The Fine Line Between Support and Control

It’s no secret that I’m in recovery from cocaine. Next month, I’ll be 35 years clean from my DOC.

That’s wild to me.

Thirty-five years since my last relapse.

Yet, I remember it like it was yesterday. I’m sure many of you who’ve gone through relapses can relate.

This year marked sixteen years since my disclosures.

That’s also wild to me.

For the same reason.

Actually, that’s not quite true.

Because I was sober.

Those details aren’t clouded.

They don’t get mushed together until my brain decided it was severely overwhelmed and said, “Um, yeah, we’re having trouble distinguishing between Thursday and Friday, but a great idea would be to keep an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the affairs…so, yeah, let’s do that.”

I’m guessing anyone reading that’s gone through disclosure understands what I’m talking about.

Maybe you did some of the things that I did too.

I talked about the whole first set of boundaries I did. Eeek!

“If you have a setback, I’m removing the router!” Brilliant idea, Laura. How the F are the kids supposed to do their homework? They can’t. That boundary was definitely fear-based…and slightly controlling.

As was my approach to my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s recovery. Of course, this is 2026 me typing, not 2010 Laura.

2010 Laura was all slick like. “What time does your meeting start? How long does it take to get there? Is traffic bad this time of day?”

Notice my creativity? I wasn’t telling him to go to the meeting. I was simply asking helpful questions that would get him out the door on time.

See, because I was in recovery, I thought that my expectations were reasonable: be in a healthy, active recovery because if you’re not, my recovery and well-being are at risk, and I’ll have to leave.

On the surface, that’s pretty good stuff.

My follow-through? Not so much.

Because the way I did things was, once again, a tad controlling.

It wasn’t intentional.

It was coming from many places:

Love

Fear

Misinformation

Fear

Trauma

Fear

Again, I used my sly, aka passive-aggressive, tactics to share what worked for me. Because in my head, if it worked for me, surely it would for him, right?

Just like when another partner’s spouse did something that worked for them, I shared it with him, because I was convinced it would work for him too.

Kinda like when I read something online about another porn addict or sex addict having a certain kind of behavior, let’s just say being a peeping Tom, and I was certain he was too. Not wondering about it. Certain.

It was how my brain worked back then.

So when it came to his recovery, I felt like my hurt > his say in his recovery.

In hindsight, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

If he told me how to manage my recovery and healing, I’d tell him to fuck off. It’s my recovery. It’s my healing. It’s my life.

But with his addiction, his actions directly affected me. It made me feel like I should have a say in all things in his world.

I had a really hard time when I couldn’t be a part of it. Even when I saw him doing “all the right things,” I still wanted more.

I questioned whether 12-steps were enough. Whether 12-steps and a CSAT were enough. Whether 12-steps, a CSAT, and a support group were enough.

I always wanted him to do more so the other shoe didn’t drop. Because I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would.

I realized that I was putting the tools I learned at his feet, and he wasn’t picking them up.

It pissed me off.

He’d ask my opinion on something, I’d tell him, and he’d do something else.

It pissed me off.

He had a setback in his sobriety.

It pissed me off.

I spent a lot of time invested in his recovery. In the ebbs and flows. The peaks and valleys. Counting the days.

But then I realized I was pissed off a lot.

It wasn’t conducive to my healing.

After my second disclosure, I inherently knew I needed to heal. I had no idea how, but I knew I needed to heal.

That wasn’t going to happen if I used my energy up focused on his addiction. His recovery.

I needed to save that energy for me.

I could still maintain my boundary:

“For me to feel safe and at peace in this relationship, I need to be with someone who’s in active, healthy recovery. When that’s not happening, it creates anxiety for me, and I’ll need to step back or leave the relationship.”

And let him focus on his recovery and healing, while I focus on mine.

Let’s Stay Connected

If this resonates with you, I’d really love to know. Comment below or email me. You’re also invited to join other Bookenders on Reddit.

And if you’re looking for deeper exercises, I wrote Bookends of Recovery & Healing Workbook to help you heal from betrayal trauma and addiction by using creative exercises, action tools, and guided reflection.

Warmly,
Laura 🌻