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Post Info TOPIC: Am i protecting myself....or just hurting him?


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Am i protecting myself....or just hurting him?
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i'm reading Co-Dependent No More....I'm trying to "detach" as Al Anon tells me....I'm hurting. My AH and I separated. He's a sweet guy..but his drinking and drugs got out
of control and I found myself more of a caretaker than a wife. We live pretty close to each other so I let him into my life again ...with limitations. I love him....I just can't live with him while he is drinking.

HE came to my new home with a pizza on Friday night...in a down pour...and it was a nice visit together- he was sober. We agreed to have dinner again tonight. I was going to bring food to my old house  and pick up some things. Then i thought I was falling into
codependence again...and i canceled. I hurt him...and I feel awful
Help, someone.

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Detaching with love takes practice.  When I first started I was like a bull in a china shop, pushing the recipients of this behavior away saying I was detaching, yet I was just in the mode of "I'm not doing anything nice for you anymore!"

I am still practicing.  What I am aiming for is not enabling the other person, not doing for them what they are capable of doing for themselves.  Not caretaking.  Not feeding into their unhealthy behaviors at the expense of myself.

Linistea

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Personally, I don't see it as a codependent act to get together for a meal... as long as I am considering myself in the plan, and not showing up with an ulterior motive. I have to eat. Sometimes I plan the cooking when I get together with someone.... because I like to do that, and I'm good at that. I do it for me. Difference between me today and me back then is, today, I will not people-please and make all their favorite things if I don't like it too... today, I consider what I like/don't like too.... heck, I didn't even know what I liked and didn't like before!!!

It gets confusing, no doubt. The goal is to watch my motives and to take myself into consideration too. Is it WRONG to plan a meal and cook for someone you love? Maybe you would do certain things differently next time... ? My sponsor always said, "take care of yourself, whatever that looks like" To me, it's something I enjoy doing, it is taking care of myself because I happen to like my cooking, hahaha

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Alexmaui wrote:

i'm reading Co-Dependent No More....I'm trying to "detach" as Al Anon tells me....I'm hurting. My AH and I separated. He's a sweet guy..but his drinking and drugs got out
of control and I found myself more of a caretaker than a wife. We live pretty close to each other so I let him into my life again ...with limitations. I love him....I just can't live with him while he is drinking.

HE came to my new home with a pizza on Friday night...in a down pour...and it was a nice visit together- he was sober. We agreed to have dinner again tonight. I was going to bring food to my old house  and pick up some things. Then i thought I was falling into
codependence again...and i canceled. I hurt him...and I feel awful
Help, someone.




One of the things I learned about learning healthy behaviors is I got confused about setting boundaries, relationship addiction, people pleasing, enabling etc like it all turned into one big mish mash, I'd attempt behavioral modification and call it setting a boundary, I'd with hold love and call it "not enabling" I'd set my boundaries in their yard and then say "I am protecting myself" so the whole thing just got confusing, so what I did, am doing is educating myself about what behaviors are what. one way I did that was by working the steps with a good sponsor, that taught me in many cases to learn about my motives in taking certain actions, it taught me, is teaching me how to align my actions with my motives

Boundaries are there to protect us from the harmful actions of others so:

I love him....I just can't live with him while he is drinking.

Means if he drinks I walk away while he is drinking, not try to get him to stop drinking, but keep his drinking from being part of my life, this would include always driving my own car and if he drinks hopping in it and driving away, whether it leads him stranded or not, I can explore that boundary further, such as I -can't- be in a relationship with a drinker -or- I just can't be in a relationship with him while he is actually drinking

Was him bringing you Pizza him enabling you?

I was going to bring food to my old house  and pick up some things. Then i thought I was falling into codependence again

I'd ask myself what kind of codie behavior would this be?

For me if it was to protect myself from getting emotionally entangled and enmeshed with someone in active addiction to cancel that would be appropriate and my call, if it was to withhold affection it wouldn't be OK, if it was to not feed him, because he should damn well feed himself, that wouldn't be cool, he brought pizza after all, if it was because I was frightened of re-falling in love and losing myself in an unhealthy relationship it would be appropriate

So For me it would be about asking the hard questions, what are my motives for not visiting him really? and not using some new age "I'm not visiting him to enforce a boundary" that hides my real reasons from myself as well as everyone else, for me this whole process is about getting down to causes and conditions

 



-- Edited by LinBaba on Thursday 10th of March 2011 09:24:36 AM

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Thank you so much for the wisdom in those answers. i have no idea what my motives are most times. I'm just getting to know myself all over again. Today, I'll forgive myself and move on.


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Alexmaui wrote:

Thank you so much for the wisdom in those answers. i have no idea what my motives are most times. I'm just getting to know myself all over again. Today, I'll forgive myself and move on.



 Hey, there J, welcome to the board. I'm new @ this codependent/emotional dependent recovery thing,  but not to 12 steps. I'm learning that "my" boundry's have not been boundry's, but minipulating. And it is taking some self invintory to desern that. One thing I know is that if 'My" boundry was not a boundry and it was sometihng else, and it hurt someone, I would owe an amends.  just sayin.



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I just want to add a thought or two.  Maybe saying yes and then canceling was not the way you'd want things to go regularly, and that's good to avoid.  I imagine during your time together he's broken some commitments too.  I know I tend to blame myself horribly for everything I've done wrong (and that's a lot of things!), while allowing him a lot more leeway.  So do allow yourself as many chances as he got. smile

Also -- I know all too well that creeping back to the way things were.  My therapist told me once, "Well, sometimes you have to keep touching that stove to see if it's really hot."  So good for you for taking your hand away from the stove before you got burnt again, even though you had to do it in an awkward way.  It's so easy to think that one pleasant evening means all the terrible evenings were just an illusion (because that's what we're always hoping). 

Take what fits and keep taking care of yourself.

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I'm certainly NO expert on setting boundaries...but what works for me, a beginning boundary setter is just listening to my feelings surrounding situations. If I feel that something's wrong- that gut feeling of "uh oh this isn't right" then I know a boundary probably needs to be set. I have to be careful not to set way too many boundaries. We don't want to be doormats, allowing anyone to walk all over us, but we also don't want to be cacti- allowing NO ONE TO GET CLOSE! I figure when I get better at this I can try more preventive boundary setting. For now, this is a start and it's good enough. Heather

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