus. and i'm finally getting back into the things i loved doing before the tumult of the last year took hold. i am still doing a lot of work on myself and know there's still much to be done, but i can see my progress.

anyways, i just wanted to share all that. i hope it makes sense, and i hope some of it is helpful to anyone reading, and i welcome any wisdom and feedback any of you may have to share. this forum has been so helpful to me over the last several months, just wanted to say that, too.
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Old 11-03-2013, 11:23 PM
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as a bizarre follow-up, while i was at a friend's birthday party tonight, the XABF in question proceeded to text me out of the blue FIVE TIMES asking to see me.

if this had happened two months ago i might have considered leaving the party early in order to see him.

instead i followed the plan described in my initial post, and told him that i couldn't see him right now! and i feel really proud of myself for having done that.

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Old 11-03-2013, 11:28 PM
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Good for you! Stay strong for yourself! You deserve it!!!!!
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Old 11-04-2013, 01:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Imperatrice View Post

another dynamic that has become clear is that he would vascillate between acting like a defiant teenage boy and treating me like his mom, or would act like an emotionally withholding disapproving father and treat me like i was a bad daughter. gross. i do not want to be someone's mom, nor do i want to be treated like a bad little girl.
I remember this but I've never put it into words. It is truly horrible.

My XAH would get drunk and play loud music and "sing" along to it (waking the kids and I up) and then tell me to "Chill, you are so uptight".

Then next day, when he decided to get out of bed or stopped vomiting, dry retching and pooping liquid, he would be "Angry Dad":
"WHO DARED TO LEAVE THIS DISH HERE! WITH EVERYTHING I DO FOR YOU INGRATES I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DEFY ME AND MY AUTHORITAH BY LEAVING A DISH IN THE WRONG PLACE. HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME AND RUIN MY LIFE!"

We are better off out of their space when we can never do anything right. I couldn't even watch TV properly, I am THAT useless! I am able to pay a mortgage, work full time and earn lots of money but DAMN I am sooo stupid!: I watch the wrong stuff on TV and have bad taste in music and movies. It's enough to make a man drink
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Old 11-04-2013, 05:45 AM
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Originally Posted by Imperatrice View Post
as a bizarre follow-up, while i was at a friend's birthday party tonight, the XABF in question proceeded to text me out of the blue FIVE TIMES asking to see me.

if this had happened two months ago i might have considered leaving the party early in order to see him.

instead i followed the plan described in my initial post, and told him that i couldn't see him right now! and i feel really proud of myself for having done that.

I don't mean to sound suspicious, but since you didn't engage him on the train, maybe he is nervous that he is losing his hold over you. It has been my experience that childish alcoholics may not want to have you around, especially if you have a problem with their drinking, however they also don't want you to really move on in case they want something from you, even if it is only gratification for the ego.

Well done but be careful if you do see this person. Keep it short and public if you can--coffee shop, etc. Good luck!
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