Ex-Files

So I traded some e-mails with my ex and he explained his negative, nasty behavior during the end of our relationship (and a time when my dad was critically ill) by saying that he was sorry for it and that there was no excuse, but that he treated me that way for "many reasons" which included him feeling that I was being malicious or vindictive towards him.

If you're an ACoA, then you know how easily people can flip your feelings and understandings on their heads. Partly, I think this is because we were often told the way we felt was wrong. Another reason I think is that things were never as they seemed at home. There were secrets the family kept from the outside as well as secrets between members of the family. I found out after my parents divorced that my mom had been married before marrying my dad. My oldest brother got in trouble for selling weed from the public pool he worked at in high school, and I didn't know what he had done until years later. I remember that period of time because my parents were upset and they had many top secret meetings with my brother. The atmosphere was tense and no one told me what was going on. I came to expect that there was more going on than I was aware of in situations and relationships.

So, when my ex said that I was malicious and vindictive, I tried the accusation on to see if it fit. Did I engage in unhealthy behavior with him? Yes. Did I argue and yell and participate in a negative, co-dependent relationship? Sure. But malicious and vindictive are words used to describe a person whose sole motivation is to hurt another. And that certainly does not describe me or my actions towards him. And as long as that's how he perceives me, then I don't need to have any type of contact with him. Why would I want to keep someone in my life who sees me so unclearly?

So, I told him as much. I said that if he wanted to be "friends" or keep in contact, that he would need to give me an unconditional apology that assumes responsibility for the way he treated me instead of passing it to me. So, he wrote back and said that he apologized wholeheartedly for his "behavior" and that I am a kind, loving, noble person who never deserved it. What?! How did he change his tune from one day to the next? Manipulation, my friends. Oh, okay so the whole blame you for everything tack isn't sticking? Well how about groveling and complimenting you? Will that work? And how about him apologizing for his "behavior." What does that mean? That means I don't know what I did wrong, but I have another motive so I'll give a blanket apology and hope that covers it. This is what manipulators do. They don't explain their real motives. Instead they interact with others in the way they see best to achieve a desired effect. So, it makes you crazy trying to figure them out because they don't state what they really want. Yeah, I definitely don't need that in my life right now. I haven't even responded to his last e-mail in which I was exhalted on high. No time, energy, or space for this in my life.

Moles

So, my ex-boyfriend has been e-mailing me lately. But, first a word on the ex... After moving in together toward the end of '08, he became increasingly disconnected and when he passed out drunk on the floor for the second time in as many months, I literally started packing. I couldn't believe that I was back to where I started as a child - watching a full-grown man getting drunk and feeling like I needed to do something about it to help him take care of himself. The first time he passed out on the floor (in the hallway in front of the door to the bedroom), I woke him up and helped him to bed. The second time I left him there. I worried all night laying in our bed that he would vomit and choke on it and die and then his mom would be so pissed at me and on and on, but ultimately resisted the urge to go wake him up from his stupor and get him to bed. I was intent that this was not going to be my lot in life. My lot in life is not to be the caretaker of these men.

As a child, I couldn't wait to leave home. Where I lived in suburban Sacramento, you needed a car to get anywhere. When I was 12, I asked my mom to get me a bus pass just so I would be able to get around and get out of the house without depending on anyone. She said no. Literally the day of my 16th birthday, I was at the DMV taking my driving test. (I failed the first time). And when I left home for college, I never went back longer than a few weeks for the holidays, and even then, I always found a temp job to keep me occupied. And when I graduated college, a week later I moved to New York and have been here for the last 5 years. So I'll be damned if I did all that just so that it would be physically impossible to take care of a man who it seemed so desperately needed taking care of only to re-enact the very situation I was running from here in Brooklyn.

And the week I was supposed to move into my new place was when I got a call from my brother saying that dad was in the hospital. So I was in California for a month, grieving the imagined loss of my father, because the doctors basically told us after a month that he wasn't getting any better and at any point if we made the call, they would "discontinue care." We were planning for the funeral, going through my dad's house when he started to recover and luckily, has continued to do so. That experience brought up all these old issues with my dad and family and when I started reading about ACoAs and attending meetings, I started grieving the loss of my childhood - don't think I've finished that one yet.

And now it's July and I haven't even had the time or ability or whatever to grieve the loss of this relationship and deal with all that. And I'm just so tired of grieving. This is like that carnival game where the moles pop up and each time you smack one down, another one pops up. So here goes... the thing that hurt me the most about our break-up was not the actual break-up or the reasons for it, but the aftermath. We were fighting and accusing each other of all kinds of things when I was getting ready to move out, but when my dad got sick, I thought that that would hit some sort of pause button and that my ex would put everything that was going on aside because of what I was going through. It suddenly didn't seem so important to me. But when I told him I couldn't move out as planned because I was going to California to be with my family, he responded by saying that I would have to help him out with the rent if I stayed any longer. The night before I left, he was aggressive towards me, instigating a fight, and I just didn't have it in me to respond, I was so upset. I literally said nothing as he continued to come at me with various accusations and snide comments. I cried myself to sleep and on the way to the airport the next morning he sent me a text asking me the name of the hospital where my dad was. No apology. No explanation. I didn't respond. He tried to call a few times while I was in California and stopped when I didn't respond.

When I got back and actually did move out, he was cruel, insulting me in e-mails and threatening not to return my deposit. It was ugly and at the point in my life where I was the most vulnerable, weak and broken. I was beyond disappointed in him. Breaking up is one thing but being human is another. I was mad at him almost as mad as I was at myself. How could I have been in a relationship with someone and invested so much into it, only to find out in the end not just that he couldn't "be there" for me when I was going through some shit, but that he couldn't even be civil.

So, then after all that without any further communication between us, he began sending me friendly e-mails in the last couple of weeks about events going on in Brooklyn that I might like or a video of some little girl on YouTube that allegedly looks like me. And I'm just like, what? So I was marinating on how to respond to this newfound goodwill he apparently has towards me, and so I e-mailed him and asked him what I was wondering. I said, what are your expectations of our relationship now that we aren't together? Because initially you were negative and insulting and now you're acting like we're friends. So I need some clarity on what your expectations are so we can discuss it. And I turned it over before I sent it because I wasn't really sure what I was going to get back, but I decided that I don't want him to have the power to reach out to me when he's thinking of me if I haven't agreed that that's how I want our relationship to be.

He actually wrote a pretty honest response. So you never know. I was really prepared for the worst. But I'm learning that people can surprise you when you put your real intentions out there. He said he thinks about me a lot and that he never let anyone so close to him before, and that he's had trouble just writing me off despite his best efforts. He said he would like to be friends, especially considering the fact that I have maintained a relationship with his 8-year-old sister with his consent. (I'm looking around my room to see if the timekeeper is going to call time on me yet). So, I feel that if we are to have a relationship at all, that there are some things we need to talk about and deal with. But I'm not sure I do want to have a relationship with him at all. So I just wrote him back to say I was going to think about it. I guess I have a new issue to marinate on. These damn moles.

Intro

Where to begin? From the beginning? Oh, god, that would take far too long. Okay, let's start from the beginning of this year. I had moved in with my boyfriend of about a year and as that relationship quickly deteriorated, I found myself looking for places again by March. Looking for apartments in New York is hellish. I'm sure it sucks anywhere in the world, but New York realtors are a particular breed that magically turn hallway closets into "1/2 bedrooms".

Anyway, that's when shit really went down. On March 23rd, my dad was hospitalized for pneumonia, but then suffered multiple complications and ended up in the ICU on a ventilator and unconscious for about 2 months. I went back to California for a month to be there through this time. The doctors gave us a very grim prognosis for my dad, saying that he would probably never be able to live on his own again, if he survived at all. Thinking and preparing for the thought of my dad dying brought up a lot of issues, memories, and conflict. My dad is an alcoholic and was drinking actively to the point of his hospitalization. I was in close contact with my mom and 2 brothers who all live out West. Being around my family again and trying to work together on issues around my dad's affairs was difficult and painful.

When I returned to New York, after my dad started to recover (thankfully), I was having a very hard time living my life here because of conflicts with other members of my family and because of the pressure and concern for my dad's health. A friend mentioned that some of the issues I was having were very typical of co-dependent relationships. I flinched at the word, thinking of it in its application to couples who live in their couple bubble. But she explained it as the type of relationship people often develop with addicts and she suggested I do some reading on it. Let's call this friend Hope, because she has helped me through so many tough times, and I'm sure I'll be talking about her a lot.

So, I did some reading (and a lot of crying) and I completely identified with the feelings and experiences of co-dependents. I picked up Adult Children of Alcoholics and must have read it in one sitting. Well, the rest is not quite history because that was only a couple of months ago. I've since started attending a weekly Al-Anon meeting and I continue to unpeel the onion of recovery. I know now that I'm far from the only one who has my problems, but I've always been a writer at heart and lately I have a lot I'm thinking about that I want to share with others. I can do this in a number of ways - through connecting with friends, going to meetings, and through this blog. I'm looking forward to connecting with people like me out there, since I now realize there are a lot of you and I would love to hear from you and about your experiences.