Dear MM
I read your post a few hours ago and it has played itself back to me as I was having coffee with a friend – I have been thinking what would I say to MM if we were sitting together enjoying a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and I realised it would be to tell you that ‘it will be ok’.
A terrific amount of what you write comes from within you – it is not words you have read or heard on this site or elsewhere – ‘you’ are doing the work on yourself, using the pointers given to you, ‘you’ are building the barriers that will protect you. You have recognised the severity of the problem before you, you know all the theory but you don’t feel you have put it into practice yet – I believe you will do well.
Barriers are not brick walls, they are threads of understanding that we weave around ourselves until whatever is trying to hurt us can’t get in. My CG is still a CG, he always will be, so I have barriers – I can share things with him and enjoy him without fear of being hurt. My barriers were erected a long time ago by soul-searching and learning, just as you are doing now – it wasn’t him that saved me from his addiction – it was me, it wasn’t ‘his’ actions that changed my life, it was ‘mine’.
In this post I am deliberately not going to mention your husband’s behaviour that concerns you so much, I am going to focus on the one person who ‘will’ make a difference to what happens when you see him again. Of course you are increasingly nervous about returning to Cuba but it will not stop you going – when you are ready. No, you probably can’t access this site or other support while you are there but the words, love and knowledge that has surrounded you here will go with you.
As you so rightly said ‘Step by step. Day by day’, you cannot move any faster. Every day that is passing is making you stronger even though your nervousness increases. I remember the sheer, sleepless terror of seeing my CG again 6 months into his rehab programme – ‘how would he be’, ‘would I be OK?’ I believe that as a consequence of me being stronger and less afraid I was quieter and as a result did more listening than I had ever done before although for a time egg-shells would have been easy to walk on by comparison. In my case my CG had changed his life BUT and it is a big but – if he had not changed – I knew then, for positive, that I had. Recovery isn’t easy and I mean the recovery for F&F – old fears, doubts, memories don’t die away fast, a lot of things have to be swallowed or they will choke the recovery. Of course it helps if the CG has changed but I believe now that there comes a point when those who love CGs can say and really mean ‘no more’ – if they want it to happen enough and are willing to allow it to happen.
So do as you say and focus on ‘your’ positives, the person who was not afraid to travel alone, the person who supports others, the person that I have had the pleasure to share time with in the groups, you are a very special person and a survivor.
Whatever you do in the coming week or two MM, I believe you will do well. You ‘know’ what you are up against, you might be confused by some of what you hear, you might fall for some of the manipulation that comes with the addiction but you will not go back to the way you were before. ‘You’ have brought yourself to this point of awareness because you really are stronger than your husband’s addiction. Never forget too that whatever you do you will be understood here without judgment.
I look forward to having another group with you before you go. I don’t doubt that you will cope when you return to Cuba because unlike what you said to Jenny, I know you ‘will’ follow your own advice because ‘you’ are making sense.
Speak soon
Velvet
