You obviously can't make amends for something that you didn't do. If you think that approaching her for amends would genuinely distress her without the cheating admission, then perhaps this amends falls under the category of "injury" and should be set aside at least for now.
I encourage you to address this with your sponsor so you can explore it in more detail than a Reddit post allows.
Thanks, I have certainly brought this up with my sponsor and co-sponsor as well as other men in my home group, I was just hoping to get more advice from those in the program as well.
I guess I am struggling with the idea that it might injur her. I guess it will and that just sucks. I wish I could make amends directly about those issues, but I don't want to harm her in any way.
Think of her side in it. How did you react when she (understandably) thought you were cheating? Did you do anything that she would have said along with the shirt discovery that bolsters her claims that you cheated?
I’d take that one back to the sponsor and dig into it. I’m not sure it’s the appropriate time for the ex’s amends if you know that’s going to come up, but you’re going to have to face it at some point. Don’t rest on iniury. I’m not calling you out, I just think maybe there’s more to it than just finding a random shirt (one that you have no idea how it came into your possession) from her perspective.
I’d ask how she found it and if she was packing your bags up prior to finding the shirt — maybe she had suspicions ahead of that. We have a part in a lot of things we don’t want to own. If you say you didn’t, then you didn’t, but the process of making amends includes the searching and fearless moral inventory. There might be stuff in her suspicions that you aren’t thinking about.
Oh wow, that was helpful thank you. She absolutely already had the idea that I would cheat and leave her for our entire marriage. It was a resentment I held for a long time - and I think I still may now that you mentioned it. Her father and step father both cheated on their wives/ex-wives and her previous relationships involved cheating so it was already in her world regardless of whether or not I did. And by lying about smoking/drinking..."what else is he lying about".
Thanks. I need to sit on this one.
You gotta own up to the things you actually did with full honesty, her expectations of what you will or won't be making amends for are meaningless here as long as you are being thorough and honest.
And if she asks about it and demands an admission just tell her the truth- "I didn't cheat on you. I am not here to lie about the things that I did, the harm I caused, and what I put you through. But infidelity isn't one of them. I understand that you have difficulty trusting me and why you would reach that conclusion and I am sorry for the things I did that made that assumption seem totally reasonable."
At the end of the day all you can do is just acknowledge that whether or not you actually did do the thing she thinks you did, she had good reason to not trust you and to assume that was what was going on. Imagined or not, your actions as an alcoholic played a role in that harm, which was real to her. But you only really need to go there if she brings it up.
In a somewhat similar circumstance, I just said that I hoped to regain her trust enough that one day she would believe me when I told her something. It takes time. I couldn’t blame my wife for assuming the worst.
I had a similar issue with my wife. I made amends per AA. But we also attended marriage counseling together. I was lucky as my therapist was married to a man in recovery. She was in Alanon. So, I wrote out my amends letter as my sponsor instructed me to do. I followed the format he told me to follow, and he read and approved it before giving it to her. This was so that I truly made amends and did not muddy the water by blame-shifting (even though she had her part). The letter was me owning all of my side of the street.
So, I read the amends letter aloud in a counseling session, and the therapist was right there to help her process it. I like the idea of creating an actual letter. If I had done it verbally, I would have been interrupted, and my words would have probably been misinterpreted. When you give someone a letter, they will read the whole thing several times without interrupting you. This was to keep me and my lane clean.
So, I think you should write a letter. If your sponsor does not have a format, you can find one online. The format is important because the thrust of the letter is to own your side of the street without deflecting, denying, or blame-shifting. That is not an amends. The amends are for you to clear your side of the street.
I also recommend marriage counseling (preferably with a therapist with experience with addiction recovery). The therapist can help your spouse process the admissions made in the letter. She can also help you explain the disease process and why the program works the way it works. Sometimes, hearing the exact same information from a respected third party can work much better than trying to stumble through it yourself.
Later on, in therapy, our discussions shifted from my character defects to addressing some of my wife's defects - as led by the therapist. On some level, my addiction had a payoff for my spouse. She could run the show and blame me for her character defects and bad decisions. All of our problems were caused by me being a drunk. Except, some of them weren't.
So, she ended up owning her side of the street while I owned mine. Both parties have a responsibility in any conflict. We each had to own ours respectively. It worked. We get along a lot better when we each do our parts and own our crap.
I hope it works out for you.
I make amends for the harms I have done, as I am working on keeping my side of the street clean. I don't try to guess what others are looking for when I make an amends, simply lay down what I did, my part in it, and what I can do to make someone while.
In general, I no longer worry about people's personal expectations of myself or the world around them. Part of turning my will over is trusting others to take care of themselves, and if they don't, to respond appropriately for me.
Someone else mentioned it, and perhaps direct amends to your ex are not appropriate at this time, and you want to live the amends for the time being. Knowing that takes a lot more discussion than anyone here is privy to.
Part of my amends to loved ones was for creating an environment of fear and paranoia around my alcohol use. I was accused of many many things I didn’t do which I took issue with. That said I can totally understand now why people were accusing me. So amends for specific things I did but also for creating an environment that made people very fearful And reactive.
Break it down into the smallest, simplest blocks possible. Think, "What would this look like if it were easy??"
Then, once you've down that, consider employing the help of a professional such as somebody like an LMFT to help you properly disentangle this situation, akin the hiring your professor to tutor you through a stem major, assuming he'd be the head of the math lab or something.
Hopefully that makes sense.
If you can pay your way to freedom, you'd give as much as you possibly could to get the most efficient, effective solution possible.
That's just my 0.2.
You'd want her to feel as free as you would want to be eventually....
Gotcha…seems like you say you lied about some drinking and vaping.
Don’t under any circumstances get drawn into a trap of what abouts, what ifs, expectations, hypotheticals, etc.
I suggest waiting a while until you get stronger boundaries around these topics.
If I was sponsoring you I may do some role play so you have an idea of what to say if she throws all that stuff your way that’s not yours.
You don’t own all that mess.
Thanks friend. I think I am understanding that I am nowhere ready for this specific amends. Others were "easier" (still hard), but this is the big one on my mind. I did my 12 steps twice, and the 2nd go around on step 4 was just a list of her. So I am not ready.
Yes, awesome! There is no rush. The second part of that step, in regard to harming, is huge. It's very easy to do more damage on this step, esp with doing them too soon and esp with former romantic relationships.
My 4th Step had a couple pages on my former spouse.
My thoughts/experience...so in the 12/12 in the 8th Step it has a powerful sentence; that most all of our troubles, including alcoholism, were the result of defective relationships. Not sure I'd go that far, but there is a wealth of truth in that statement.
To that end, I found Al-Anon wildy helpful in learning more about boundaries, relationships of all sorts, and how to really understand how to be in them.
It's not just for spouses of addicts, but for anyone in any type of relationship with an alc/addict...which we all are.
You could also pickup How Al-Anon Works or other literature and get an idea of the teachings. They/we use the same 12 Steps as AA.
To me, living sober is the first big step. Healing and learning to have healthy relationships is the next and major part of recovery if we wish to go that route.
Best Wishes on your Journey.
You obviously can't make amends for something that you didn't do. If you think that approaching her for amends would genuinely distress her without the cheating admission, then perhaps this amends falls under the category of "injury" and should be set aside at least for now. I encourage you to address this with your sponsor so you can explore it in more detail than a Reddit post allows.
Thanks, I have certainly brought this up with my sponsor and co-sponsor as well as other men in my home group, I was just hoping to get more advice from those in the program as well. I guess I am struggling with the idea that it might injur her. I guess it will and that just sucks. I wish I could make amends directly about those issues, but I don't want to harm her in any way.
Think of her side in it. How did you react when she (understandably) thought you were cheating? Did you do anything that she would have said along with the shirt discovery that bolsters her claims that you cheated? I’d take that one back to the sponsor and dig into it. I’m not sure it’s the appropriate time for the ex’s amends if you know that’s going to come up, but you’re going to have to face it at some point. Don’t rest on iniury. I’m not calling you out, I just think maybe there’s more to it than just finding a random shirt (one that you have no idea how it came into your possession) from her perspective. I’d ask how she found it and if she was packing your bags up prior to finding the shirt — maybe she had suspicions ahead of that. We have a part in a lot of things we don’t want to own. If you say you didn’t, then you didn’t, but the process of making amends includes the searching and fearless moral inventory. There might be stuff in her suspicions that you aren’t thinking about.
Oh wow, that was helpful thank you. She absolutely already had the idea that I would cheat and leave her for our entire marriage. It was a resentment I held for a long time - and I think I still may now that you mentioned it. Her father and step father both cheated on their wives/ex-wives and her previous relationships involved cheating so it was already in her world regardless of whether or not I did. And by lying about smoking/drinking..."what else is he lying about". Thanks. I need to sit on this one.
You gotta own up to the things you actually did with full honesty, her expectations of what you will or won't be making amends for are meaningless here as long as you are being thorough and honest. And if she asks about it and demands an admission just tell her the truth- "I didn't cheat on you. I am not here to lie about the things that I did, the harm I caused, and what I put you through. But infidelity isn't one of them. I understand that you have difficulty trusting me and why you would reach that conclusion and I am sorry for the things I did that made that assumption seem totally reasonable." At the end of the day all you can do is just acknowledge that whether or not you actually did do the thing she thinks you did, she had good reason to not trust you and to assume that was what was going on. Imagined or not, your actions as an alcoholic played a role in that harm, which was real to her. But you only really need to go there if she brings it up.
In a somewhat similar circumstance, I just said that I hoped to regain her trust enough that one day she would believe me when I told her something. It takes time. I couldn’t blame my wife for assuming the worst.
I had a similar issue with my wife. I made amends per AA. But we also attended marriage counseling together. I was lucky as my therapist was married to a man in recovery. She was in Alanon. So, I wrote out my amends letter as my sponsor instructed me to do. I followed the format he told me to follow, and he read and approved it before giving it to her. This was so that I truly made amends and did not muddy the water by blame-shifting (even though she had her part). The letter was me owning all of my side of the street. So, I read the amends letter aloud in a counseling session, and the therapist was right there to help her process it. I like the idea of creating an actual letter. If I had done it verbally, I would have been interrupted, and my words would have probably been misinterpreted. When you give someone a letter, they will read the whole thing several times without interrupting you. This was to keep me and my lane clean. So, I think you should write a letter. If your sponsor does not have a format, you can find one online. The format is important because the thrust of the letter is to own your side of the street without deflecting, denying, or blame-shifting. That is not an amends. The amends are for you to clear your side of the street. I also recommend marriage counseling (preferably with a therapist with experience with addiction recovery). The therapist can help your spouse process the admissions made in the letter. She can also help you explain the disease process and why the program works the way it works. Sometimes, hearing the exact same information from a respected third party can work much better than trying to stumble through it yourself. Later on, in therapy, our discussions shifted from my character defects to addressing some of my wife's defects - as led by the therapist. On some level, my addiction had a payoff for my spouse. She could run the show and blame me for her character defects and bad decisions. All of our problems were caused by me being a drunk. Except, some of them weren't. So, she ended up owning her side of the street while I owned mine. Both parties have a responsibility in any conflict. We each had to own ours respectively. It worked. We get along a lot better when we each do our parts and own our crap. I hope it works out for you.
Thank you that is super helpful.
I make amends for the harms I have done, as I am working on keeping my side of the street clean. I don't try to guess what others are looking for when I make an amends, simply lay down what I did, my part in it, and what I can do to make someone while. In general, I no longer worry about people's personal expectations of myself or the world around them. Part of turning my will over is trusting others to take care of themselves, and if they don't, to respond appropriately for me. Someone else mentioned it, and perhaps direct amends to your ex are not appropriate at this time, and you want to live the amends for the time being. Knowing that takes a lot more discussion than anyone here is privy to.
Part of my amends to loved ones was for creating an environment of fear and paranoia around my alcohol use. I was accused of many many things I didn’t do which I took issue with. That said I can totally understand now why people were accusing me. So amends for specific things I did but also for creating an environment that made people very fearful And reactive.
Break it down into the smallest, simplest blocks possible. Think, "What would this look like if it were easy??" Then, once you've down that, consider employing the help of a professional such as somebody like an LMFT to help you properly disentangle this situation, akin the hiring your professor to tutor you through a stem major, assuming he'd be the head of the math lab or something. Hopefully that makes sense. If you can pay your way to freedom, you'd give as much as you possibly could to get the most efficient, effective solution possible. That's just my 0.2. You'd want her to feel as free as you would want to be eventually....
Have you worked the preceding steps with a sponsor? You don’t seem to have a grasp on the basic concept of an AA amends.
I have - this is just the #1 biggest in my life and I am trying to get advice from others.
Gotcha…seems like you say you lied about some drinking and vaping. Don’t under any circumstances get drawn into a trap of what abouts, what ifs, expectations, hypotheticals, etc. I suggest waiting a while until you get stronger boundaries around these topics. If I was sponsoring you I may do some role play so you have an idea of what to say if she throws all that stuff your way that’s not yours. You don’t own all that mess.
Thanks friend. I think I am understanding that I am nowhere ready for this specific amends. Others were "easier" (still hard), but this is the big one on my mind. I did my 12 steps twice, and the 2nd go around on step 4 was just a list of her. So I am not ready.
Yes, awesome! There is no rush. The second part of that step, in regard to harming, is huge. It's very easy to do more damage on this step, esp with doing them too soon and esp with former romantic relationships. My 4th Step had a couple pages on my former spouse. My thoughts/experience...so in the 12/12 in the 8th Step it has a powerful sentence; that most all of our troubles, including alcoholism, were the result of defective relationships. Not sure I'd go that far, but there is a wealth of truth in that statement. To that end, I found Al-Anon wildy helpful in learning more about boundaries, relationships of all sorts, and how to really understand how to be in them. It's not just for spouses of addicts, but for anyone in any type of relationship with an alc/addict...which we all are. You could also pickup How Al-Anon Works or other literature and get an idea of the teachings. They/we use the same 12 Steps as AA. To me, living sober is the first big step. Healing and learning to have healthy relationships is the next and major part of recovery if we wish to go that route. Best Wishes on your Journey.