When I was with xabf I discovered myself thinking, at moments, "you think you own me but actually you´re mine". Which was weird and scary. It was like I would put up with the enabling role, with doing things his way while knowing, on some level, that he would never want to leave me. Or that he would never forget me, if he did. I still wonder at this thought process of mine, because I consider myself to be quite boring and level headed most of the time. I don´t know how I came to think like that.
Now I´m at a complete loss on where to go from here, indeed there is no clear path.

It's been a while since I posted! I am really struggling lately and I'm not sure how to find relief.

After I posted, I stayed single for a long time. I had gotten to a place where I was happy with my life alone and thought, this is cool. I enjoy this. One night stand here and there, all was good, lol.

Then I met someone I couldn't ignore - we have been together 6 months. He is in my same field of work and we have much in common. Everything has been great - real intimacy. Total acceptance of me and my history and no fear to let him see me completely. He has been working to heal from codependency himself for years, and it's amazing to share the vocabulary and be able to feel that we understand what each other mean when we share our struggles or work through relationship issues.

I feel the codependency itch from time to time, though. We're long distance for now with no end to that in sight - there's some uncertainty with him about his job path. And I feel myself wanting to change that. Unable to accept that.

There have been times where I've felt what I've perceived to be too much distance - with worldview kind of issues - and feel deeply unsettled. The truth is we are separate people with separate worldviews and given my respect for him, there is no reason for me to concern myself with what he believes about this particular issue but we had a huge fight.

I think the long distance brings up some old issues for me - my mom's love being inconstant (his love isn't inconstant but being together with all of these interruptions feels like that). I think also having no sense of control over the future/being together also brings up some old issues because control is my safety blanket. When I was living under my parents' roof in chaos as a kid I had no power and no control. So I do things now like making plans and setting goals to self-soothe.

I found an al anon meeting near my new house and I'm going on Sunday. I don't have any alcoholics in my life now (guy I'm with now rarely drinks and I've never once seen him drunk) so I wonder how I will fit in but I know I need to do something. I really care about this relationship and don't want the codependent tendencies to take over and ruin everything. I don't want to feel like this.

This question has been on my mind. Thank you for asking it.

I've reached a point where on a certain level, I feel stuck at the bottom of a deep well. I see how I still lack the capacity to uphold my boundaries, to enact consequences, to engage my addict husband in communications about the effect of his behaviors on me. Thus, I feel desperate, as if I will never be recovered from my codie ways.

However, I also have the capacity to see that isn't the full truth. That capacity alone is a sign of recovery in progress.

I have gained self awareness to see when I engage with people to try and get validation or acknowledgement, even if that engagement is to my detriment.

I've stopped stepping in to fix everything, first with non-close relationships and over time, in my familial relationships.

I've stopped communicating in ways that were/are passive-aggressive and/or manipulative. I've stopped trying to "inspire" people to do something or change.

I've stopped feeling guilty about my needs (mostly).

I've grown to understand others' behaviors are 100% not about me. But this doesn't mean that it's healthy for me to live life in total detachment mode, either. That to deny the effects of those behaviors on me is as much a form of codependency as it is to think those behaviors are all about me.

Objectively I can see a lot of growth on my journey. However, on a deep, subconscious, likely physiological level, I continue to lack the strength to make decisions that are in my best interest and I put others' (specifically, my husband's) wants ahead of my needs. I hope someday, with concerted effort and consciousness, this, too, will grow and change for the better.

Beautifully stated. Thank you for that.

We talk all the time about addicts and their "inner demons" - you are very smart to acknowledge your own.

A delightful, caring, lovely, mentally healthy man - who doesn't drink - fell in love with me a few years ago, and I nearly sent him away because I didn't feel healed enough from the disaster of my previous relationship to an alcoholic and my own co-dependent behaviors (which stretch back to my childhood as well). But instead, I continued my own therapy, occasionally went to Alanon meetings, and stayed connected here if I started to falter.

We are now happily married.

Always, always take care of you first, listen to your gut, live in the moment, and you won't go wrong.