Stung

RAH is going into crazy Codie mode today and he is all over my side of the street.

How the heck do you handle a Codie?

Does anyone else have a codependent recovering alcoholic?

hopeful4

Raising hand...I do. It does drive me nuts but it only comes out sometimes. I usually pretty calmly say he is focusing too much on me and that im fine. Both are true and really i mostly just want left alone lol. If he sees me get annoyed by it he can usually reign it in. Alot of mine are obsessive texting in which i just say im busy which is also true.
Today i did fib and say i had a lunch meeting, i did, went to lunch w my coworkers! I just did not feel like seeing him and did not want to have some big ordeal about it. My friend did the same w her nonA hubs which made me feel less guilty lol. He does not obsessively want me home for lunch or anything but sometimes asks in a needy way that gets to me.

I guess im mean i dunno, but i did have fun w the girls at lunch!! Sorry i dont have a better answer!

Stung

Lol Hopeful! Well I'm glad you had a fun lunch! And you are definitely not mean.

Like you, I told him that he's on my side of the street (since that sounds nicer than "you should mind your own business." Lol) I've never really noticed so many of our toxic behaviors until my new found 'alcoholism & other fun neurotic habits' education and now its like when I notice them I don't know what I'm supposed to do sometimes.

hopeful4

I know what you mean. Sometimes it was easier not to be educated on codependency and addiction lol! Your doing great and did all you can do, nicer than saying butt out

At least you recognize it and can put a name to the crazy behavior, deal with it, and move on. I think your making huge progress!!

Have a good night!

choublak

Pepper spray?

I'm not really sure how I'd handle that.

Hammer

Something I have done . . . and am surprised how well it works.

When Mrs. Hammer is getting a little crazy eyed into my stuff . . . if I have the presence of mind to not engage, and she insists on continuing --

I stop. Look at her. And tell her to "Call Your Sponsor."

It is like some programmed magic command. She stops, I see a switch flip in her eyes, head tilts like a Stepford wife or something, and she goes and calls her sponsor.

I hear her say "[Hammer] said to call you . . . " I beat a hasty retreat.

Strange because she does not seem to regard much of what else I tell her.

But maybe tell him to call his sponsor.

I do not use it very often, because I do not want to wear it out.

but "bing" All Better

fluffyflea

A lot of Alcoholics are Co-dependents too.

Don't know if that makes you feel any better.

LifeRecovery

I have struggled with and worked through my own addictive processes.

My codependency (in place way before the addiction) was a huge contributing factor to my eating disorder. They were partners in crime.

At open AA meetings I realized that was pretty common in problem drinking also, including in my qualifier also.

Stung

Choublak - LOL!!!

Hammer - hmm... Maybe I'll try that but I don't realllly think I should be telling him what to do to deal with his codiness, just that he needs to stop focusing on me when there is so much of himself to focus on.

Earthworm - I didn't know that! I've been suspecting that he was codependent on me emotionally and that was ramped up towards the end of his spiral but it has been really coming out the last few days again. I almost prefer the crazy alcoholic side because then I can just abruptly end communication when he's a turd.

LifeRecovery - I'm pretty sure I have some codependency issues too.

Stung

Funny story, I started reading Co No Mo a few weeks before we separated, around thanksgiving, and I was texting him excerpts from the book telling him "this is what's wrong with me!" RAH kept replying that the examples I was texting him were EXACTLY like him, not me. Then we argued about it. Then he found some abusive wife website and started emailing excerpts from that. Eye roll. He was really amazing at turning himself into a victim.

FireSprite

I've noticed this a little bit lately but more in the way that his mood is dependent upon my mood.... When I'm up and feeling perfectly happy everything is A-OK and he feels free to go ahead with his true emotions; but when I'm having a bad day or trying to work through something, then he takes it personally no matter what & can't seem to navigate around my mood. He focuses on it to the point of my irritation... And once I'm 'all better', he relaxes noticeably.

I just keep reminding him that just like his recovery is not all about me, mine is not all about him even when he's the trigger for something that I'm dealing with.

Idk if he's always been this way or if his recent efforts at a true recovery have somehow triggered this kind of behavior, I just try to put a stop to it when I see it happening. Usually it's enough to say, ' this has nothing to do with YOU.'

Hammer

That last part there -- victim status (as least being sought) that is the basis of the Karpman Drama Triangle. (Everybody know what that is?) Same thing that drives a lot of Mrs. Hammer's nutty lies.

Along the way and among another 100 things . . . "I" have been "verbally abusive." (I barely raise my voice in even a heated discussion), while she screams that she hates me, and screams that my old (actually *our* old) T "must have s**king your (my) d**k." That one still makes me laugh about that one. When she started that routine, I had to take a mental break to do the visual. Just funny.

At any rate, this was early after back from Rehab. She had her "sponsor" -- who lives 1000 miles away, and has not seen her in 3 or 4 years (yeah, I know) believing that I was being "verbally abusive." So the sponsor sent a book on How to Deal With Verbal Abuse -- which I studied in detail . . . and learned how to shut Mrs. Hammer's verbal abuse down. All Things Work Together For Good . . .

Point being -- the Victim Status and Projection -- where they do what they claim that you must be doing -- can just get nutty. Mostly comedy to me after I figured out what was going on.

Yurt

My AH is always trying to fix my problems for me. I remember watching information from Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus, and seeing that this was a common issue in marriages. I just want to "talk" about it; he thinks I expect him to jump in and fix it. When I let him know that I have a problem with the way he presents this (yelling at me about it, pounding his fist, etc.) he twists my words into something I never meant. Last night he told me if I perceived that he was being over bearing that there was really something wrong with me, and that we need to talk about it so that it won't affect our family. Every time I try to approach these issues, it turns into a heated argument and I shut down.

Lyssy

OMG! I thought I was crazy. I kept thinking - "those actions (rAH) sure seem like codependency" but it just couldn't be - that is "me" not him. LOL. I sometimes just want to scream - "Please just go find something, anything to do, just leave me alone"

Thank you for this post.

Stung

FireSprite - RAH does the same thing with my moods but recently he said that he's aware that he does that (YAY!!) but the last few days its been asking if I'm happy or mad or flat out telling me that I feel abandoned because he's sorry that he abandoned me. Last night we were texting and I quoted Zoolander, just because I thought it was being funny and it went along with our conversation instead be asked me if my quote had different bad meaning. No, it was just a funny. Additionally, I am not a person that beats around the bush and he knows that. He anticipates my feelings, words, moods but he always anticipates the worst case scenario. This creates a whole lot of anxiety for him when he starts doing that.

Hammer - I'm not proud of this, but when RAH has been successful in picking fights with me, I have no doubts that I have been verbally abusive back to him. It also took me a long time to figure out that he was actually trying to get that response from me and he said really hurtful things to get me there. He's not a victim but neither am I really. The only thing I'm a victim of is not realizing and figuring out my issues a long time ago.

FireSprite

Yesssssss!!!! I know this dynamic.

He assumes something about me based on his feelings/perspective.
Accepts is as FACT.
Holds me accountable to that assumption & tells me it is, actually, MY opinion. He "just knew" that it is what I would say/do/think so he saved me the trouble of actually asking me... 'cuz he already knows how I was going to respond in every.single.situation.


Nooooo.... all that just happened right there in YOUR OWN HEAD, Buddy.


For years he accused me of putting myself up on a pedastal, judging myself as better than everyone else. But in reality he has had to accept that those were his words, his labels, his judgements.

Which prompted me to ask, "Good God Man, who do YOU think *I* am??" A lot of it seems to have been necessary in his mind so that he could somehow justify his own behavior toward me - after enough time (& booze) he simply started to accept his assumptions as truths.

Stung

Yep, exactly! He has been a lot better about doing that but usually that's how I know a fight is coming. He'll start with "I know you're mad about XYZ" and he didn't even ask how I felt, didn't even discuss the subject period so he has no idea how I actually feel about anything. What was getting to me is that I felt like if it was something that I actually would have been mad about, that I could not actually be mad because that would justify his thinking process with a "see, I told you so. You ARE mad. I KNEW IT!"

hopeful4

FS...my AH does that too. He has actually said, "Well you think..." What??!!...am I hearing that correctly??!! You now know what I think....hmmm...don't think so!

We have actively been talking about this lately. How he need not assume I THINK anything because he does not know what I think. I will enlighten him if I feel I need to. If not, respect that you don't know what is going on in my head and that is ok. Geez. I am not always trying to figure out what he is thinking! Those are his personal thoughts, if he wants me to know them he can tell me. I am good with that. That is what part of the problem has been, I don't always WANT to know what he is thinking even though he feels the need to tell me. I have let him know I am not his sponsor or accountability person, when he is thinking about alcohol or things that have happened in the past that hurt me to discuss, he needs to discuss with those people, not me. I have moved on!

It has taken me a very long time to detatch and be able to say these things. I usto almost obsessively need to know and try and understand what is going on in his head. O if only I had spend as much trying to figure my own self out!! O well...time lost is time lost. Time to focus on the now and the future.

Thanks for the post, good insight!

LifeRecovery

I am just struck by how much of these ideas expressed above I tried to do....so he would not "feel" like drinking.

Yikes. What a reality call.

Carlotta

If he has an active alcoholic in his life or was raised by alcoholics he is probably a codie too. Now that he has put the booze down, the real underlying issues are coming to the surface.
Maybe you could suggest he starts attending Al Anon?
I always say that AA saved my life but Al Anon saved my sanity.