Lies I told Myself and Gratefulness for it All
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Join Date: Jul 2014
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Lies I told Myself and Gratefulness for it All
Here it is...the lie. Many of you have outlined how this breakup of mine would go if I didn't focus on my own recovery...I lied to myself and said that I was totally committed to moving on and letting go. There is such predictability in aspects of engaging with an alcoholic... I fell for his quacking three weeks ago about his love for me and how he could not even entertain the idea of another woman. I fell for it because I was lying to myself and then I engaged and it led to predictable and very quick changes on his part from love to dismissal and immediately to fierce and angry rejection. This led to me acting out in my Codi reactions with a return of the anger and I even lashed out physically. I just knew that was my bottom in the relationship and with my Codi issues...I lied there as well. I have been in a very dark place since.
As many of you warned, now that I did something that he can point to as the cause for the end of our relationship, he has immediately gotten involved with another woman. I mean the "spend all day every day together" kind of involvement. Remember, I live next door and although I have kept my head down and stayed away, it is all in my face. When I realized yesterday that he has moved on, I feel into a needy desperation. I reached out to all of my friends and family and most are at their wits end. Many said things to me about my inability to move on that hit me hard. With no other choice, I had to stop lying and actually do the thing that I have been threatening since we first broke up three months ago, I went to look for a new place to live. I have been researching for some time and found my new neighborhood and went there yesterday and have a few places that are for rent that look good. For the first time, I felt peace about this decision...a real decision...the decision to stop lying and to move on...literally.
It is very painful right now, but somehow, the pain seems less eternal and more circumstantial. When I moved here last year, he was the second person I met and his world became my own. I have been so afraid to let go of him, his people, his neighborhood and the local habits and places that we all went to because it was all I knew and seemed like all there was in the world that I ever wanted. For a moment, this was the most beautiful experience. I met so many amazing people, had so many amazing experiences and lived in what I thought was the truest form of love that I have ever experienced with a partner.
And I lied to myself about drinking as well. I drank with him and this crowd in a way that I don't...I just don't...and I did some very terrible things that last night that have weighed heavily on me since. I am working on that concern and have had some very positive experiences since that are reminding me of who I am and not what I was becoming with him and for that, I am eternally grateful. I am grateful that the pain now looks like something that will end.
I am grateful for all the tender moments and painful moments because it has brought me to a new understanding about my own issues and how easily they could become more...like me becoming an alcoholic too. I am grateful because in my desperation in the last three months, I have come to challenge friendships with my repeated neediness and am learning to accept that some people have to let me go now as well. I am grateful that I am beginning to remember what it means to stand on my own and work through my own problems instead of looking to everyone else for a safe harbor.
I am thankful that I found this site, AlAnon, and Codependence No More. I am grateful that after spending a year with an A whose goals are only to stand on his laurels and drink everyday, that I am now challenging myself in my own career and realizing just what ten years of higher education and work has brought me in my skill set. I teach and write for a living. And just this past weekend, I wrote some of my best academic work. I realized that after all of these years, I have finally gained my own academic voice and I am very proud of it. I am eloquent, intelligent and skillful with my wording and passion for the topics. I am grateful to see that although the door on the past year has closed and that my first year in my beloved city was not what I had thought it would be, I am very grateful to know that a new door is opening and there is a place- not too far away, where I believe I will find more stable people and an environment where I will be able to encourage my continued career pursuits. I am grateful overall that I am beginning to actually see a brighter future and the power inside me to make amends with the recent and distant past.
Today, I am simply grateful. And today, I say with honestly that I am learning to let go.
As many of you warned, now that I did something that he can point to as the cause for the end of our relationship, he has immediately gotten involved with another woman. I mean the "spend all day every day together" kind of involvement. Remember, I live next door and although I have kept my head down and stayed away, it is all in my face. When I realized yesterday that he has moved on, I feel into a needy desperation. I reached out to all of my friends and family and most are at their wits end. Many said things to me about my inability to move on that hit me hard. With no other choice, I had to stop lying and actually do the thing that I have been threatening since we first broke up three months ago, I went to look for a new place to live. I have been researching for some time and found my new neighborhood and went there yesterday and have a few places that are for rent that look good. For the first time, I felt peace about this decision...a real decision...the decision to stop lying and to move on...literally.
It is very painful right now, but somehow, the pain seems less eternal and more circumstantial. When I moved here last year, he was the second person I met and his world became my own. I have been so afraid to let go of him, his people, his neighborhood and the local habits and places that we all went to because it was all I knew and seemed like all there was in the world that I ever wanted. For a moment, this was the most beautiful experience. I met so many amazing people, had so many amazing experiences and lived in what I thought was the truest form of love that I have ever experienced with a partner.
And I lied to myself about drinking as well. I drank with him and this crowd in a way that I don't...I just don't...and I did some very terrible things that last night that have weighed heavily on me since. I am working on that concern and have had some very positive experiences since that are reminding me of who I am and not what I was becoming with him and for that, I am eternally grateful. I am grateful that the pain now looks like something that will end.
I am grateful for all the tender moments and painful moments because it has brought me to a new understanding about my own issues and how easily they could become more...like me becoming an alcoholic too. I am grateful because in my desperation in the last three months, I have come to challenge friendships with my repeated neediness and am learning to accept that some people have to let me go now as well. I am grateful that I am beginning to remember what it means to stand on my own and work through my own problems instead of looking to everyone else for a safe harbor.
I am thankful that I found this site, AlAnon, and Codependence No More. I am grateful that after spending a year with an A whose goals are only to stand on his laurels and drink everyday, that I am now challenging myself in my own career and realizing just what ten years of higher education and work has brought me in my skill set. I teach and write for a living. And just this past weekend, I wrote some of my best academic work. I realized that after all of these years, I have finally gained my own academic voice and I am very proud of it. I am eloquent, intelligent and skillful with my wording and passion for the topics. I am grateful to see that although the door on the past year has closed and that my first year in my beloved city was not what I had thought it would be, I am very grateful to know that a new door is opening and there is a place- not too far away, where I believe I will find more stable people and an environment where I will be able to encourage my continued career pursuits. I am grateful overall that I am beginning to actually see a brighter future and the power inside me to make amends with the recent and distant past.
Today, I am simply grateful. And today, I say with honestly that I am learning to let go.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
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Timeiskey, this is breathtaking, life changing insight. And very eloquently written. Your skill as a writer shows through and will illuminate a path forward for many.
Thank you, and we all have you in our hearts. While you find your new home and neighborhood, we will be your friends, a bridge from there to a better place.
ShootingStar1
Thank you, and we all have you in our hearts. While you find your new home and neighborhood, we will be your friends, a bridge from there to a better place.
ShootingStar1
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: right here, right now
Posts: 6,516
When I moved here last year, he was the second person I met and his world became my own.
now challenging myself in my own career and realizing just what ten years of higher education and work has brought me in my skill set. I teach and write for a living. And just this past weekend, I wrote some of my best academic work. I realized that after all of these years, I have finally gained my own academic voice and I am very proud of it. I am eloquent, intelligent and skillful with my wording and passion for the topics.
I have a feeling you're going to be just fine. And moving and finding your own context seems like a very good move.
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 224
Thank you both! Lill, it was a ready made world that was very seductive... a musician's world with all these privileges...only problem was that being in that world meant sacrificing my own...letting go means returning to myself. Yes, you are definitely right that my academic mind removes me emotionally, but yes, the slightest distracting moment and the emotions flood back in. I am taking solace in the idea now that the totality of the pain has come. There is no more to befall from more contact. There will be no more future painful memories to process. There is solace in that. Thank you so much for your support.
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Join Date: Feb 2013
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My lie too...
I have been divorced for 6 months from my AXH after 20 years of marriage. He lives across the street from our business we ran together and that I must be at daily. I have struggled immensely to let go and move on, as all his shenanigans, women included, are in my face daily. I too have been lying to myself as I chant repeatedly that I am moving on and I don't care and I am letting go.
Hearing another speak so eloquently of having much of the same struggle I have been dealing with helps tremendously. This is my first post to this site. I have been lurking for 2 years, soaking up all of the wisdom that all of you have to offer.
I am still a work in progress but I get stronger every day, through face to face Al-anon meetings and walking my journey with all of you by my side. I never want to go back to where I was living with an alcoholic not in recovery. My fantasy thinking, lying to myself and co-dependency took me to that place, not the alcoholic. He asked me along for the ride and I willingly went for way too long. I still try to hitch back on when I slip but thanks to what I am doing to get myself healthier, soon he can just drive right on by and I won't care one way or another.....no anger, bitterness, resentment, sadness....it will just be what it is.
Thank you everyone for helping me through this tough journey for the last 2 years. It has helped me to be the kind of mom I needed to be to help my kids not fall apart as their world did around them.
Hearing another speak so eloquently of having much of the same struggle I have been dealing with helps tremendously. This is my first post to this site. I have been lurking for 2 years, soaking up all of the wisdom that all of you have to offer.
I am still a work in progress but I get stronger every day, through face to face Al-anon meetings and walking my journey with all of you by my side. I never want to go back to where I was living with an alcoholic not in recovery. My fantasy thinking, lying to myself and co-dependency took me to that place, not the alcoholic. He asked me along for the ride and I willingly went for way too long. I still try to hitch back on when I slip but thanks to what I am doing to get myself healthier, soon he can just drive right on by and I won't care one way or another.....no anger, bitterness, resentment, sadness....it will just be what it is.
Thank you everyone for helping me through this tough journey for the last 2 years. It has helped me to be the kind of mom I needed to be to help my kids not fall apart as their world did around them.
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Join Date: Jul 2014
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TTW- thank you for sharing here. I totally forgot the fantasy thinking in my post! I would describe some of my ex's characteristics to highlight this issue, but I find myself pausing...after all, the more I think about him instead of my own recovery, the harder it is to let go and move on. I am with you on the one day (soon) where he will pass on by down the road and it will not phase me. Now that is the kind of real fantasy thinking that I want to work on! Thank you again for sharing here.
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
Time, good for you. Sometimes it takes one last hurrah to force us to make honest change. I have always wondered how you could live right next to him that way.
There are times that you have to go through the worst pain of your life to get to the best place you have ever been in. Look forward to that as your future.
XXX
There are times that you have to go through the worst pain of your life to get to the best place you have ever been in. Look forward to that as your future.
XXX
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Join Date: Jul 2014
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So, I finally received an appointment for my therapy. It is on Monday. When the call came in, I didn't have paper and pen, so I texted my friend the info so I could record it. I told her what it was for and she really seemed to judge me, which was a bit of a shocker. I guess she is a normie...although she did her own time in a dysfunctional relationship. She told me that she wouldn't want a man who talked to her the way my ex talked to me and can't see why I am so upset by the whole thing since he treated me that way.
I explained that it was more about the codependence, that I want to become healthier to stop this painful process. She seemed to judge that a little as well... I am reminded of a segment from This American Life on NPR where they interviewed Piers Anthony, who was one of my favorite writers as a child. He writes fantasy, and of course, many kids and adults will read fantasy for entertainment, but some to escape their own sad realities. Anthony also had a challenging past and wrote this:
“One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.”
And learning now to cope in different ways takes time...so, if any of you are beating yourself up a little today like I am, well, remember Piers' words and know that you are not alone
I explained that it was more about the codependence, that I want to become healthier to stop this painful process. She seemed to judge that a little as well... I am reminded of a segment from This American Life on NPR where they interviewed Piers Anthony, who was one of my favorite writers as a child. He writes fantasy, and of course, many kids and adults will read fantasy for entertainment, but some to escape their own sad realities. Anthony also had a challenging past and wrote this:
“One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.”
And learning now to cope in different ways takes time...so, if any of you are beating yourself up a little today like I am, well, remember Piers' words and know that you are not alone
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,349
Oh that is beautiful! I love what he wrote because it's so very true. We are never alone, even if our normie friends don't understand. Hugs to you! Glad you were able to get an appointment with a therapist soon. Mine has made a world of difference in my life and my recovery!
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Chicago
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Fantastic quote. I have the loveliest BFF ever but she is simply incapable of understanding what it was like to grow up with my parents. She is never judgey, but her constant cries of "Of COURSE your mother loved you more than everything!" can send me spinning faster than anything.
People who know us well in our dysfunction are often scared when we begin to change and get healthier. This is more about them than us.
People who know us well in our dysfunction are often scared when we begin to change and get healthier. This is more about them than us.
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