A personal story about a home repair dispute that became an unexpected lesson in boundaries, codependency, and not abandoning myself when my needs met resistance. I reflect on the drama triangle, over-explaining, and how learning to pause and stay grounded led to a better outcome.
I want to write about a recent situation that looked like a simple home repair issue, but turned into a very clear lesson for me about boundaries, codependency, and what happens inside me when my needs meet resistance.
This wasn’t about someone being right or wrong. It was about how quickly I lose my internal footing when conflict shows up, and how practicing healthier boundaries changed that experience.
Continue reading “Learning Healthy Boundaries Without Abandoning Myself”Here are two things I have learned over the years that have helped my marriage a lot.
Often, I will expect my wife to change immediately instead of taking some time to change. So, sometimes, she might accuse me of something or get upset with me for something when I feel like I’m doing so much better than I was in the past. I have learned that validating her feelings about me instead of trying to defend myself makes such situations turn out a much better, and it’s actually a lot more honest.
The logic goes like this: My past actions trained her to distrust me, so it makes sense she doesn’t trust me now, regardless of my current guilt or innocence. In this case, I might say, “It makes sense that you feel that way now because of how I’ve acted in the past and how I’ve lied about it.” That’s hard to say, but it’s more accurate and builds a bridge of trust and awareness.
Asking, “What can I do to help you feel more safe,” is another great way to take some positive steps forward. I wish I were better at this one.
And because of all the Denial and Gaslighting I have done, a lot of the time, I’m wrong about the present, being blinded by my denial and shame. So, telling the truth about the past and validating my wife (and kids, coworkers, and everyone) sets a good stage to dig into the present with a little more humility and less defensiveness and denial.
The brains and hearts of our spouses, like those of everyone else, are often deeply affected by past injuries. In an effort to avoid further pain, they cling to unresolved hurts from the past, and harbor fears about present and future pain. Witnessing the ongoing impact of the harm I’ve caused — past, present, and future — can be overwhelming at times. Surrendering and actively participating in the program is the path toward healing.
Sometimes my wife will have a dream about me doing horrible things even when I feel like I’m doing good, and it feels like going back to the past again and getting punished all over again. This is a very similar situation. My past actions trained her not to trust me. That’s likely where her dreams came from. I’m not directly responsible for what I did in her dreams because that’s not me, but I am responsible for training her mind to think that way about me based on my actions in the past. So I can say, “I’m sorry that I’ve done things in the past that have hurt you and caused you not to trust me. That’s probably where this dream came from. What can I do to help you feel more safe?”
I once had the opportunity to be Foreman for a federal court case. It was about drug creation and distribution. There were several defendants including a fairly young couple with three small children and a man who was well into his sixties. It was made abundantly clear to use by the defense that if we found these people guilty then we’d be condemning children to grow up without parents and a man to die in prison. We had to find them guilty though due to the evidence. It was horrific. What had started out as something exciting and interesting as reality television had become a tragedy.
I went home that night and as I prayed I felt inspired to pray for forgetfulness and then to be more specific and pray for the Spirit of Forgetfulness to take away the painful memoires of faces, names, and the situation. After about three days of doing this, I noticed it began to work. To this day, I can not remember the names of the people and barely remember the faces of the parents but not the children.
This leads me to suggest this is something to consider when we repent of some of the awful things we did under our addictions. The inappropriate relationships, the actions, the words we used, and so forth can bubble up in our memories at bad times. I have prayed for the Spirit of Forgetfulness and it is slowly, slowly working. I don’t remember the names of the people I should forget. Sometimes, like picking at a scab, my brain will nitpick at it until a name does pop up or a situation but then I just turn back to prayer and pray to forget.
Somethings we need to remember to keep from doing them again but I think there are many things we shouldn’t remember so we be better about surrendering those things that could trigger our addictions. Ignorance is bliss is an often used phrase but I’d change that to forgetfulness is peace in this instance. While this kind of prayer is one way to let go of something bad, we should also remember to make sure it is surrendered as well so it does not linger within us.
Some people have asked me lately how to keep temptation away or how to change habits. In Addiction Recovery there is a lot of talk about triggers, patterns, and things of that nature. I’ve found it is better for me when I keep it simple. I look the other way. It comes in three degrees or categories: physical, mental, and spiritual.
Physically looking the other way is the easiest to start practicing but hardest to keep doing correctly. Addicts have excellent radar for seeing things that will tempt them and bring them enjoyment. We’ve been doing it for years and know when something comes up whether or not to turn our head or keep an eye out. What I propose is when that pops on your radar is you purposefully and physically turn your head the other way. It feels a little weird at first but it works. Keep doing it and slowly it becomes a habit.
Mentally is much harder because our minds can move so quickly and so covertly that it’s hard to keep a handle on them. Just like in the physical example, if you feel your mind turning to something that will trigger it or start the steps in a pattern of addiction then you force your mind to look the other way. It helps to already have something to look to like a favorite scripture or poem or song. Plan ahead with what you will turn to mentally and have it ready for when, not if, you’ll need to look the other way at it.
Spiritually is perhaps hardest of all; however, I found that if you are working hard on the first two degrees or categories then it becomes easier to spiritually turn away. It is tied in closely to the mental category. Where our minds go so do our spirits, but we need to actively want our spirits to follow. I would also equate this with a change of heart or becoming a different person. To spiritually look the other way, I need to have chosen something good or righteous to focus on in place of unrighteous thoughts. Mentally we can count prime numbers or remember quotes from Shakespeare to distract our thoughts. Spiritually we need something uplifting to the soul to move us to a better spiritual plane.
Lastly, as is always true, it is important to surrender whatever it was we were looking away from and make sure it isn’t crammed down into our self-conscious to be used later. Surrender it to God and let Him take it from you so it is gone before it can do any harm.
It takes time, practice, and patience. Like anything worthwhile, it isn’t easy and expect to make mistakes and slip up. I still sometimes don’t look the other way as much as I should, but I just recognize it and recommit to trying even harder the next time. It sounds simplistic but by simple things are great things accomplished.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
I like to think of step 6 as a way for me to gather up a bunch of my underlying addictions (character defects) and figure out what each one of them is giving me that makes me want to keep holding onto it. I can’t really become ready to have them removed if I’m holding onto them for some reason.
So, I went through my 4th step and gathered up all of my own character defects from the experiences I had documented into one big list. Impatience, anger, grumpiness, hatred, pride, denial, yelling at my kids, shame, codependency, selfishness, etc. Then I wrote next to each one what it gives me. For example, denial gives me a false sense of righteousness and safety from consequences. Yelling at my kids gives me a sense of them being obedient and me being a good parent.
It seems that a lot of these have to do with impatience. I don’t want to wait to do things the hard way, the right way, the way that actually lasts. So I go for a quick and easy way that doesn’t work in the long run.
As I inventory all of these defects and realize that they give me stuff that’s temporary and just makes things worse, in the long run, it helps me to surrender them, let them go, and become willing to have God work with me to get rid of them. A lot of that work to get rid of them happens in step 10, but I have to want to let them go before we can work on getting rid of them.
I share the list of defects and what they give me with my sponsor and let him know whether I feel like I’m ready to let them all go or if I need more surrender first. Once I surrender them, I’m ready to move to step 7.
When my surroundings or schedules change – usually by traveling somewhere or during a holiday season or weekend – triggers get stronger. Some boundaries that are generally in place, like Internet filters or TV channel filters, may not be in place in my new surroundings. Idle time is deadly. I’ve heard people say that Christ chose His disciples when they were at work and that Satan chooses his disciples when they are idle.
When I entered the program, I acted out almost daily. As I progressed, I would act out weekly, every two weeks, every month, etc. It seems to me as though I have some sort of capacity to hold lust within me – I’ll call it a lust balloon. Once I have filled this balloon with lust, I feel compelled to resort to my addiction by acting out my addictions physically.
I have learned to take a few minutes before bedtime and think back on the day to see if any triggering memories from the day pop up. I have learned that if anything pops up, I didn’t really let go of it during the day and so I have to let go of the thought or visual again and again until it stops coming back to my mind. See the Step 3 and Surrender articles for more detail around how to let things go, or surrender them.
When I do this, I have a purer sobriety and am much more lust free, and the lustful dreams don’t happen. Again, I don’t know how this works but it does. I talked to someone who was at an earlier stage of recovery who had tried this and they said that unless they were in a good place spiritually, thinking back on the day would bring up things that they were unable to let go of and it ended up making things worse. Through that experience, I have learned that I must be in a good spiritual place and must be able and willing to surrender my lust before I can use this technique successfully.
One other area that was troublesome to me was lustful dreams. I had heard that I am not responsible for my dreams and sometimes I would look forward to them just to relieve the pressure of my lust. I never felt good about that though.
Over time, I found that lustful dreams went away completely as I stopped stuffing myself with lust all day long. As I learned to let go of lust and stop letting it into me throughout the day, I could go for years without any sexual dreams at all – nor did I want them or need them for relief. The pressure went away once lust went away.
Surrender is a word that is used a lot in 12-step meetings. They talk about surrendering our lives and wills to God in Step 3, for example. Here’s an analogy that has helped me to understand how surrender works. It has a lot to do with admitting the truth about my situation and letting someone who really knows what they’re doing be in charge.
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