Update: "Love is a Choice"
I'm within a chapter and a half of having read through "Love is a Choice: The Definitive Book on Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships" by Hemfelt, et al. It has been a bit of a challenge to read. Some parts are so spot on to issues that I'm struggling with and I gobbled them up eagerly. Other chapters seem to drone on and don't capture me at all. Some of those chapters tell me that I have to resolve some unpleasant baggage from my past to get myself whole, so the fact that these chapters didn't capture or excite me is probably connected to my resistance for doing that work.
In my previous review, I mentioned that the authors do an excellent job of breaking down the causes and problems of codependency. I wondered if they would address resolving/solving those things as thoroughly. Indeed they do in the final unit (Part Five: The Ten Stages of Recovery) of the book. Turns out there is even an accompanying workbook: "Love is a Choice Workbook: Recovery for Codependent Relationships" (Minirth-Meier Clinic Series). I got mine through Kindle. Haven't looked at it yet, but am assuming it aligns with the book's stages/steps of recovery.
These authors are not far afield from the steps and processes that I went through in self-actualization workshops during the early 80s, and learned through my own spiritual research and reading into the 90s. I have realized that I've never adequately addressed my issues with emotional unavailability and it has haunted me my entire life. My parents were unavailable to me and I was emotionally unavailable to my children. All of my close relationships with men have ended because of emotional unavailability that often resulted in emotional (and w/my ex-h, physical) abuse too. Feels more like theirs than mine, but I have been a magnet for it. The emotional unavailability cycle won't end until I take the correct steps to fully resolve it within and for myself.
I have also neglected my spirituality. Nature abhors a vacuum. If I don't reserve time to commune with and reflect upon my God/Higher Power and give thanks for all my blessings, then I wind up trying to take my Higher Power's job or allowing others to step in to fill the void that no human can possibly fill.
An important lesson for me is that making and keeping myself whole is lifetime pursuit. Certainly one can make progress by reading a book or following steps in a workbook. However, if I don't make my wholeness an ongoing chore, some heavy boulder will most certainly fall on my head to remind me what I need to do. Would be nice to winnow any of my emotional discomfort and dis-ease down to only a ricocheted pebble here and there!
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Comments
You might benefit from the
You might benefit from the book, Vick. Many couples do stay together and their stories are told throughout the book. What is required is that both 'halves' of the couple let go of their unhealthy thinking and coping mechanisms in order to become two whole people. Until healthy thinking, learning and growth processes are in place for each, it's fairly impossible to have true unity and partnership in the marriage. At least that's my take on it.
I still dearly love the man who came into my life seeming so hungry for a better way of life and living. Unfortunately, it's not my job to serve as his personal fountain of peace, joy and contentment. I was probably quite a few steps ahead in my enlightenment from the git, but I let my pity for him not knowing any better and serving as his only source of "all things good" drain me dry. So now I have to make myself whole. He has the choice to seek new and better ways of coping, living and making himself whole, or he can continue barely existing in his misery and torment. Seems like a simple choice to me. He doesn't think so. Oh well. Hang out there as long as it suits you, Bozo. I'm moving forward!
^^yes. What a post. I feel
^^yes. What a post. I feel for you because I can relate to a lot of it. For me, it was viewing myself as a victim and by acting as one, I would attract people who victimize others. It was always poor me, why is this happening to me, without acknowledging that I was letting it all happen quite willingly. What really made me turn around and start looking at my life in a different way and start taking charge, was a man at a support group I was going to when I lost both my parents. There were people there with all kinds of things going on in their lives, and most of us were victims. This one man had lost his adult son from a freak heart attack. During the weekly meetings he talked about his younger daughter and how much pain she was causing her parents, with her drug addictions and all that came with that. They finally decided to kick her out, after she ran away from rehab for the x'th time. She was in her twenties. She killed herself with an overdose and left a nasty note. Well, this man would come to our meetings and say that he did not want to feel like a vctim in this world, and he really did not! It was like a light went off in my head.