Great post Mike...I coulda done this one except for how it progresses for my spouse and I.  At times we glow brightly together and at other times separately and then at times we bump around in total darkness not having a clue where we are at individually or as a group and not being sure if we want an answer.  For us life is a daily thing a one day-at-a thing and we support the good stuff in each other and don't ridicule, judge or wish what we see as negative has anything to do with or individual happiness or self esteem.  "She is not me" I don't have to be someone different to have her in my life and the opposite is true also.  It's a balance which dangles at the end of a chain attached to the hand of God and it is real.  One drink, one practice that I can do this all myself without the program and fellowship of both Al-Anon and AA and I will arrive at "This can't possibly be real and I quit". 

All of my relationships have been more difficult to impossible without this spiritual program of recovery.    

                                  Trust God.

                                  Clean House

                                   Help Others.

I can't remember anything working better than this.  Good thread. 

Mike B. wrote:

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Where to go.  I've been praying more than ever, but my patience is wearing thin.  My wife and I:  married 16 years, 2 kids 14 & 12, I've been sober 3 + years, she had an affair for a year during the first year of recovery.  This was done discreetly.  Sounds text book huh....  We were going to mediate a divorce this past Feb- we were just growing apart.  No love, no intimacy(including no sex), no partnership in household duties(I take care of most things).  She spends most of her time at home on the computer, facebook or her phone.  She falls asleep on the couch and I go to bed.  Just staying with norm is what it feels like- roommates.  One doesn't pick up after themselves.  I've tried to set boundaries- it gets better for a week then more of the same.   

The mediation was called off after we told the kids.  It broke both our hearts.  The funny thing is: the kids were fine the next day.  We weren't.  The fear that struck me told me I had more to do.    So I continued to work hard on me. 

So back to the same.  I've taken a look at my part and have a better understanding of why some things happened the way they did.   But that doesn't mean it's acceptable in the future does it?

In the meantime; I've been working my AA program, dappled alittle in Alanon and Coda.  She went to Alanon for a bit and individual counseling for a short while.  The bottomline is the she thought they both weren't helpful and she could manage on her own with the help of a few friend.  We are going to counsling now.  Prior to our first visit; I asked my wife if she wanted to be there- her response- I'm not sure why we're here?????????  She did mention after that o-ya, we don't communicate well.

I gave the counselor a brief history and she looked right at me and said, "your working to hard at this & you need to stop working so hard, your not going to fix this."  Now I've heard this before, but I guess I needed to hear it again a from a different source.  My wife later said; why did she say that, I don't get it.  WTF?

I really feel that I'm looking for more from my life and relationship and my wife is o.k. with the status quo.  I really feel like this is blocking my growth and hampers my sobriety and recovery.  It spends way to much time in my head. 

It's like the head knows the answer, but the heart is unwilling to accept it.  The fear of what it would be like on the otherside is really what's holding me back.  But, my Sponsor reminds me that when the present pain is more than the fear of the unknown, we're more willing to move our feet.  The pain is building.

 

---

 This really resonates with me, I will try to explain why:

I think I have -modeled- my romantic relationships after the one I had with my grandmother rather then my mother, my 3 other grandparents were dead at age 5, so I remember saying to myself "If she is my only living link to my past I am going to make this woman like me" but what I didn't know is my grandmother is literally evil, she's quite frankly an awful human being, she always reminded me of Endora on Bewitched, she would move her lovers into her 2nd husbands house and call them "handymen" I remember being out to dinner with her once and saying "You know who will sitting at the next table G-ma, a (famous female politician) you girls can talk about old times", she replied, "Oh No, I can't talk to (X) I used to sleep with her husband hahahahahaha" right in front of her husband

Anyway I spent my entire life trying to make this woman love me, to approve of me, she lives in a 3 story Glass house, as in the walls are literally glass on a cliff overlooking the Ocean, and I'd go wash her windows, I tied myself into knots trying to get her to like me, to win her approval, and she treated me like dirt no matter what I did, if I visited she called my dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles and told them I was sniffing around because my birthday was coming and I was making sure I got a gift (because I really needed that fucking 20 dollars you know) anyway the harder I tried the worse she treated me, until finally I finally stood up to her and I remember it as if it were yesterday when she said "You and your sister were always such a huge disappointment, you weren't the mistake, your sister was the mistake, you were the mistake compounded" referring to the fact my father had impregnated my mother and then married her.

I realized right then she despised me for being my fathers son, the man who refused to put up with her bullshit and hadn't spoken to her for 20 years, and that nothing I ever did would fix that, she despised me for reasons that basically had nothing to do with me, and that nothing I did could ever fix that, but that I had spent my entire life reproducing that relationship in my life life.

I remember I was in Mexico with my GF and my G-ma, and it was like clash of the titans, Gma took us to a nice dinner, the next night my GF took us to the only 5 star restaurant in Mexico, my Gma rented a Jeep, the next day my GF rented a brand new Jeep Wrangler that was nicer, these women who were both so incredibly proud, athletic and beautiful were in a full fledged competition...they were...the same

I realized then that I was dating my grandmother, I was dating a woman who despised me, deep down she did, she was the woman I was living with when I got sober, and even though I had quit drinking, quit smoking, become a neat freak, returned to college, started and was well on my way in a good career, she didn't like me and never would, for reasons that were outside my control, but I had made my entire life about making this woman happy, trying to make her happy...

Like your therapist said, I was working too hard, and it was all one sided, well not ALL one sided, it's just I was going to a dry well, not just dry, but poisoned, I had poisoned an already poison well with my behavior during my drinking days but that made her behavior "justified" even though I had made my amends and changed everything about me to make her happy (see a pattern here?) we had also tried couples counseling but Margo kept firing the therapists because they wouldn't co-sign the notion that everything was "my fault", they kept trying to hold up a mirror and talk about both of us and she'd quit, in both cases I continued seeing the therapist for 6 months or so afterwards because it was so incredibly illuminating, I got to learn new tools and learned how to navigate complex emotional situations without taking them on.

When we got back from Mexico I after I had the sickening realization I was dating my grandmother I actually left her, and she spent a year trying to win me back, she started attending Coda meetings, and she put on a pretty good show actually, so we reconciled and I moved back in with her, and once I was "won" back she started having an affair with a married man who she subsequently left me for

That actually coincided with my first relapse actually, strangely enough

so the years went by, I dated a few women, nothing too serious, I got to make some amends to one girl I had dated years before, we dated, anyway I began to see a pattern, each woman I dated was like a healthier version of Margo, until finally about 7 years later I dated...a woman incredibly similar, same issues, same mother father dynamic, same money issues, same trust issues, same ethic background (English Father/Asian Mother which creates issues only a catholic church upbringing can hope to rival) but the difference was this woman was an "evolved" version and was willing to change, we went to couples counseling and she -changed-, she worked on her -stuff-, I worked on my -stuff-, and we worked on our -stuff-, and frankly it's my experience that recovery is incomplete without walking side by side with somebody like this, or I should say -my- recovery would have been incomplete, it changed who I was as a human being, healing stuff from childhood I never even knew I had.

I ended up moving away from this woman back to my family, so we ended up seperating, and living on 30 acres with 3 practicing alcoholics, a junkie, and my uncles version of my grandmother (his version of his mother) who was even MORE sick and deranged then my grandmother soon had me qualifying for Alanon, I was a gibbering insane person...so to make myself feel better I did what any self respecting alcoholic does when he gets sick in sobriety...I signed up for Match.com and began a new relationship.

The next few years were indescibable, I returned to drinking, and qualified for at least 4 twelve step programs and was having a bottom in all of them, for me when I returned to drinking it wasn't like the physical aspect of the disease was stronger, they say if we return to drinking after a long period of sobriety the disease returns and resumes to a place as if we had kept drinking the entire time, that wasn't my experience, for me it was mental, my -emotional state- returned to what it was, and surpassed it, I got as sick as if I had been drinking and remaining in unhealthy relationships all that 15 years...I got really sick, it was...bad

So I have this toxic, knock down drag out horrific relationship that just goes from bad to worse, and soon remembered those godawful times as "the good old days" as trap door bottom after trap door bottom kept opening beneath me...

So I get sober, hit meetings, get a sponsor, work the steps, move away from my family, break up with this woman, hit another program and then another, move a few times (discover MIP about then) and get on with my life and my program, Life happens, 2 steps forward 1 step back, ended up dating a woman on the east coast for 6-8 months, and that was incredibly nice, very healing, a LOT of fun, was NICE to date someone who REALLY liked me you know? who really respected me and what I had to say, we laughed a lot but communting to 3000 miles once a month for a week slowly...just stopped, we drifted apart and somehow, don't ask me how I started dating the woman I had met on Match again...she had gotten sober, done some therapy, gotten a stack of books, worked the steps, and we lasted about 6 months, which actually was a record, and when we broke up we did so with no venom, no poison emails, we didn't say anything shitty to each other, just she started doing what she does, I started doing what I do, and it kind of petered out with us not really liking each other very much, but no..."stuff" ya know? Hard to explain..one weekend I decided it was over so decided "no contact" ya know? Like I wasn't going to "engage", so I didn't contact her for 3 days and the next thing I got from her was a "dear John" email which I didn't even respond to, to this day I have no idea if she even realizes that, like on some level I wanted her to know I had broke up with HER, but...it wasn't important enough to even tell her, I was done and so was she, so I left it at that and we parted ways...

So what does she do but buy a house in my neighborhood, only a few miles away...so time passes, I drive by her exit, and hope that I don't see her but kinda hoping I would but no but yes, as she drives by my neighborhood hoping she doesn't see me...but...maybe yes maybe no...but...

So time passes, 6 months or so, and we start up again slowly, OK, not slowly, 3 days of wild new years sex isn't slow, but we start seeing each other...and it's different...not like "this is different this time and here's how" but different in the same way the last time we dated was different but more so, she's working on herself, and has been for 3 years at this point, I am no longer the emotional mess I was...and we'll see what happens

See, thing is, she...our biggest problem -for me- is in the "honeymoon stage" she wants to see me all the time, she loves to talk on the phone and spend a lot of time with me, but she's a classic "love avoidant" (an issue she is REALLY working on, that is self diagnosed NOT me taking her inventory) but after a period of time she starts taking distance, in the past I woud chase, I would try EVERYTHING to kep her from going away, the harder I tried, the faster she ran away, then I would REALLY lose it, until I was lucky to see her once in a month, then I'd rage and blame, she would withdraw further, I would try to ....bring her closer but also be freaking out...in short I started playing out all my Grandmother tapes, whatever I do is never enough, abandonment issues would fly etc and it would get pretty ugly

Now, when it was time for her to take some space, she took less, and I didn't chase, when I get in my head I start feeling like I am the one doing "all the work" so I sit down and inventory, and write down everything she IS doing and HAS done, but like a gratitude version, not a list of her defects but a list of the efforts she is making and the actions she is taking, but sometimes it's hard, I'm like "I work in her yard, I prune her trees, I mow her lawn, I take out her trash bins, I drive to her house to bring her coffee if she is out, I bring her flowers I pick from my yard, I cook all our meals, I bend myself into a pretzel to -make- her happy, to -make- her like me, and what does she do in return? She doesn't work in -my- yard, she doesn't help me with -my- house, she doesn't give me little gifts like flowers, or deliver coffee to me when I am out .... and then I realize

I am working too hard

I am doing it to myself, I am tying myself in knots, then I start obsessing, and on that path lies madness, when I sit back and write down the things she actually DOES do, truthfully she does a lot, and with the way perceptions work she could make a good case for "WTH I am doing all the work", I am not saying it's true, I am saying perceptions are delusional

So today, if I give a "gift" like pruning her trees, giving her flowers, driving down to deliver the essentials I have to remember, a "gift" has no expectations tied up in it, or it's not a gift, it's manipulation, then when I let go of these "expectations" and "gifts with strings" she comes around purring like a little kitten, getting underfoot and wanting attention, wanting pets and affection and life is good, the hard part is leaving myhead out of this mess, because it creates the very thing I fear

One of the things I am learning to do, and it is incredibly difficult, but definately pays dividends is take my inventory and not hers, taking her inventory = resentment, writing a gratitude list with her = gratitude, I have a magical mind that anyhting I focus on grows, if I focus on her negative qualities it shows through like dung under a rose bush and I start doing things unintentionally that trigger MORE of these...defects...then I can point my finger and say ah-HA, I was RIGHT!!!", thereby creating that reality

I write lot (say it isn't so Linbaba, you sure surprised us!1) and I will write out in a column form, what IS "unacceptable behavior"? What is it I am looking for in a relationship? What behaviors of my girl do I actually CAUSE? Do I want to be "right" or do I want to be happy?

Sometimes just stirring the pot causes trouble, if she seems like she is taking distance then I start trying to "fix" it, I cause her to pull away more, but by accepting her need for distance, not calling her, not smothering her, she seems to come around of her own accord, lately we took some time apart, not a lot, but haven't been seeing each other that much, so I invited her for a bike ride, gave her some flowers, we had a nice day, then I left early in the morning rather then hang out at her house, and 2 days later she sends me a text, "I love you and miss you, can I come over tomorrow?"

I just get more bees with honey then I do with vinegar, and I have learned time and distance solves things I can't solve myself, if we are meant to be together, nothing can keep us apart, and if we are meant to be apart, nothing I do will keep us together, and for me taking a few years to myself, working on me, payed more dividends then trying to force a square peg in a round hole, the last time we were apart I dated a few women...and they lacked the emotional depth...the...it was empty, and it made me appreciate her more, and accept the things I didn't like about her...like...they didn't bother me as much, and when I didn't focus on them, she didn't do them, like I was 'creating" the very thing I hated, everything I didn't like about her, wasn't -caused- by my behavior exactly, but when I changed so did she, and vice versa

Attraction not Promotion works in every area of our lives, and "attraction not bludgeoning into submission with passive aggressive and frontal assault" works even better yet.

I change me, I change my focus, and the world changes around me, and when I get out of my own way and allow things "to be" and stop running the world, and start "listening" to what God is trying to tell me, like the ghosts in haunted house movies when they are stringing up the daughter and having killer clowns attack and the family is like, yup, what a great house" and everyone in the theater is yelling at them to leave the house but their heads are so far up their ass they all get killed one by one, I notice life is a lot like that, the messages come through loud and clear, we just aren't paying attention, I mean think about it, we listen to people share and we know EXACTLY what they should do because IT'S OBVIOUS but when it comes to ourselves we're like "Gosh, this ghost has dismembered my wife and kids, I must not be trying hard enough" and we march right back into the house for more punishment and torture.

I remember my Therapist once I was whinging and whining and pissing and moaning, I was telling her, "tell me what to do I don't know what to do" and she said, yes, you do, my job is to allow you to access that information

We ALWAYS know what the right thing to do is, we just choose not to do it, we are afraid so we bury it under layers of self justification and bullshit and denial and stories

I've tried to set boundaries- it gets better for a week then more of the same. 

 I had to learn Boundaries aren't "behavior modification", they are internal protections, it's not "you need to clean up after yourself" it's "I am not going to clean up after you any more and if you leave your stuff lying I will put them all in your bedroom/closet or something, boundaries are "if you, I will" NOT "you need to"

Expectations are external, boundaries are internal

Expectations are what we have with other people, usually after they fail to meet them repeatedly, and then we lay down what we mistakenly call "a boundary" <insert behavior modification here> such as " I need you to call if you are going to be home late, especially if I have prepared dinner" after (s)he has come home late for dinner repeatedly, with an expectation and -wrongfully labeled boundary- we repeat this over and over getting angrier and angrier, whereas with a -boundary- we say if you _____ I will _______

Boundaries are internal ways to take distance and protect ourselves from other peoples actions, we may say boundaries out loud or not, but in this instance we would say "If You are late for dinner and don't call again I will  not prepare dinner for you for a month

and then if (s)he is late one more time, and then subsequently comes home on time even after that I would prepare my dinner, but not theirs and sit down and enjoy it, whether they were there or not

It can even be more dramatic, such as "If you ever hit me again, I will Leave you and call the Police" or even "If you continue to drink and lie I will be forced to leave you not "you need to change your behavior" but "these are the actions I am going to take", and the absolutely -CRITICAL- part is holding up our end of the boundary, both for us, AND for them, because if we don't we teach both them AND us to not respect us, to not believe we have enforcable boundaries, because we don't, and in my experience that is as equally unhealthy for me as it is for them, we -both- get sick if I have a -negotiable boundary-, I have leanred this both in my personal life and my professional one, it doesn't mean we don't negotiate or have "rigid thinking" but boundaries are "bottom lines" and as such aren't negotiable, I mean even countries to change boundaries (borders) go to war, and the stronger subjugates the weaker, and then "changes the border", I have found the same is true in my interpersonal relationships, if I don't enforce my boundary it teaches us both codependent manipulation, and many other forms of covert warfare or even full frontal warfare, it's just unhealthy with bad results for me

It's said that an expectation is a resentment waiting to happen, because in this instance we are expecting someone to behave in way that -we- want, even if we think it is fair, and it very well may be, it may be a -bottom line- or -deal breaker- behavior, but the single most important thing about boundaries is coming up with realistic ones and then holding to them no matter what, otherwise we just teach people our boundaries are meaningless

I spent years wondering why my "boundaries" seemed to work with some poeple but not others, and I automatically labeled the people who didn't "respect my boundaries" as wrong, bad, and sick, when the truth of the matter standing in front of somebody saying the same thing over and over isn't me enforcing a boundary, it's me attempting to modify or control their behavior and then getting sick, literally sick when it doesn't work, I was going to a hardware store for bread, or I was going to a "dry well for water"

Today I try and use "I feel" statements, lets use the dinner as an example, "I feel when you come home late without calling when I have been cooking you dinner, it shows a lack of respect for me, and if you come home late again without calling, I won't prepare your dinner for a month"

end of conversation, no excuses, no

J:ustify

A:rgue

D:efend

E:xplain

This is how I feel and it is non-negotiable, as is my boundary

If my expectation is that this person who has repeatedly come home late without calling will miraculously begin to call and begin respecting me, I have put a guaranteed resentment in the bank, because in my experience if you have to explain something to somebody like common courtesy and respect more then 3 times they are not likely to suddenly "get it", however, if I put down a boundary (an interior action) I can now protect myself from this behavior, hell I might even start going OUT to dinner and might not be home when (s)he gets home

Boundaries are internal, and they -NEVER- ever ever involve someone else changing their behavior, it's how I protect myself from people who -don't- change their behavior, as opposed to -behavioral modification-, which I misttok for boundaries for very many years, there is by definition, no way someone can "not respect my boundary" because my boundary is mine, not theirs, and if they supposedly "don't respect my boundary" I either am in -the wrong relationship- or -have failed to enforce my boundary- it's not on them, it's on me to enforce my own boundaries, whereas the expectation would be "they WILL respect my boundary" and then get upset when they don't...for the 300th time, then maybe give them a lecture about how "If nothing changes, nothing changes" and "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" and completely miss the irony of what I am saying

So expectations are what I have of other people, ways I want -them- to behave, usually after they don't, and boundaries are a way to protect me from others.

Boundaries can also be covert nearly, such as my father for many years liked to say fairly mean (but true) about my mother and her side of the family, for years I tried to get him to stop and all we'd do is fight, I finally learned to say -the moment- he started doing that "oh someone is at the door" or "I'm getting another call" or "I'm going outside to smoke" and he stopped doing it, he just doesn't do it any more

One thing I learned about "defences" is by nature people attack them, that's why they are called "defences, so when I got "defensive" I invited "attack", with a boundary...it's hard to explain, but it's not a defence, it's a way to remove oneself from harms way emotionally speaking, and when my boundaries are healthy, they not only get respected but they almost seem to disappear because they aren't needed, but they HAVE to be firm.

I wrote on this forum for example about helping a family member get sober, and I couldn't do it (my sister) because I lacked the necessary emotional strength to hold as firm with my boundaries as I could with "anonymous" young men, with them I could be merciless, first sign of any BS and they were out, no if's ands or buts, and truthfully, they ALL got sober, and stayed that way for the most part, but with my sister I wasn't able to enforce my boundaries nearly as strongly, they proved to be "negotiable" my sister didn't end up getting sober until years later and we both ended up incredibly angry and hurt with each other, because I was unable to maintain my boundaries with her, I had "expectations" instead, and all it did was harm both of us because I was unable to maintain my boundaries