Attachment

To those of you that are wondering, yes, I talked with my husband last night. I told him I owed him a huge apology and that I would try to refrain from controlling and manipulating him and that he could spend the money. I did ask him though, to please talk to me BEFORE he spends it, just so I can keep track of what our real balance is. Then he told me he was sorry for not being more open with me about his recovery and his spirituality.

Baby steps, people. That's what this life is all about. :)

I was reading Codependent No More by Melody Beattie last night and had more thoughts come to me. So, when I was a kid, I had crushes on boys, just like everyone else did. But my crushes lasted YEARS. I'm reading a chapter in the book talking about attachment… I hope you can see where I'm going with this. ;)

I would cling DESPERATELY to the idea of a boy liking me. I would take any little tiny encouragement and blow it SO far out of proportion. For instance, I fell in like with a boy in the 6th grade. I don't remember what happened that I liked him, but I LIKED him. Probably he was just nice to me or he paid attention to me… I seem to really flock to that throughout my life. Anyway, the crush finally ended when he turned 19 and left the freaking country! What a LOSER I am. Haha! I'd be enamored, then he wouldn't do anything, nothing would happen, and I'd grow insecure. Then someone would say something, he would do something, or he would say something… then I was gone again, floating high on a cloud where someone actually valued me!

I always knew I did this and I know I've done it to plenty of guys after this 7 year crush I had… speaking of which, I had crushes on other boys during the "down" time with the 7-year-guy, but they all fizzled out long before his did. This brought to mind a situation with my cousin when I was 19. I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, so I'll just briefly recap.

I had a crush on a guy, we would watch explicit movies that we shouldn't watch and I would do things to help him out with the problem that would "arise" from watching such movies. I'm not proud of that, but my past is my past. Anyway, it turned out he was leading me on because he liked that my giving codependent self would fawn over him. Of course, we didn't know THAT at the time, but he was leading me on because I would give his ego what it needed. So he never would ask me out and he kept dating other girls while we were "together" so I just told people we were, "kind of sort of dating."

Well, my cousin got married that summer (1999?) and this cousin happened to be the brother of my most favorite cousin in the whole wide world. We were pen pals for YEARS and we spent summers with each other's families, she was my best friend ever, because she was family too. Built in friend. I went to this wedding with my mom and spent some wonderful time with my cousin. She'd just graduated high school and we decided that she's move up to Idaho, get residency, and go to school with me after. We'd room together and just live it up. I told her the guy I was dating had a friend that would be perfect for her and everything. Long story short, two days after she arrived, she fell for the guy that wasn't really mine and she told me she wouldn't date him if I asked her not to because blood was thicker than water. Of course, I said no. I didn't want her to go after him, I loved him! Big huge fights ensued… they got married that November (or sometime around there), and I haven't talked to her since. I found out from the guy (whole other story there) that they lasted a year and a half… then he married a girl named Becky that looked like my cousin. Irony.

Anyway, reading in the book about attachment got me thinking about this incident. Should I apologize to my cousin for asking her to stay away from a guy that wasn't even interested in me? Was it unfair of me to ask her to stay away? But if she hadn't have come along, maybe he would have gotten with me just because I was there and he learned to love me?

I really miss my cousin. For a lot of years, I hated her. Back in 2006 I worked through the incident and have been okay since. But with this new program I've really started missing her and wishing we had that relationship we used to have. Even in 2012 I cherished the misery in her life! She's currently married to her 3rd husband and they have two baby's. They adopted one new born only to find she was 2 months pregnant. So I think they're 7-9 months apart.

The rest of my family is friends with her on Facebook and it would be really easy to reach out to her, I just don't know if I should. Probably the fact that this has been brought to my mind means I should reach out, but I guess I still hurt. I'm over the hate and the resentment (obviously, or I wouldn't be thinking about this), but I guess I just don't trust her. Period. Feel free to weigh in… otherwise, I feel there will be some major praying in my near future.

B