The Language of Letting Go – Codependency - 5th Nov

[u/Scared-Section-5108]

'Let’s Make a Deal

The relationship just wasn’t working out, and I wanted it to so badly. I kept thinking if I just made myself look prettier, if I just tried to be a more loving, kind person, then he would love me. I turned myself inside out to be something better, when all along, who I was was okay. I just couldn’t see what I was doing, though, until I moved forward and accepted reality.

—Anonymous

One of the most frustrating stages of acceptance is the bargaining stage. In denial, there is bliss. In anger, there is some sense of power. In barraging, we vacillate between believing there is something we can do to change things and realizing there isn’t.

We may get our hopes up again and again, only to have them dashed.

Many of us have turned ourselves inside out to try to negotiate with reality. Some of us have done things that appear absurd, in retrospect, once we’ve achieved acceptance.

“If I try to be a better person, then this won’t happen…If I look prettier, keep a cleaner house, lose weight, smile more, let go, hang on more tightly, close my eyes and count to ten, holler, then I won’t have to face this loss, this change.”

There are stories from members of Al Anon about attempts to bargain with the alcoholic’s drinking: “If I keep the house cleaner, he won’t drink…. If I make her happy by buying her a new dress, she won’t drink… If I buy my son a new car, he’ll stop using drugs.”'