My blog entries have tended to coalesce around a theme. When I was active in my alcoholism and desperate need to find “the one,” I would come up with these quirkly, silly themes. I thought I was SOOOO prolific when I was drunk and smoking weed. When I look back now, all I see is the delusion.
Even in early sobriety, I would create all these metaphors in these blogs for what was going on in my life — again, usually with dating and relationships. The metaphors helped me to make sense of what was going on, to categorize it and put it into a little box. I’ve always liked labels and references. They organize my disorganized thoughts. I was attempting to apply some meaning and understanding to what I didn’t understand or really couldn’t understand.
I’m going to try to move beyond that now with this blog. When dealing with life on life’s terms, the cute little metaphors prevent me from really getting to the core of the issue. And the core of the issue is me. This twisted belief that I am not complete as a person without some man in my life to validate me, to love me, to make me whole again. And with that, the twisted belief that I must depend on another person to define who I am. That I am NOT ok alone and I must depend upon the other person for _____________. When I was drinking, it was attention and attachment. In sobriety, it has entirely morphed into caretaking, martyrdom, and superiority.
It all comes from the same place. The hole inside of me. The core belief that I am not worthy, that I am not enough. Changing the very definition of that belief is one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced. It runs so deep. And in the last week, I’ve had to take difficult, decisive action to affect change within me.
My husband is an alcoholic. It was that common ground that brought us together in the first place through AA. I fondly recall those first months where we opened up to each other, talked about recovery and the steps and God in an open, non-controlling manner. There was something so profound and beautiful about falling in love with someone on the same personal journey of spirituality, self-improvement, and redemption.
I was in the process of working the steps again with my second sponsor, really focusing on my spirituality and embracing a God of my understanding. He was also working the steps in his first year of sobriety. Looking back, this was the time that we had the most emotional intimacy. Looking back, the person I fell in love with was this person who was working to become the best version of himself. He had a humility that was downright irresistible.
Denial was also part of this process of falling in love, unfortunately. I felt this urge, this push to manage our relationship, to set lofty goals and drive them forward. Him moving in, meeting the kids, me deciding I wanted to reverse my sterilization, talking about marriage and our future, all of these things. I thought at the time all of these milestones were God’s will, but I was most decisively driving the bus and trying to control the destiny or our relationship.
And through all of this, I began to financially support him. He didn’t even want my help, but again, I pushed and got my way while suffering from the delusion that God had put me in his life to help him. What I didn’t realize I was doing was playing God and becoming his Higher Power in the process. This was but the beginning of me making decisions based on self and fear that stripped him of his dignity and self-respect.
The dynamic between us slowly became more and more dysfunctional. Circumstances pulled him away from the program. We fought more. I felt as if I didn’t recognize this person. And my role shifted from girlfriend to caretaker/sponsor/life coach. It was the only tool I had. I had to protect this shaky structure that I had built for us with my impulsive, selfish decisions, I was in so much fear of it crashing down around me.
I told myself that we had too much on the line, had come too far to give up. There was a wedding planned, there were children now involved, there was time invested. I mistakenly believed that the next thing down the road would fix him and make us happy — be it our wedding ceremony, a baby, him addressing his mental illness, etc. And people had this view of us as this dream couple, these two broken people that met by fate and fell in love under a swirl of romance and destiny. At least, that was my perception. It was this delusion, that the appearance of my relationship was more important than the reality that led me, once again, to act impulsively and ignore my gut feelings.
What would have happened if I had asked to delay the wedding, and given him time and space to work on himself and his issues? Would we be where we are now, where years of dishonesty, denial, codependency, and resentment have warped that foundation of love, trust, and respect?
I don’t know, and I never will. Questions of what might have been are pointless. What matters now is the action I take today.
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I didn’t know what a boundary was before I got sober. Hell, I didn’t truly understand what a boundary was until the last few months. In my first few years of sobriety, I thought a boundary was something you set to try to change the other person’s behavior, i.e. have some control over their actions. What I didn’t know is the person you set the boundary for is not the intended party, it’s for me.
My trust in my husband was boundless when we first got together. Then it changed when his actions didn’t align with his words, his promises. I lost trust in his actions, but I still trusted his words and his honesty. Despite everything, I felt as if he was always honest with me about where he was and what he was feeling. What I didn’t know what that our relationship was built on a foundation of dishonesty. He told me his first lie the night we met, that he had 2 1/2 months sober. He reluctantly picked up sobriety chips for months and years. He had a week when I met him.
When this was revealed after his first relapse in October 2017, the elaborate, delicate structure I had built and maintained for years came crashing down around me. The tiny glimmer of trust and hope I had left melted away. But I didn’t have the tools then to handle it. I didn’t know I was deeply codependent. I reverted to old behavior — managing, caretaking, superiority, martyrdom. It was insanity.
A life raft came floating my way thanks to God — an opportunity to work on my codependency issues that hit the very core of my addictions to alcohol, drugs, control, attention, and love. I began working the 12 steps in December 2017. Change was slow, but I could see it. Things were changing for him too — a psychotic break and the beginnings of emotional abuse. Without these steps, I would have fallen apart. But the work I did helped me to build a new structure — a structure for me.
I learned how to set a boundary and after trial and error, I was able to hold it. He relapsed again in May, June, and July. I set boundaries and the disease of alcoholism walked all over them. I learned, in part, to separate the disease from the person, and I began to comprehend how powerless I was. And how I had blocked God from working in my husband’s life with that very first decision to financially support him. How I blocked God over and over again for years with my need to control, my caretaking, and my managing.
I began slowly to get out of the way as my powerlessness became more and more apparent. This culminated in my defense of my primary boundary last week. In June, after recurring relapses and alcohol in our house, I set the boundary that if he drank again, we would separate for a month. I knew I was powerless over his sobriety and his alcoholism, but this boundary was about my own protection and the protection of the children. Alcoholism had nearly killed me. Active alcoholism in my home threatened to jeopardize my sobriety and recovery.
For the next four weeks, I let go of my husband’s sobriety for the the first time in years. All appearances showed that he was working a program and embracing sobriety. The freedom I felt by letting this go was immense. Our marriage improved. He began a new job and I felt real hope for our relationship. Perhaps we could weather the storm together.
Then God revealed the truth to me. On my commute home on July 16, 2018, I was reaching for my phone in the center console. My eye caught a receipt and the word “Karbach” jumped out to me. I knew Karbach all too well, as that was my beer brand of choice for years. My hope sank. My heart sank. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew what I had to do.
I had just met with my sponsor the week before to work step 9 for Codependents Anonymous, the amends step. Unlike AA, where the focus is solely on who we have harmed, CoDA also asks us to make amends to ourselves. For far too long, I had denied reality, denied my feelings, denied my needs for the sake of the relationship. To not be alone and to fill that void within me. This denial had choked the joy our of my life and blocked me from God and others. And from truly loving myself.
I came home and we spoke immediately. I explained what I had found and he confirmed he had drank again. And then I maintained the boundary and asked for the separation.
It’s been 5 days since he moved out completely. And I feel a newfound freedom today. I feel as if I have stepped out of the way for God to work in his life, and I have less of the obsessive drive to be his Higher Power, his manager, his sponsor, etc. The thoughts still come, but the physical separation, so far, has given me the space to focus on me. To not worry about when he will wake up, when he will do the dishes, how his finances are, if he is being honest with me and if he is truly staying sober. Perhaps it will allow him to get his self-respect back and become an independent person. I can hope, but I can’t expect. That is up to God and him and I have no control over that.
My love for him is actually growing in his absence. I miss his presence, where I used to miss his absence. The years of resentments are starting to melt away. My heart aches for me to be truly vulnerable with him again, to recapture that long-lost emotional intimacy . But I have to stay in today. The fantasy world I create in my head, where I attach my happiness to a rosy future with the hook of hope and his passionate words, is a place I can’t visit safely. I must live in the moment.
I can no longer deny the truth in front of me. I have no control over the outcome of this. I know that this marriage will not survive the continued cycle of dependency and codependency and a fundamental shift must happen for it to endure. I also know that this change will happen if it is meant to happen. It’s time for the God of my understanding to take the wheel.
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