My Recovery

Revised afternoon of Wednesday
As I recover, I am seeing how much I am dependent on another person's acceptance of me. I am beginning to see how much I try and have tried to gain this person's acceptance and try to have this person care for me. I see there is little caring about others in this addictive relationship, there is only the ego - or the will of this other person and the will to be seen by others outside the family as good and caring. It is an unfortunate situation this addiction and the need for both of us to have validation from others. In certain ways, in truth, I wanted her to get her validation from me, and that validation would be love and acceptance and recognition that I am a worthy and good person. My excuse could be, "that is what marriage is about, isn't it?"

I work hard. I do my best to be a good husband and my best as a good father. But I am not in a normal relationship. The addiction of my spouse has made me sick in a way. And that sickness was trying to gain acceptance and love she could not give. Now that I am gaining clarity, I am seeing more of the issue and how this is now affecting my daughter - our daughter - and how she is looking for acceptance and love. The issue of addiction is not understood by the layperson, the person outside the sphere of this addiction.

I am seeing that for the first time, how my gut is twisted when my wife, my qualifier, is not there for caring and compassion. And that the less she gave, the more I gave. The more I gave, the reciprocity of love and compassion and giving turned my caring into "caretaker" and no longer being caring. I kept on giving until the relationship was so lopsided that everything revolved around my qualifier.

Now I am trying to make sure that my daughter does not fall in the same cycle. This is a cycle of co-dependency and looking for love and acceptance from someone who may not be able to provide this in the normal way. This in turn could create an unnatural response creating the same cycle I got caught up in.

In reality, I think, if my qualifier recovers, the addiction may subside. But the addiction is so, soooo, powerful, that it takes over everything, like weeds in a garden, and eventually strangles every other plant and robs others of their nutrients. And we, the other flowers or plants, die of malnutrition or starvation of love and acceptance.

What an addictive cycle. The more we don't get or receive, the more we give. And the more we give, the more we expect. Still no change - we get no more, but we continue to give, expecting, hoping, needing, wanting, a return or reciprocal relationship.

The power of this addiction results in an out of balance family, with the focus and center of attention on the addict. A "normal" family is where both parents are working together and the center of attention is on the children -but not such that the children are given everything asked for, which breeds entitlements [my opinion].

We must stop by removing the addict and addiction from the center of our attention. This is the only thing we can do. So, to do this, we must focus on ourselves, focus on our children and allow the addict to, well, this might not sound compassionate, focus on whatever they tend to focus on, and not allow it to become any of our business.