Staying Or Going.

All this talk about staying and going and choosing has made me go back to the time when I had my first big breakthrough with Nar-Anon. I came home one night from a meeting, and I was in the tub, which is the site of many if my best realizations...it came to me that no matter which path I took with my husband, what I needed to do was focus on me.

The work that I was doing in Nar-Anon...the things that I was learning...these were the things that I needed to stick it out with my husband or to be able to leave. To learn to accept that his addiction is not my problem was critical. Never since that night have I thought, "But if I leave him, what will he do?" I stayed with my first husband for far too long because of thinking these kinds of thoughts...wondering what would happen to him if I left and thinking of how sad he'd be.

He was sad. It was hard. But he's FINE.

And if I leave this man, he'll be fine, too.

And learning that his mess is not my problem was important for me to be able to stay. I'm still working on it, but I'm getting better. A few nights ago, he was making a list of goals for himself. When he is doing something like that, he usually wants me to sit next to him an feed goals to him. Generally, I'm all too eager to comply, to give him my insight and wisdom and answers (hah), and then, he wakes up the next day, and he doesn't want to do any of the stuff on the list, and I get my heart broken. So most recently, I said, "I don't think it's a good idea for me to help you. Why don't you just come up with a few small goals that you know you can accomplish and that you know will make you feel good?"

And of course, he's only done a few of the things on the list...and that's ok, because it's not my list.

It took me a while to remember that not everyone has that urge to get an A+ on every assignment. If I make a list of goals, I'll do them, all, and do them to perfection. I'm a nerd like that...but that's another post.

So I'm rambling...but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I found it really empowering when I recognized that no matter which path I choose with my husband, what I needed was to focus on myself, making myself strong and happy.