emotions stink

amazeofgrace

A maze of Grace - that about sums it up
After the day i had today, I feel emotionally sucked dry and sick to my stomach!:faint:
 
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totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
That is hard. You want him to recover, stay sober, do better. Yet look what he put you through.
My Father who is sort of recovering from some of his addictions, will want to talk about some of the stuff we went through. I will have to remind him all of the time that I was only a teen, and he did most of it to me. He will stop and think and kind of acknowledge it. But, you can tell he still wants to put it on everyone else.
For some I think admitting to the bad things is just too hard. It equals weakness.
Hang in there, you have come a long way baby!!!
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Yep. Still can plainly see the manipulating it into somehow being all your fault.

Might be a long while (or not at all) until he truely gets it.

((((hugs))))
 

klmno

Active Member
Actually, AOG, in my humble opinion, I'm pretty sure that this IS NOT the apology letter where a person in treatment makes amends.

Like when he says how "un-Godly divorce is" and how "his love is unconditional, but mine isn't". How "he hopes I am honoring God in my decisions"

And the classic lines: "I do not understand how you still love difficult child's unconditionally when they abuse and curse at you, yet you do not forgive or love me that way" and "For better or for worse, means for better or for worse, even if your spouse is putting you through hell"

This part is trying to lay a guilt trip on you- there is no apology.

But the good news is, he realizes I do not want to reconcile, but even if I did, he harbors too many resentments about what I have done in the past year, so we can not reconcile or it would be bad for his recovery.

This part is to manipulate you into a situation where YOU are trying to GET HIM TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER chance.

I think that he thinks he has you snowed.
 
M

ML

Guest
Resentments are the kiss of death in recovery. He has a ways to go. You hang in there, remembering you didn't cause this, you can't sure it and you can't change it. I am very sorry that you are going through this. Big hugs xoxoxo ML
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
AOG,
I agree with KLMNO, it doesn't sound like an apology but a guilt trip. You are not the one who should be feeling guilt. (((hugs)))
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I am sorry he had the nerve to send you that guilt-trip with a stamp and call it part of his therapy. I would guess it might be good ammunition for custody hearings? To show how manipulative he is.

He really IS trying to maneuver you into a position to WANT to reconcile. I hope you don't. Want to reconcile or agree to try to reconcile. It would be unhealthy for you.

As for the unconditional love of the difficult children, they are your CHILDREN. He is NOT. Let HIS mama love him that way. Part of being an adult is knowing when to get out of a bad relationship.

Hugs, know lots of prayers and love are coming your way!!!
 
F

flutterbee

Guest
Yeah, he's not working the program. The program that requires the addict to take responsibility for their own addiction and their actions and how those actions have impacted others.

He's still busy blaming everyone else for his problems.

Get that divorce. Get him off your insurance.

This is on HIM, AOG, not you. Stay strong.

(((hugs)))
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Ditto to what others have said. His recovery is not about you. It's about HIM. Where are those divorce papers and when will they be signed? Time for you to move on in a hurry. I'm sorry you felt so battered by his letter. Don't let him do that to you any more.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
That's an APOLOGY? Sheeesh! That sounds like something my ex would have come up with! They sure do have a way of turning it around and making it all someone else's fault! If that's how he feels, I don't think that his attempts at recovery are working.
 

WhymeMom?

No real answers to life..
susiestar stated correctly the faulty thinking about unconditional love for difficult child's......they are CHILDREN and he (supposedly) is an ADULT........Yep, he is still looking for others to blame, can't take resposibility that this is HIS fault.......NO RESPONSE to him, other than move forward with divorce......
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
I started Occupational Therapist (OT) write him back, I am ashamed to say the 1st 3 tear stained drafts read "I love you, I always have, I always will" yadda yadda yadda and kept getting stuck after that with nothing else to write, I threw them away,

AOG, grieving the death of a dream is very hard. It hurts. A lot. However, you had the strength to NOT send the letters and to throw them away. Writing them probably helped to get some of the raw emotions out of your system. But, sending them would have been to give S2BX power over you that he does not deserve and has no right to have.


he is trying to blame me and manipulate me, and in the past it always worked, he even threw in about having a close friend there that is a woman, and it did bother me, he knew it would.
If he were truly trying to work his program and apologize, he would not be lashing out at you, and doing things that he KNOWS will hurt you.

I may write him back, my counselor is begging me to let her write him back, she promises she would be "constructive" and "fair and balanced" But for write now I am not going to do anything rash.
For now, I think you made the right decision to leave off writing. Give yourself lots of time to be still and quiet and listen to your heart, and to your gut feelings. Writing him may be the right choice, but it may just end up opening yourself up for more hurt. Only you know the answer to that. JMO, but I would hold off writing for now. Sometimes no response is answer enough.


HUGS to you AOG.
Don't let the toad see you cry.

Trinity
 

klmno

Active Member
Busywend might be on to something- I'm not convinced that he had already gone far enough in treatment to get that assignment, but sending a copy (you need to keep a copy or the original) would help them deal with X. The sooner you get the message out there that you aren't falling for this **** anymore, the sooner you get stronger and get control of your own life. If you do this, oone day you will see just how manipulative this man is. I think a therapist might help you see that you have the battered wife condition- I don't know of the foraml name- but it takes a little more than seeing that to get past it. It would be in your and your kids best interest to get past it, for many reasons, in my humble opinion.
 
He should have ran that letter by his sponsor first. I would guess that if he had, the sponsor would not have given his blessing to send you that letter.

That was NOT an apology.

Making amends means the addict apologizes (and they are very specific about this) for HIS OWN shortcomings, and not mentioning anything about what he feels was a wrongdoing to him.
I had to bite my tongue an awful lot when making my amends to Matt. I was not allowed to mention how he was an out-of-work, non-money-earning, never-cleaning-the-house, hissy-fit-throwing LOSER.

In addition, if he were truly working the program correctly and making a proper amends, he would realize that you did what you did this past year for your very survival. Instead, he is taking it as a personal attack against him.

Dude's gotta work on his own self before he goes pointing the finger.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Amaze,

I think your counsellor's request to send a letter to ex is interesting. Maybe you can ask her to write one so that you can see it. Sometimes seeing things in black-and-white makes us understand them better. It might help you deal with all of this.

I also think that you may have spousal abuse syndrome, or whatever it is now called. Battered woman syndrome? Even if he never laid a finger on you, he was very abusive. I think that is why it isn't battered woman syndrome. It would be good to ask your counsellor about that. In addition, if you are NOT already getting services from the domestic violence place in your area, GO THERE. The resources there are amazing. they probably will be able to even help you get your own place.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
My eldest sister STILL has spousal abuse syndrome. He never laid a finger on her either, but his words were vicious. He left her after 25 years of marriage and she was alone (he remarried one of his mistresses) for the next 15 years. She's had a good man in her life since then - it's now 23 years since her first husband left. She remarried a few years ago. But I still hear her negative attitude to herself emerge at times and I have to chip her about it. We just visited her for a week and a number of times I heard her say, "I don't have the brains to understand that," or "I'm too stupid."

I said to her, "That's your ex talking, you should not be letting him still have any power over you."

The sad thing about her - the ex's second wife died a few years ago. And the first thing he did was to go round to see my sister (after nearly 20 years with someone else, and after he had verbally abused her and the kids their entire marriage) and ask her to take him back.

And you know? She said if she hadn't by this stage just met her new fella, she would have taken him back!

THAT is an example of the damage spousal abuse can cause, decades later.

Marg
 
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