This is a response I wrote to a friend…
—–
But if you are unable to give up Grant, doesn’t that mean you are addicted to him?
You will start thinking about him regularly, impatient to see him, excited to tell him about your day, and there you will be, stuck. You need to date, meet new people, go to meetups, join a book club, in addition to seeing him.
Otherwise, he is an addiction. You want/need to be wanted and needed, and is fulfilling that. You’ve stated that you are only friends and f-buddies, but at the same time, you are going out of your way to spend time with him.
Can you go a week without seeing him or talking to him? If not, then there is a problem. If you can, without missing him too much, great. Otherwise, if you are certain it’s not love or simply need, you might need to look at it from a different perspective. Could you love him? Would you be willing to spend the rest of your life with him? If you did, would you be “settling”?
Are you relieved when you go home? Or when he goes home? Does his drinking bother you?
Have you made your pro and con list about having him in your life? What do you have in common? What is he filling in your life?
So many questions that need to be considered.
DJ knew from the start that I did not love him, nor would I ever love him, yet he fell in love with me.
People from the past sometimes need to touch our lives, but then return to our past. Sometimes, it is different. It sounds like you are living in your past, the way he was before, rather than seeing him for who he is now.
If he is a project and you want to help him, he will fall in love with you. How easy is it for you to be the bitch? To get rid of him? Are you passive aggressive and the type to hope he will find someone new to take him off your hands? (being the victim, even though, deep down, you wanted him gone until he IS gone?) Or can you, stop things on a dime with no questions asked, and cut all ties completely?
I was passive aggressive with DJ. I kept hoping he would find someone else. It was ugly. I finally had to put my foot down, give him a date, and tell him he would be out of my life by that date. It was ugly and sad.
Are you getting enough YOU time, or is it all spent with Grant and your kids?
Everything is choices, but do you see any patterns repeating? Watch for the patterns. Listen to your friends. If they start telling you that you are acting or thinking the same you were before, you are trapped in a pattern. Change is needed, it is important.
You will spend more and more time sick, miserable, and defending yourself to others as well as yourself until you get back on your correct path.
I don’t know well enough if you are supposed to be helping him, but I can tell you, from your posts, that he, as of the times you have wrote about him, is not your soul-mate.
Don’t miss your true soul-mate because of “helping” or because of not paying attention or giving others a chance….
—
Her response:
Hi,
A lot of what you asked are good questions and I can’t answer them without thinking about them first but I do know this; I can go without him. This Saturday was the first time we saw each other in two weeks. I won’t see him this weekend because a friend of mine asked me to spend some time with her. I do not get ME time…it’s extremely rare. So yeah, my time during the week and most weekends is the kids and then, there are the nights I’m able to go to Grant but usually, I can’t stay the night.
No, I probably can’t be the bitch, I am passive aggressive for sure. I haven’t been the victim for the last six months. That was my M.O. my whole life until what I like to call my spiritual awakening happened after my last relapse. I take responsibility for all my choices.
No, I would not marry Grant nor would I want a serious relationship with him. We are two extremely different people, regardless of his drinking. While he is passionate sexually, he is not a passionate person in general and I need that for a real relationship to exist. His drinking is what it is. For his sake, I wish he’d quit but it is the one thing that for sure guarantees that there will never be a relationship. I don’t feel that he’s a project. I know I cannot fix him. I’ve had Alanon shoved down my throat too. So, it’s not about fixing him.
Yes, there is some very weird thing going on with my early teenage years right now. I have a couple friends from junior high on my facebook page now and have been talking with one of them quite a bit. He has opened my eyes to the fact that I was not vilified or thought of as poorly as I thought I was. This has been surprising to me and made me realize how much of my life has been based on self-hatred and my own hatred of self has affected my perceptions on how others perceived me. I just know there’s some learning and growing that’s supposed to be happening and not sure how to turn it into something I can read so to speak.
While I want to be loved by someone and I want to give love, I do know it’s not Grant. When I say I love him, I am speaking on a human/friend level. I am not saying I am in love with him. I do admit to needing to be needed however. It feels good, it does. Loved? Like I said, I would like to be and I am by Grant but I really believe it’s in the same way I love him. He has not alluded to anything other than that.
I really don’t believe it’s crossed any lines into addiction though I do admit that there are unhealthy parts to this.
So…I don’t know. I guess after two and a half years, it just feels damn good to be touched again and to be held again and maybe therein lies my addiction, although it could be to anyone, I don’t believe it’s centered in Grant.
Hugs back,
—-
And in return:
Ah-ha!
Yes, good. An addiction to being loved, touched and held. That is a good addiction, we all want that… but we must pick the right people for it..
Just be careful. Don’t end up thinking that he is the only one you can get… you are so much better than that..
Good to know you aren’t seeing him regularly. That’s much more healthy, but if it starts getting so that you must see him daily, for those hugs and love, it’ll be time to run.
It’s tough being the bitch. Especially when you don’t see yourself as better than that. *sigh* I had a huge problem in college; I would talk to everyone. Some people, guys, usually from other countries, would think that I liked them and would try to wean their way into my life. It was sad. It was such a tough decision to watch myself to see how I acted, that I could not act the same way with everyone because so many people just picked up on the wrong stuff. “Oh wow! She’s nice to me! No one else is nice to me, so she must really like me!” That was the first heartbreak of my life. (The second being when I realized I was a sex symbol and how many people stopped being my friend once they realized I was not going to have sex with them. They must stimulate me visually and intellectually and chemically before I will have sex. And some you just want as friends… and then.. well, that’s another story, LOL)
*grin*
We always think the worst in high school. Kids are so cruel. Even if they didn’t think the things we though they were, they were still awful so much of the time. There were so many cliques. We really need to do something about the world for our children, but I honestly don’t know how. High school makes ’em or breaks ’em and that’s just WRONG!!!!
I don’t know if it is some sorta process that we must accomplish, but I don’t think it is that way in other countries. Too many pare
nts with attitudes that are passed on to the children. Too many parents who bully their children, creating bullies. Too many parents who don’t care.. and the good children are the ones who suffer. (well, actually, the bad children too.. soooo much suffering for children of all sorts).
It’s a sad world. The world needs a change. I think it is coming…. We’re due for a new age that will bring better understanding and higher levels of spirituality.
Wow.
LOL
Sometimes, in the mornings, I tend to ramble. (Who am I kidding, it’s not just mornings! LOL)
*huggles* and love,
—-
A while later:
Hey everyone,
I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over in these latest blogs. I got a lot of personal emails from people on my last blog, people who were concerned.
As far as Grant and that whole thing, he finally called last night and for the first time in my life, I got up the courage to tell someone how I was feeling about things they had done/said. I cried, which I hate because I do think that sometimes women use that as a manipulative ploy but it’s the first time I’ve ever stood up for myself or told someone that they hurt me. He just sat there for a time and then he said, “I’ve got to get my head on straight. I never meant to cause you harm and I’m so sorry.” He kept saying over and over that it’s not ok and that he doesn’t want to hurt me, that was never his intention. Not just about the sex thing I talked about last time but some of the mean things he’s said and how they make me feel. He said that it wouldn’t happen again.
We both flat out stated and I was the one who really asserted this, that we’re not meant for each other, that he will not be the one for me. He did say though that I won’t leave because I love it to much. I thought that was pretty arrogant and I told him so but he said, “well, is it true”. I don’t want it to be true but it is but that doesn’t mean I still can’t leave. Yes, it’ll suck to be without a sexual partner once again but I can do this.
He really really believes that when he can stop paying child support and have all his money that then he’ll be happy and that is all he will need. I shake my head and sigh…and tell him, when that time comes and you bitch to me about how your life is imperfect and unfulfilling, I will remind you of this moment. I told him happiness is an inside job, at least that’s what I’m finding, ya know? Anytime you rely on anything other than yourself and your God/s for happiness, you will always come up empty. We talked about that too, the emptiness I feel when I leave his place in the morning and how it feels like using to me. He understood and he said that I’m right, the most important thing is always my kids. He told me the reason he doesn’t want to come to my place is that he’s paranoid the kids’ll come in my room while we’re….you know. He said he doesn’t want to meet them and risk hurting them too. Meaning – letting them get to know him and get close to him and then if things ended badly for us…they’d be out another guy they had gotten close too. He doesn’t know my kids. Jon, if he gets close to someone, is close to them as long as HE chooses to be and if him and Grant became buds, they would stay that way regardless of what happened to Grant and I. My 11 year old simply wouldn’t get close to him. She’s seen to much. Some of that is my fault. For many years when I was using and the first two years of my sobriety, or rather my attempt at sobriety, I kind of treated my kids as confidants. I know now that was wrong and I don’t do it anymore, although I’m still guilty of being completely open with my kids. I’m trying to realize and assert that it’s ok for adults to have some things that are private and not shared with their kids. But R would get hurt. She’s so much like me it is scary. She is VERY male dependent and eats up all attention she can get from men. R shocked me last night though because out of the blue in the car, she said, “I really wish things would’ve worked out with you and…(I’ll not name him here, he’s on my MySpace and he and I are friends again and that’s cool but not naming him – he knows who he is)”, she said, “he was so much fun and you guys always laughed and had fun and included us.” I told her that yeah, that would’ve been nice but it wasn’t meant to be and he’s still in our lives and if she wants to hang out with him sometime, I could ask him, just as long as she understood that he and I wouldn’t be hanging out with the intention of rekindling anything. I was shocked though because usually, when it comes to men, she has been very clear on the fact that she doesn’t want one in MY life, she doesn’t want one in HER life. It kind of blew me away and made me realize she’s gone through her own process of forgiveness too. I think if my friend reads this, he would be happy to hear that too!!
Anyways, so Grant asked where we go from here and I told him give me some time. I’m pretty clear on the sex piece and I don’t think it’s healthy for us to be involved that way. As far as a friendship, I told him give me some space, call if you need to, the friendship is there no matter what, my heart and my head just need a little recoup time. He’ll probably call this weekend and want me to go to him. I have to be strong, call on Thor, strike your hammer, make it so…I have to remember that icky, empty feeling when I walk out of his door in the morning with cuz I really, really hate that feeling…and that’s my gut telling me, “this isn’t for you baby.”
Sigh. Live and learn, hurt a little, live and learn, etc, etc, etc.