Just thought I'd share an excerpt from my personal journal:
One minute I feel strong and confident about my decision to leave STBX. I don’t worry about being alone; I realize it’s much more peaceful without him, and that I actually feel quite content and busy enough in my life to not need him. Then I’m going about my day, and BOOM a strike of terror runs though me. “How will I live without the man I love?” “I feel so empty, so lonely.” “Who will I tell my random thoughts to or tell something funny I heard?” “Who will I share my day with? My problems, worries and fears (other than him)?” He can be so compassionate and caring in difficult circumstances. Why does he have to have good qualities? Those qualities are what seem to slowly draw me back to him. Its times like these that it seems so easy and relieving and natural to fall back into the pattern of letting him back in. And it is—for a while. Then, he fucks up again, whether it’s a lie or a negative trait he displays Or, most recently, when he went on another drinking binge. Before he left that night, I cried to him in fear that he would do the same thing he always does when he drinks. He'll tell me he’ll keep in touch, and come back to be with me afterwards. As I sat on the kitchen floor, sobbing with my head in my hands, he stooped to my level, pulled my face upwards towards his, looked me straight in the eye and said, “I promise I’ll be back. I won’t fuck up again”. I wanted so badly to believe him. But deep, or maybe not so deep, down inside I knew he wouldn’t be back. And he wasn’t. He was MIA, a no show, whatever you want to call it. Until 4:30am I got a call from an unfamiliar number so I didn’t answer it, but I suspected it was him. The voicemail bell sounded and I listened with a sunken heart as he mumbled drunkenly, “Help me Lisa, I’m so lost. I don’t know where my cell phone is, I don’t know where my car keys are. I don’t want to lose you Lisa, I know I fucked up. Please. I need help.” I didn’t speak to him until late morning when I finally answered his calls.
“So what was it this time?” I asked. “How’d it get so out of hand AGAIN?”
He gave me some bullshit story about starting at one bar which led to another bar and another etc…
“I didn’t even cross your mind?” I asked him.
“Yes, you did”, he responded.
“Then why in the fuck did you do this? Why didn’t you text me, or call me? Why do you just go silent and say nothing? It worries me and you know that! Why would you purposely do that to me?”
He didn’t really have a good answer and I still don’t understand it. If he loves me so much, how he can put me through such worry and misery? He mumbled something about losing track of things and time when he’s drinking.
Now, almost a week later he is saying that he will go back to AA and get sober again. “I did it before and I’ll do it again”, he says. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But I am learning though therapy and reading “Codependent no More”, that it’s not MY problem whether he gets sober or not. Which I do and do not agree with. It IS my problem if his drinking begins to affect his job, which would then affect my child support. It IS my problem when our daughter is older and asks, “Mommy? Why didn’t Daddy come to pick me up today?” So I guess my question is, how do I not let his drinking affect me when it directly and indirectly does??
Does anyone have any ideas or similar experiences to share?
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