This morning, I woke to a text message from soon to be ex (ok, will call him "ex" from now on), apologizing for treating me like a pile of SH%! last night, because I ordered a pizza a few minutes later than I had been "instructed to do" by phone. (Ex was up for over 48 hours working on a big multiple semi collision... had the opportunity to take a shift and sleep, chose not to, as is his Dis- EASED way....) So I git cussed out and yelled at all evening last night. (And all the while keeping my mouth shut completely and just loving that this crap is almost behind me.)
So I get the apology text, and I reply, ""I accept your apology, and this is why you have no business being married, you work so much that your significant other has to put up with your bullshit and believe me it's not worth any amount of money to a woman who only wants love and peace in her life." That was not a nasty thing to say, it was teh simple truth. I was hurt, and finally saying WHY, and pulling he curtain back as to "causes and conditions". I felt good about that. I kept my mouth shut far too much in the marriage because I avoid verbal conflict like the plague (writing is another story LOL). And he reacted as though he KNEW it was said out of love, for myself and for him as well, whatever kind there is that is left (love for a very sick man, and hoping he finds happiness------- IN ANOTHER VICINITY, NOT IN MINE.)
I went to a wonderful meeting at 1, a discussion, and saw the most wonderful old friends and got to reconnect with them. I did not discuss my problem of the day, as my problem du jour was handled. HP has me in this position- one foot out the door- and more will be revealed, but it was nice to just focus on the 24 hour book which was the topic, and have my brain at the meeting, instead of back home.
I took some loads of boxes back and forth to the apartment. I played Annie Lennox all day long in the sunshine as I drove to my new neighborhood and back. I felt impowered, understood, and loved.
I had told a woman after the meeting whom I have known for a long time, that I will no longer accept the kind of love that is not like the love in AA- I have set the bar a lot higher now. The only love i need in my life is the kind that mirrors the love that AA has given me. AA has taught me how to love, and how to BE loved in a healthy way. And I am still learning every day.
-- Edited by jonijoni1 on Thursday 6th of May 2010 12:06:08 AM
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
When someone is on your case continually it is hard to let go and let God's will be done. Sometimes darn near impossible, but not impossible.
Did you ever consider texting back and saying "I accept your apology" and ending it right there with only sending those four words?
Larry, ------------------------------ Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. ~Buddha
Sis you did great!! Yay!! and your understanding on AA love was my participation at my home meeting tonight (Al-Anon) the love I learned from the fellowship and from some special members who honed the definition for me then which stays within me now constantly. I shared tonight what I shared on the step forum the other day...the third step. Yeah I can sense that your spirit has been lifted and is soaring. Let it fly on HP's wings. Marvelous miracle.
Yah Larry... progress not perfection. In actuality, my use of the word "bullshit" was not in an anger context, it was more of a hurt-but-aware context, and it got the important message across. "I accept your apology" is no longer in order, as it has been my simple way for 6 years now, and at this fork in the road for my ex and I are now revealing unspoken truths in attempts to put things to rest. We have takent he veil off on both ends adn he is showing me in kindness as much as I am showing him, how deeply disturbed we both are and that we really do as individuals need to do some hard work and some self-evaluation. He is no stranger to therapy, just has not found it necessary to get any while we have been married (not even together with me, as I started asking years ago). And that is his choice.
His first wife ran off with another man because she was lonely, and his kids live 1,000 mi. away on an airforce base. The younger son has frontal lobe damage which was just discovered a year ago, after he had been locked up in psychiatric wards at the ages of 8-10 due to violent, psychotic, and self-harm type behaviors. Some of those revealed themselves to our horror when he was here for summers with dad and me and his brother. (He is incidentally now back in the hopsital again- prayers please..) My ex's older son, 14, is the "Lost Child", with all the attention the younger gets, and also due to the fact that the family now has adorable twin boys of 3 years old. So the loss and the kids and their difficulties and my ex's POWERLESSNESS is evident to him to the point that as he has said numerous times, "I know why I work so much... I can just get in my truck and then something spills or gets wrecked or catches fire on the turnpike, and I don't have to think." Addiciton. His brain chemicals are relased when he is up for 48 hours at a time (against OSHA and even the bosses' advice) and he does not have to feel pain. And then he makes stupid mistakes like sexual indisctretions because it is all part of the "lifestyle" of an adrenaline junkie/escape artist.
No small wonder he id dnot commit heinous crimes when the first divorce came about and the kids were moved away within weeks' notice to him, as the exwife and her husband were quickly married and the courts saw them as a "family unit" going off to another state where the stepfather was to be station in the U.S. Airforce. That is when my ex first got therapy for a year, and was on an antidepressant (which probably kept him out of prison at that time), and when he married me, he stopped the Zoloft and was "cured" and never went back to the therapist or doctor. Two junkies getting married, basically, and at times I will admit that the house and the Jaguar and the education and the good job I acquired had me "cured", and that is when I would avoid taking my daily "AA Medicine" and get bitter and angry and lonely adn tired of the b.s. (which I obviously CHOSE to stick aorund for) and I relapsed in cycles of this.
Just another cycle that needed breaking. For both of us. I am guilty. I let a mean cheat on me and treat me like shit and leave me alone and ignore my existence for yeasr on end, and he let a heavily drug-addicted and alcoholic woman take him to the ends of sanity with her escapades and running off for weeks at a time sometimes, every couple of years or so when she had no other way of getting his attention.
This is not stuff that I am privileged to know and he is not, he knows too. In t his 6 years he has been "around" all my therapy, and has been close to my sponsor and a member of my fmaily in Al Anon, he has even read some parts of the Al Anon books (while in his truck, on the highway or at the Turnpike Commission, awaiting the next adrenaline rush).
So there you have it. Lots of "educaiton" there for both of us, and I choose to work hard to change myself and my life through your help, as he wishes to remain the same and consider himself "functional" while the cash flows in and the "blue-collar high-roller" pats on the back keep him sustained.
Sad, I am filled with sorrow for the things (and people) I cannot change, but am equally filled with joy for the future that awaits me free of the bondage of the terrible cycles.
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
I am really pleased that you are going to be Happy, Joyous and Free soon. I have come to consider you a great friend and I want only the very best for you.
We alcoholics have a real knack for letting others live rent free in our heads. We can stop but it takes a lot of practice, prayer and AA program.
I always try to remember the 10th step axiom when faced with an unreasonable person.
Also I like this modification of the Serenity Prayer because it helps me focus in where I need to change.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, The courage to change the one person I can and the Wisdom to know that it is me."
Larry, --------------- Life is God's novel. Let him write it.
Thanks for your kind words Larry, and for the support you have shown me since the moment I came back. I too like the altered Serenity Prayer (although it really is not altered, this expression of it just brings to light what most of "what we cannot change" really is, and that is other people).
(((hugs)))
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
