Please tell the story of a time when you heard, "You're the one who changed," or some variety that suggests that change is bad. Tell us about when someone found discomfort or threat in your growth, recovery, or progress (you can write about your alcoholic relationship, but you don't have to -- growth is threatening in many aspects of life and relationship.)
I feel like the alcoholic in recovery in my life finds discomfort or threat in my growth, recovery, and progress everyday but he will never admit to it. He just finds a reason to lash out or throw an insult my way. Isn't that what someone in varying stages of recovery does? Someone who hasn't experience true recovery and is "only" sober will find discomfort in the boundaries I set around sex and intimacy. If I say I don't want to be intimate when he wants to I'm the one who "isn't any fun anymore." I'm the one who acts "like a bitch" now.
Just Saturday when we were at Publix and we found ourselves shopping together (an activity we enjoyed when we first started dating 10 years ago but grew to more of you can stop after work and get what's on the list on the refrigerator and pick up more beer or hard seltzer while you are there) and I would do it just five years ago because I didn't know he had a problem.
But just Saturday when we were there together and we found ourselves floating down the beer/wine aisle (he was leading, I was just following -- that's more codependency I don't want to address right now) he asks me if "I want something" and if I want something "I should get it because I don't have a problem." He also says in the middle of the store that he doesn't think he actually has a problem (he's been through detox and rehab a year and a half ago) because he can drink one beer now and just enjoy the taste. A year ago I would have fallen for that line. I have more recovery and education in me now to know the difference. I didn't want to make a scene in the grocery store so I just said "no I don't want any." He pushed back and tried to say I was lying. He tried to manipulate me into buying beer. I held my ground. I am growing. He gave me silence for about 10 minutes while he went to the pharmacy to get his prescriptions (an act I've also done for him before I knew not to do for him what he can do for himself). We didn't end up buying alcohol. We checked out and he complained about the price of groceries. He doesn't live in reality. We paid $150 for two of us for the week. It's what we always pay for standard, non-shitty fare.
I'm proud of him for doing things he hasn't done in a while. Going out to the grocery store, doing things with me he used to enjoy, but I'm not enjoying them as much and neither is he. I am growing. It's uncomfortable. He knows it is.
I'm sure there are other examples but I'm too tired to think of more. I forced myself to write this out as part of my healing and I am thankful to the group for forcing me to write out things like this and others.
I don't know how I'm going to navigate the holidays this year. I don't want to invite him to Christmas Eve. The person of last year knows what a bad idea that is. I don't want to hurt his feelings. But I have to know that my feelings are important too. I long for the connection I lost with him but know he's incapable of giving the connection I need right now.
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