Originally Posted by hopeful4

Good for you! Of course, he is his therapist's client. That therapist is going to push for what would be best for him, not you. I am so glad you stuck to your own wants and needs. Very proud of you!

Originally Posted by Sleepyhollo

Even though my Soon to be ex RAH has been clean for almost 2 years and is doing well from a sobriety/recovery point I really don’t think he gets how much the years affected me and our relationship (and how there appears to be a lot that he doesn’t remember). I was ready to walk out 2 years ago when I gave him an ultimatum. Surprisingly he was actually ready to do something this time (I had never given him an aulitmatum before but had confronted him several times before and he would quit for a while’. I stayed because I felt like I should give him one more chance, our kid and our family. Recovery and rehab were hard on us and it made things worse. I was super codependent which didn’t help either. I had a very hard time with the fact that it is ok to not love him anymore and to be honest with my feelings. It has been very hard and it has taken lots of counseling but I’m better with it more and more. I hadn’t been honest with my feelings for a long time. He isn’t a bad man, never laid a hand on me and has a good job and to the outside world we had a really good life. I just didn’t realize that the years of his drinking and failed attempts at sobriety (and it was all a big secret) and emotional neglect/abuse (never saw this for what it was until I started counseling, denial and ignorance are powerful) had taken the toll on me that it had. Because i felt like I should be grateful that he got sober (I am mostly so my kid has a father ) and just be able to move on. But it is so much more complicated than that and people don’t get that unless they’ve been there. Like I said I don’t think my RAH really understands.
It was very hard for me to finally be honestly about my feelings (or lack thereof..) because I’ve always worried about everyone else’s feeling and pushed my own away. I wasn’t getting beaten up after all and so many people have it so much worse than I. But in the end that doesn’t matter. I’m entitled to have my feelings and that has been very hard, to accept that it’s ok to be honest with myself even if that means others get hurt in the process. I still struggle with it but much less so. After all, if I’m not honest with myself than I’m the one that continues to get hurt.