Q: I know there is no hope for me, being in love with an alcoholic who is not the father of my children. I just want someone to give me an easy way to forget him. I have started drinking more because I still have strong feelings for him but I would never want to spend the rest of my life like we did for two years.
Does he manipulate me into feeling like this? I really love him, but my life would be hell with him and so would my children’s. Why do I still have feelings for him? Why is it so hard to hate him for what he has done to my kids and me? I just need an answer.
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A: You may have loving feelings, but you do not need to allow those emotions to control your life. Equally important, you can’t stop him from trying to manipulate you. That is one of the strongest skills of an addicted person.
You can’t change him, but you can work at understanding yourself. Attraction is often the result of needs that were unmet earlier in life. Instead of addressing
past pains, we try to blot them out with something
new.
The answer is within yourself, but you may not
be able to pull it out on your own. That is why I recommend the book, Is It Love or Is It Addiction?
by Brenda Schaeffer, Halzelden Press, 1997.
I also suggest you contact a counsellor. You can also try to contact the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous office.
The more you focus on the pain and hurt you are feeling from the past relationship, the harder it is to put him in the back of your mind. You cannot force
yourself to forget something. You only reinforce the memory of it.
Everyone has some good in them, but we have to assess whether the bad behaviours outweigh whatever triggers the emotional feelings that keep you focused
on him.
Peter Griffiths is a mental health counsellor based in Prince Albert, Sask. He can be contacted through his website at www.sasktelwebsite.net/petecope.
