Yogagurl

Dear forum members and friends,

Thank you, each and every one of you, for your responses. Each of the responses I have read has offered a different kind of success story, each with a promise of personal fulfillment and a different perspective on what tough love is. I don't expect my XAH to come to me with some sort of thankfulness and deep introspection in the future, and that wasn't really the reason I was asking. Sometimes I just get so depressed to think that all I thought I was doing to be supportive to him was in vain and that I was and will never be appreciated for my efforts due to his illness. I am working very hard to accept that all I thought I was doing to build a life for us is just a wasted effort. That is hard to accept. The money, love, time, energy vested into building a life for us that never came to fruition. I really believe it is a combination of mental disorders and addiction that holds the framework for his abusive nature and I could almost see the devil residing on one of his shoulders and an angel residing on the other. He had two clearly different personalities and I was very focused on bringing out the more positive of the two. I just struggle with joy sometimes and thought the feedback from this thread might help.

Thanks again. Love and light to all.

SabrinaQ

Hi yogagurl!

Actually just the other day my ex called me and thanked me, he said I was a factor in him deciding to quit, he said if he hadn't been with me he'd still be confused. (I guess he meant if he was single he might not have felt the need to quit).

But it took him 20 months of sobriety to get to that point, of not blaming me for everything under the sun.

Oh and did I mention we got divorced?!

Thankfully after one year of being apart, and a lot of working on myself, my wounds have almost completely healed.

Firstly I don't look for validation from others as much as before,
and also, thanks to SR, and reading a lot, I'm not expecting the addicted person to act like a normal person.

Needabreak

Yes, this is basically what it comes down to. We ignore the red flags, ignore what is in front of our noses, put up with all kinds of nonsense, craziness and abuse. And then one day we wake up and see just how much of our own precious lives we have wasted.

But my own opinion is that it's only a waste if we don't learn anything from the experience. One thing I've learned is that, when I see someone having that battle between their good angel and their bad angel, it shows that they are susceptible to their bad angel's words. And I keep my distance. I am not obligated to get into the middle of such a battle. It certainly isn't my job to "fix" such a person, or to show them the light.

irisgardens

i have thanked people for giving me tough love on many occasions--because as a codependent, i didn't always recognize my own behavior--and in fact, whenthings are really bad, i am not good at recognizing and figuring out what the triiggers are. in my family, i was thanked (kind of) by two oldest daughters who had used drugs before and i did tough love with them and husband more or less stood along side.

that did not last and things are very tough right now--doctors say i have an extremely unsupportive family as i have been discovering over the past 2-3 years. working on me and am not as confused and horrifically anxious as i was a couple of months ago.

reconnected with a few friends who i had lost contact with during time spent in husband's country and my therapist has asked me to call her every day which helps with the feeling invisible as the family does not talk to me except to ask me to babysit grandchildren--which i an happy to do.

when husband got back from his home south american country--he took control of the one phone and car without telling or asking me--i finally got the phone back as i continue to put out resumes...the car thing continues...it is not a pretty picture...i do matter, i do matter, i do matter.