Copendency and Relapses

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I love daisies. They are my favorite flower.


This week I've been working on decreasing my codependency. I've realized that as much as I hate to admit it, I'm still struggling with that. It's not so much me hounding his every move, checking his phone, and creating passwords so he can only access the internet when I let him. It's more along the lines of I have attachment and security issues. They stem from failed relationships in my past along with the addiction problems.

My codependency is like this: we need to spend as much time together as we can. I'm kind of clingy and needy.  I mean, he is my husband, and I love him. I obviously want to spend lots of time with him. Plus, because of our problems from the addiction, I want to spend even more time with him because that's part of how I feel safe. Because I have attachment problems, it's sometimes hard for me to let go of him. It's like when a child has attachment issues with their parent, when their "secure base", the parent, is out of sight, the child can't function properly. I stress out when I can't spend the time with him that I think I need. It kind of drives him crazy sometimes but he is a good sport with my neediness. 

One character trait I am working on developing is the ability to just do our thing and be supportive. I don't like feeling so needy. For example, I really look up to the wives of general authorities. They are so selfless. They seem like they have such good relationships, and yet they probably don't get tons of time together. I want that. I want to be able to still feel solid in my relationship even if we are extremely busy. I want to be able to be supportive of where life takes the both of us and still feel totally in love and all that supportive wife stuff. 

Last weekend, I started stressing about the things coming up: mainly school starting. I have a lot of responsibiliies, both in regards to school and in regards to other things in my life. I'm afraid we won't get much time together. Let's be honest: we won't have much time together. Rather than allowing myself to get stressed and nonfunctional about it, I decided to put my brave face on and accept that we will both be busy. We will both be busy. And that is okay. Things are going to get really hard. And that is okay. I realized I have to have a change in attitude and perspective. So, I decided to take life head-on and just know it's okay. I didn't know I could make that decision. I didn't know I had it in me, but I do. Every time things have gotten busy and I've started dwelling on the things I think I don't have time for, namely the time I want to spend talking to Jack, I just remind myself it's okay. We didn't have much time to talk about our days today? That's okay--I'll tell him the important stuff tomorrow. I have been crazy busy this week with professional development and housekeeping stuff for school, but things have been pretty awesome overall, and it feels good to know that I made the decision that eveyrthing will be okay.

I've been really happy this week. I've learned tons at my professional development sessions and collaboration. I feel so excited and so ready for school to start. My change of attitude has been helpful, and I really can't wait for all the craziness to start on Monday! 

Last night, I was expressing my happiness, excitement, and all that to Jack. It's really been an amazing week. As I was pouring out my heart (it was the first time we had really sat down and talked all week), he let the bomb drop.

"Marie, I have to tell you something. It's bad." 

 

Multiple relapses this week. He had almost a month of sobriety going for him, and this week it came back. Yesterday was the worst day. He made the choice. He didn't even deny it or blame it on the addiction. When I asked what happened, he said, "I chose to do it."

What do you do? Does it happen that way for anyone else? That's how it happens quite often with me. I'm finally getting a hold on the peace and feeling good. I'm trusting again. I'm feeling happy. And then BAM! I find out things aren't as good as they seem.

I kept my cool, though. I was even supportive. I found the good in the situation and told him I was proud of those things (I really don't like being negative. I'm big on positive reinforcement). We kept talking. Went to sleep. I woke up and went to work. 

On my way to work, I pondered and prayed. I was listening to my recovery playlist, and I was strengthened by the messages of the songs I chose to put on that playlist. Through all of my pondering this morning, I asked myself, how do I pass over this burden? I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to feel depressed. But I don't want to ignore it. I can't deal with this right now. I have too much to do for school. I worry about him. I'm worried it will happen again today. I'm worried he will get depressed. I had all these thoughts swirling through my mind, and I didn't know how to let go. And then all of the sudden, this visual came to me of me just taking off my bags and literally handing them over to Christ. I've heard of that before, but whenever I try to visualize it, it doesn't work. It has never worked for me until this morning, and I physically felt myself hand it all over and Him taking it from me. It was amazing. And I felt peace and calm.

I've been writing this post on and off at school during my spare free minutes (during breaks when people are just chatting and we are waiting on the next thing). That peace and calm has stayed with me. Even when Jack texted me saying he did it again. Today was the same as yesterday. 

I feel strength. I know that I am strong. All I said to him in response is "We are going to have to defer back to throwing out the money-changers. Let's talk about it later." I don't know what I'll do. I'll definitely set boundaries, but I don't know what they will be. I don't know how much I should take control, either. If you remember that post, I talked about taking more control in a loving way, rather than codependent. I'm praying to find that line so I can do what I need to do out of love and not get caught in codependency.

So, I guess there will be an update after I figure this all out. Sorry if this seems choppy at all. Like I said, I've been writing it on and off at school all day.