The more I learn about step one, the more afraid I am. I've done something terrible to a man I love very much.

He's a recovering alcoholic and I'm massively codependent (so I'm discovering).

We've been together for a little more than two years, since right after my divorce and a year after his. He's been in financial difficulties the whole time I've known him, but my finances are in pretty good shape. Part of what makes me feel like crap about the whole thing is that it's worries about my finances that are bringing the situation to a head.

He lost his house to foreclosure and moved in with my daughter me six months ago. His son joined us a few months ago, and has just started school over here.

About a year ago he decided it would be a good idea to buy a cargo van and contract out to do expedited freight delivery. He did that until last Jan. when his contract was cancelled by the company he worked for.

I found out he'd been drinking while he was out there. In fact, in a conversation a couple of weeks ago he shocked me by saying he's never made it longer than 78 days sober. Now I find myself obsessing...

Anyway, he had a (non-alcohol related) accident with the truck while he was still driving, so it needs a couple thousand $$ worth of body work. Additionally, he can't sell it for what he still owes. The loan is in his elderly father's name, and my boyfriend makes the payments. In order to sell it, he'll need to have the body work done and a bridge loan for around $6,000 to cover the difference between what's owed & what he can get. He wants my help with this.

I don't want to do it. I have the money available, but it is in the form of a home equity loan, and there are things I need to do to maintain my house with that money. They aren't terribly urgent things (except  for the well), but I find I don't have faith that he'll be able to pay me back - and this is the value of my house he's asking for! I've given him money before (not explicitly loans, not with any real expectation he'd pay me back), and I never saw it again. Something else important always happens.

His truck is not my responsibility. How can it make me feel so much like crap - and yet so relieved - to think of not helping him? After all, it's only money; he needs it, and I have it.

Another really huge thing is his son. I had no idea how hard this would be. He is so completely different from my daughter, we're not bonding well, and I have almost total responsibility for him. He's 11, by the way, and my daughter's 13.

My boyfriend works horrific hours as a car salesman, including every Saturday. His son's mom also works every Saturday, so her weekends with her son translate into every other Saturday evening through Monday morning (she takes him to school on Monday). My daughter's weekends with her dad are traditional Friday night to Sunday night every other weekend. The kids go with
their "other" parents on the same weekend.

This means I have his kid every Saturday of my life, and I never, ever get any time alone with my kid unless I want to take away from "family time" on Sunday.

It also means I never get any time for myself anymore, because while my daughter is mature enough and content to spend a few hours alone occasionally during the day, his son is not.

My step-son and I are so resentful of each other, and my boyfriend keeps saying we have to give it time, it's only been a few months. But I don't want to do this without him! His child, like his truck, is not my responsibility! My daughter and I could be having a good time, but instead I'm locked in at home struggling with my step-sonk being the homework Nazi.

Saturday morning he had a map of South America to color and fewer than a dozen math problems to do. It took him three hours. I never yell, and I keep my cool, but I thought I'd die. He has homework every day, and that's what it's like every night.

My boyfriend won't even look for another job right now because he's involved with an IOP due to a drunk driving arrest last Feb., and he thinks that because of its time constraints, and the fact that he still has to do 2 days in jail, he won't be able to get another job. I tell him he certainly can't get one if he doesn't try to, but he just asks me to wait.

He has two more weeks at 3 meetings/week, then 16 weeks of 1 meeting/week. The jail time comes at the end of this month, then it's another 8-9 months on probation. He's not clear with me - or likely with himself - about how long I'm supposed to wait for him to arrange his life so that I'm not responsible for his stuff.

So. I'm reading a lot about Step 1 and learning how very many things I've done wrong to get myself trapped here and becoming more unhappy by the day. It seems like the more I learn the angrier I am about my situation. Ignorance, while certainly not bliss, seemed more tolerable.

I just don't have any idea what to do to fix this short of saying, "OK, move out, find a babysitter and call me when you get your life straight". I love him, and don't want to abandon him. I've been so quietly, efficiently, pleasantly co-dependant all this time the fact I want to do anything else is going to come as a complete shock to him, and will, I'm sure, feel like betrayal. Why does it seem reasonable to me that he should feel that way?

Any advice/feedback from someone who's been here would be greatly appreciated.

Jackie

hi Beagleroo

Recovery is not about giving advice. That usually leads to resentment. Step One is about accepting our lives are unmanageable and we need help. Recovery isn't a quick fix. WHat it is is a different way to live. Step one is just the beginning of a process where we find out what we can and cannot change. Codependency is a disease that creates resentment. I know one minute I'd think I was helping someone, and next feeling used. THere are no easy answers as to how to live our lives, which is why there are 12 steps. We change here by learning about ourselves and the program.

keep coming back
dave

-- Edited by notcrazy62 at 01:28, 2007-09-07

Thank you Beagleroo for sharing with us. Applying Step One on my codependency means I admit and accept the fact that I CANNOT change the life of my loved one or friend. That it is not in my hands at all, and that it doesn't necessarily have to either. That's the freedom I get from applying Step One. If I try to continue in the thinking that it is upto me to save my loved one or friend and that I have to do it at all costs as I love them, then my life becomes unmanageable. Step One brings me closer to accepting the truth that it is not in my hands, that I'M NOT ANYONE'S HIGHER POWER. I also have found that I get lured into saving another or punishing them if they don't change inspite of my helping them or feeling victimized by feelings of being abused by another as a result because of my codependency, an illness of it's own from which I suffer from. It has nothing to do with another's problems or illness. I get so used to living in a codependent role that it seems scary to even think of a different life where I live and let live, where I have to live my own life first before I could think of contributing to another's life. I feel as if my daily drug is being taken away from me when I have to think of the idea of having to let go of my addict loved one. But I've been working both the codependency program and the NarAnon principles in my life over two years now, and have come to realize and trust that my loved ones & friends who still suffer from their active addictions also have a loving Higher Power just like I do, and just like I had to go through what I needed to go through before making it to the other side and just like I came to recovery in my Higher Power's own time, so will they... It's between them and their Higher Power, and I don't have to be that Higher Power. In fact, the best way to express my love for them is to take care of myself, work my own program on my codependency and surrender their situations and my despair in their context to my Higher Power.

Boy does this sound familar.  I find if I am taking up the slack in a loved ones life they are not learning to take care of themselves if I do this over and over again they never learn to do it for themselves.  This causes them to become dependent on me and that is not healthy for either of us.

Dear B, Wow, let's see your situation first is that you are living with someone that you are not married to. I am a firm beleiver in the institution of MARRIAGE. I have made every form of mistake going and I am not here to lecture you or any of that. MARRIAGE gives us a reason to "WORK TOGETHER" and "GOD BLESSES" the "UNION of MARRIAGE" I have lived with so many men in my lifetime I lost count so I am no one perfect or SPECIAL. I am However "FORGIVEN" because of the CHOICES I make now. What is going on in my life has to do with "CHOICE," "FREE WILL." and the consequences that my CHOICES bring to me. SO many times I have made the "WRONG" "CHOICES." I have suffered severe consequences and I had a SON that suffered them right along with me because of the "BAD CHOICES" I made. It's true that our children even though we don't think our lives are not effecting them, they are. I had a man in my life that came in and ended up being a child molestor. I had known this person for years so had my father. Needless to say no one would have thought this possible, right? Wrong. ALcohol and drugs do really sick things to people and then these people do sick things to us or our children. My child came to me at almost 15 with the news about the Molestation. SInce then I have tried everything to help him get off and out of trouble. It almost has taken everything from my husband and I. Because he ( my Son) won't FORGIVE and can't move forward. He is now himself on Alcohol, and facing criminal charges for assault, and other things that break my HEART. I guess what I am saying to you is something that you already know deep down. The decision is yours. What ever that is can cost everyone, especially the children that don't have a (voice) not just you and him! I'll be praynig for you. Thanks, Blessed Blessed