Undertow1

Hello, It's been several months since my first post; I'm the Soldier who posted a while back about being a year clean and sober and still miserable. I'm sure those of you on this message board who read my story remember. First things first; I did not vanish from soberrecovery.com because of a relapse or something worse; I am indeed still sober and still grateful for that. The nature of my job and a number of other issues have prevented me from following up with this website, but I feel the need to provide an update. Certain things are going well; I'm managing to slowly but surely gain back the rank and respect lost due to the alcohol-related incidents detailed in my last post. The other Soldiers and the chain of command I work under seem to realize that when I don't drink or use, I'm pretty squared-away. I've managed to show everybody that my illness does not define me or get in the way of my job performance as long as I stay sober. So that is going as well as can be expected. Other news is of the bittersweet variety; having shaken off the dejection of my fiance breaking up with me, I have managed to find myself in a new relationship. She is a sergeant about my age whom I've known since I got stationed up here; an exceptionally smart and ambitious young woman who has proven herself in the unit as a reliable leader and an excellent Soldier. We have hit it off as a couple primarily because of the shared history of our shattered lives, mine from drugs and addiction, hers from childhood abuse, a long battle with cancer, and the loss of her child. I'm guessing that some of you who are reading this are shaking their heads and anticipating where this story is going. So far, everything is really good; we get along great, are both real smart and sophisticated individuals, and we're managing to avoid a lot of the obvious pitfalls that doom similar relationships founded upon pain. The danger signs are less obvious but still there to some degree; I have a fairly long history of co-dependency that has essentially paralleled my drug addiction. I know less of her background, but much of what I do know sounds like a breeding ground for relationship addiction as well. Another troubling indicator is the fact that our relationship, once initiated, got extremely intense real fast. I know about this phase, and why it's a bad sign. I've been telling her and myself that 'it's just because we're falling in love so fast', but is this a flowering case of co-dependancy or a whirlwind romance? After all, I do feel like I am falling in love with her. She's a wonderful person, I love spending time with her, and she's crazy about me. There are other things missing from the situation that normally would have me thinking I was about to fall into the familiar trap. I'm sober now, so drugs and booze aren't clouding my judgement. Our partnership features none of the roller-coaster ups and downs that signal the loss of boundaries within the relationship; things stay at an even keel, intense and loving. So what's the problem? Well, to me the problem lies in the fact that as I mentioned in my first post; I am essentially relearning how to interact with other human beings, seeing as the way I have been doing it for the past fifteen years had not been working out so well, to say the least. In other words; I have no reliable emotional compass to help me manage this situation. Admittedly, things are still new between myself and my new girlfriend, and nothing really disturbing has surfaced. It's just that we got real comfortable real quick with talking about 'spending the rest of our lives together', how we finally found 'the one', etc. I'm totally on board with talk like this; is this a bad omen? Maybe we're just two damaged young adults who found themselves in love? I'm putting this out there in the hopes that any readers with experience concerning co-dependency will offer some advice. I'll try and post more often in the future. Thanks all.

Dee74

welcome back Undertow

I'm not a relationship guru, but I think if you're unsettled by the pace of things I think you're entitled to slow things down...if she's the woman you hope she is, she'll understand why

Congratulations on your sober time!
D