It Has Nothing To Do With You. Really.

I read somewhere recently that "The alcoholic isn't drinking at you."  They're not doing it, in other words, to upset you, to irritate you, to piss you off, to make you depressed and wonder why the hell you married them.  Although you may wonder that.  Alcoholics drink because they're alcoholics.  They may try to blame it on someone or something.  But it isn't personal.

It's a shame that it took two weeks of really phenomenally romantic, sweet and thoughtful behavior on the part of my husband to catalyze the epiphany that you know what?  Wow.  This has nothing to do with me.  I've been the same - doing the same sweet things, talking the same, texting the same, asking the same questions, doing my own thing.  It's him that has come around.

I say it's a shame because for most of us - for me, anyway - the crappier things said to me have always been easier to believe, as if it is the truth being reflected back to me through the behavior of others.  This poor treatment leads to me feeling somehow to blame.  And it starts with the Why's - Why is he doing this?  Why is he suddenly acting this way?  Why is he like this to me?  Why does he treat me and only me like this?  Then there are the How's - How does this happen?  How does he think this is okay?  How can he not see what this is doing to me?  How does this happen?  Inevitably the Why's and the How's lead to the Maybe's.  Maybe if I hadn't said this.  Maybe if I tried doing that.  Maybe if next time I make sure this.  Maybe it's because he needs more sleep.  Maybe he's really truly actually upset about that.  

Then comes the self-blame, the guilt, and down the rabbit hole I go, sucked into the darkness with a pinhole of light above me that I can't see.  I'm hopeless, helpless, out of control and out of my mind with fear, stuck in The Past and scared to death of The Future.  Meanwhile, The Present goes by and if I am not worried, distraught and depressed, I busy myself with distractions - some healthy, some not so healthy.  But mostly I ponder The Dilemma, which is What Am I Going To Do?  And the wind blows, and The Present slips away, and there I am moving along into The Future that I'm so afraid of, looking over my shoulder into The Past.

Today's meeting topic was "letting go and starting over."  Lightbulb.  "I've forgotten that phrase, 'Let go or be dragged' " I shared today, and went on to describe the analogy of my current experience, which is me clinging for life to a rope tied to my husband's truck as he drags me along, "Oh, go ahead and go wherever you want and just drag me along, I'll just be hanging back here for the bumps and twists and turns."  But you can't yank a truck to a stop as you're being pulled by it any more than you can stop the direction an alcoholic is moving toward and pull them back to reality, reign them in.

This is, in my mind, a Step 1 issue.  "Focusing on anyone else but ourselves keeps us in denial" was part of the lead today, and it's so true - the more I focus on his behavior, the more I start to wonder why, and how, and think maybe, and pretty soon I think well, I could fix this somehow.  Which is the illusion of control.  And remember - the Three C's tell us that we didn't Cause it, can't Control it, and can't Cure it.  So thinking that I'm somehow to blame, that maybe if I do x it will fix it, completely goes against this wise acronym.

It is so much easier, I have found, to lovingly detach when things are consistently bad than when there is a dramatic change for the better in our circumstances.  Suddenly I am right there where I used to be, feeling connected with my husband, forgetting that yes, this too shall pass, and when the pendulum swings the other way I find myself just absolutely crushed.  And I must tell you all that I cannot remember a time in the recent past several years in which my husband had been this consistently good to me.  I don't just mean the absence of fits or tantrums or emotional/verbal abuse - I mean proactively kind and thoughtful treatment.  To have him switch back so quickly was a swift kick to the groin of my heart.  So to speak.  I have been devastated and despondent, grieving and angry.

So for now, I am trying to remember that this has nothing to do with me.  I'm a good wife to my husband.  I am far from perfect and I make my mistakes, but throughout I do my conscious best to remain loving and kind.  In no way do I deserve unacceptable behavior, and in no way does his drinking or tantrums have anything to do with me.  My husband has his choices, though he may not see this or understand them, and I have mine.  My choices and my behavior are my property - his are his.  It doesn't matter if he says he's upset for this reason or that.  Even if I have screwed up or said something rude, my husband does not need to react the way he usually does.  He has his choices.

It has nothing to do with me.  Really.