A New Kind Of Trust

I read this on the blog A Room Of Mama's Own, and I thought it was pretty interesting:

About a year ago, things were tense, he was losing his job, and he slipped and acted out. And when he told me, I found in myself, not anger, but acceptance and a new kind of trust. I don't trust him anymore not to do things that are going to hurt me, or himself, or us. But I trust that when he does those things, they are not what he wants to do or who he wants to be. I trust that he is using these experiences to learn and grow stronger. I trust that he is trying to be honest with himself and with me. I trust that he will share with me when he feels ready. All of those things I can trust, and that trust has not been broken.

Wow.

Whenever I read about relationships in recovery and the ways that definitions have shifted and people have compromised, especially the people who are NOT the addicts, I am amazed and upset at the same time. Part of me wants so badly to be able to make these adjustments, to rearrange my head to allow myself to keep this man in my life. Another part of me, however, doesn't want to have to. I don't want to learn to accept things that I find to be unacceptable.

I also don't think that my husband is in the place that her husband is, and I don't know how he's ever going to get there. He refuses to attend meetings now. I don't know what changed while I was out of town. I don't know why he is so sure that they don't work for him. He was enjoying the meetings that he went to with his mom. I don't know what else we can do to help him get to a place where he doesn't want to be the way that he is.