Don't torture yourself just love who you are little by little every day

Yellowly,

I understand how you feel. I've been in relationships where I dreaded every interaction with the other person. I spent the majority of my time wishing I wasn't around her because it would frustrate and hurt me so much. Then, when someone would seem as though she was going to separate from me, a flip would switch inside me... I would become afraid of losing them and would say and do the things necessary to keep them... even though I was miserable with them!

In my experience, this was because I was more afraid of feeling alone than of feeling unhappy. I still slip up with this and will catch myself strategizing how to make someone like me when I don't even like them. I know it is a waste of my energy, but old habits die hard.

I have a suggestion and a question for you.

The suggestion - write down the things that you truly miss about your gambler X. in a separate column, write down the things that made you feel hurt, angry, afraid, or mistrustful. Finally, consider how much of the relationship (in terms of time or whatever measure you like) was focused on the things that you truly miss, vs. the bad things. Of the things you truly miss, consider how many of them were unique to your ex vs. simply a factor of being in a relationship. This may help you to decide whether you should wait for him to recover and to return, or if you would be happier on your own or with a different partner.

The question - What is the worst thing in your mind about feeling like you are miserable because of yourself vs. someone or something else? While humbling to admit, it is actually GREAT and freeing news to learn that you're unhappy because of what you are doing (or not doing). Consider it this way: who is the one person in your life whom you can a) trust completely with all of your hopes, wishes, desires, and secrets and b) exercise complete control over and make do everything that you want all the time?

Having a problem with yourself is scary and can feel insurmountable. Believe me, I know. It also means, though, that you have 100% of the capability necessary to solve it. The first step to unlocking this capability is to accept that YOU (and not the world around you) will need to make the changes that will make you happy. Then feel grateful that you have the opportunity to do it.

Good luck to you. It is always darkest before the new day dawns.

wonderful thoughts holborn, i appreciate it and i will work on it. thanks so much for taking time to read and reply to my post. All the best!

but it's sad to think that later on we will look at our relationship as a thing of the past and that it's "just a phase" :(

afterall, in time we are really able to get over tings people and events. i just wish that what we had is not and will not be a used to be

I think part of the codep curse is the difficulty we have in learning to appreciate who WE are as people... that others -- and their opinions of us -- to NOT define us.

So, take away someone in our lives -- even a bad person -- and we're left with emptiness.

Trust me... I have a past. I'm not going to minimize it by calling it a "phase," but I will say that I can now look back with growth and say, "Thank God I'm so far beyond that now!" But you have to hit bottom and say that you are DONE with all the negativity in your life and alone is better than putting up with crap.

Addict??? I'd prefer to say that I'm now enlightened! ; )

As usual my two favorite "insightful" friends make the most sense to me. Holborn and Deli.....I really appreciated reading both of your comments!!

I am finding today, the thing that I am best at feeling while deep in my Co-Dependency or while I am in the process of "reconciling", "healing", all of it......is feeling bad.

It is a nice little place I like to keep, in order to have something going on that is keeping me busy, from having a full life and one that I deserve-one which is full of happiness/joy/abundance/self acceptance. As if, actually defining myself and allowing myself to feel good is so scary to me, because I am still so comfortable flinching that something is going to go wrong........

So I will admit part of the reason, a HUGE part of the reason, is I have had death and disease following me for the last 10 years......every year literally at minimum 2 people I love die....we are at 3 passed, with one fighting cancer this year, and one friend lost from an argument....I am actually ahead this year if you can believe it! I have tried to reconcile this history I tote around......but I just have to find acceptance with it and decide that I owe each and every one of them the best life possible.....I hope I find it soon!

Ugghhh and Holiday season......its for the birds!! All the family crap-o-la that seems to just rear its ugggggly head, angry shoppers, commercial overload for x-mss and we haven't eaten the mashed potatoes, feeling broke all of a sudden.....like what gives!? Seriously......Jingle bells.....is anyone still singing that song in the last 10 years......why must it be on every commercial and be stuck in my brain all day right now?

Anyway, I digress.......the one thing I can tell you is that it really is always darkest before the dawn......however...not going to lie....there will be some bad days for the rest of your life.....but the great news is they will be YOUR bad days vs. ones that are created by someone else who is creating chaos, sickness, toxicity, lies, stress, anger, sadness, etc. etc. etc. And once you feel strong again and have found yourself......you will be with a new someone who will make that last someone pale in comparison......and your past, it will be however you decide to look at it.

I would imagine all of my family and friends who passed would say, that their pasts.......were all part of this great gift called life; it is good, bad and can be brutally ugly......but it is OUR life. So grateful for mine today...even the parts where I wished I had a unicorn horn and could poke all the grouchy boogers in the airport today!!

Feel the pain, hurt and darkness......and that means when the good comes.....you will really really really be able to FEEL it fully too :) Can't get out of feeling bad, unless you wanna give up feeling good! Numbness sucks.....trust and believe.

Just make sure to take gentle care of yourself during this part of the journey......just treat yourself well...you are good and normal! xxoo!

Crapola! Love it... Archie Bunkerisms at their best.

I also hate the holiday season- such a huge hype with expectations. And you know what expectations are? Premeditated resentments. Stuff THAT one in your pipe and smoke it!

Hope you're doing well, Coda. I've been super busy lately... Still want to try to hook up at some point...