Sitting her eating lunch with my son and pondering all that I could have (still will) accomplished if I hadn’t spent years of my life channelling all my energy into my spouses recovery/lack thereof and learned to redirect it on myself, my recovery, and my life.
What could you have done if you channeled your wasted energy into something productive??
Ooh good question. I try not to think of it like that. I was (still legally) married to a functioning addict for 11 years. For the past five or so years I’ve been in love with an advanced stage alcoholic. Something about these patterns in my relationships tells me I need/needed to learn something. With my ex-husband it was self-worth and boundaries. I allowed way too many toxic things to happen. In the end, I too became toxic, unhappy, wasn’t always a top notch parent, fell in love with someone else, and partook in a lifestyle that wasn’t me. My relationship with current S/O has taught me about unconditional love, patience, setting boundaries, communication, self-care, and hope. But also, While all that was going on I completed my masters degree, bought a house, raised two children as best as could, saved money, grew in my career, and developed a ton of close friendships. In some ways, we are all built up of fragments of both success and failure. We are a product of our past trauma and pain. It’s our own job to heal that. I think the failures are messages to ourselves.
I probably didn’t answer your question. I guess In hindsight if I had had better boundaries in place, none of the stuff would have happened with my marriage or carried on as long as it did. Honestly, the person I am today would have never married him. But all of that happened. And a lot of good came from that too. Him and I are friends, we have two awesome kids, and I found out what real love is for me. And In my case, I’m happen to be in love with an alcoholic. And honestly I can’t regret any of it.
What about you?
Wow such a raw question @Awlee090 and beautiful response @Jess. I’m contemplating too and agree it’s all how we perceive and make sense of things for ourselves. I guess it also makes me think about how prevalent addiction is - 1 in 7 Americans will struggle with it in their lifetime and that means so many of us families are affected, and Johann Hari summarizes that the opposite of addiction is connection. I guess it makes me think that for those of us who are affected, because there are and will be so many, how can we deal with it most efficiently and compassionately - that’s what I’ve tried to do here and in our course. Some initial thoughts 