Story time,
I got a lot of these stories but here is what I read when I read your posts.
I am strong i am succeeding, I am doing better today than I was yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today.
People who are dependent or co-dependent often have insecurities, your a partner an equal in a relationship and expect to be treated as such, which is totally fair. But then you have your partner who may feel insecure and unsure about your success, that you may one day realize that your relationship has turned toxic and that you can survive much better without him. Where does anyone like that want you? Weak and dependent on them so you have no way out.
I was wirh my kids mom for about 10 years. Very loveless relationship. I was a product of shitty parents who should have divorced long before I was born, but I didn’t want that for my kids. I wanted better, as parents we always want better for our kids, than we have. And that’s fair. But having both mom and dad in the same home can be more damaging than helpful at times. I had a therapist once tell me all kids from divorced parents would always want mom and dad together, but eventually they realize it wasn’t meant to be and it was for the better. I left my kids mother, and it took about 2 years for it to finally stick. We’d come back for a short fling, we’d fight and then back to square one again. We were destroying each other and our children in the process, and it was a very similar situation, except I pushed for her to do more be better be smarter. She pulled me down, I didn’t start to flourish more until I left, my holdback after that was myself. I didn’t quit the booze and drugs until almost 7 years later, and it’s frustrating at times.
I have had a handful of careers, just trying to make due while music took off, yet with the ups and downs of my life. It went with it. And it’s harder to start over than it is to keep the same momentum, if I kept my momentum form my early 20s, I’d probably be paying off the advance from the record label that whored me out, instead of bouncing from indie label to label to make a few bucks.
My son just turned 18, I started young, so now you can make me feel old by saying oh I was in elementary school when he was born. But we had a long discussion last night about 2 hours. And while he wishes things could have been better in many ways, he gets frustrated, that I went and took the steps to get better to be better, while his mom still runs in circles,
If I could tell my 21 year old self anything it would be, get away from the sauce, you don’t have to have both parents in the same house to be a good parent, and stop being mr right now, instant gratification or the feeling of coming home to someone, is often gratifying in the moment, making a lot of money right now sounds great but instead I should have been playing the long game
What you need to do is weigh the pros and cons, of which ever road you choose,
And lastly and most important, never ever let anyone define your worth or sobriety
ETA - his drinking, DWI, getting his ass beat in bars is not your fault, or your responsibility I understand caring for someone (hence 10 years in a loveless relationship) he needs to take accountability for his own behaviors,
Put this in perspective. If I said right now, If you don’t respond to this message right now, I’m gonna go out and act like an asshole and get beat up, is that your responsibility to shoulder? No. I made a choice a bad one at that, and instead of accepting responsibility for my actions, I put a guilt trip on you,
My father apologized to my mom, and I few hundred times, my ex (at 15) apologized after every time he hit me, my ex(husband) apologized about a million times…but the behavior never changed in any of them.
