Sometimes I find life in recovery to be rather difficult, most noticeably when someone is holding some pretty serious resentments towards me, and especially when that person comes in the form of my sister’s husband.
As I sit here at the airport and reflect back on the last few days I spent with her family, I realize the most challenging part of it all was in my ongoing tension with her husband. It was quite stressful to say the least given it felt like I was walking on eggshells the entire time I was there. Unfortunately, he continues to harbor resentments towards me that at this point, I’m still unclear of what they’re about and why he’s been unable to let them go. The only thing I do know is that he continues to openly claim I’m not doing my work in recovery and cites out each time I do anything that he deems as selfish.
Much of what I went through on this trip there, as well as several others prior to this, continue to remind me of a past that still haunts me. What I mean by this is how I’ve done my absolute best these days to rectify my past wreckage and practice selflessness in as many ways as I can. But even with that and even after doing a long stream of things selflessly, one action that could be deemed selfish is the only one ever commented on or apparently seen.
Sadly, this has been all too true of my relationship with my sister’s husband. I have spent the last three years trying to repair the damage I did to him and his family. I have not only made my amends but have also been practicing a living amends by demonstrating I’m not the same selfish person I once was. While my sister has definitely seen and thanked me for my changes and grown closer to me in the process, her husband has harbored some very strong negativity towards me and done his best to avoid me when I’m around.
On some level because of this, I always feel like a leper when I visit my sister’s family, as I watch her husband not have much of a desire to play board games or watch movies or even engage in a simple conversation with me. While I gave it my all this past trip to be overly friendly to him, to compliment him on several occasions, and to show him the same love, forgiveness, and peace that I know God would ask of me, there was an overall level of iciness still felt from him during my entire stay. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that this can happen sometimes in recovery from addictions.
I understand today that not everyone is going to fully forgive me for my toxic past. And I also accept that not everyone is going to like or embrace me, even if I am doing everything I can to live a spiritually centered and unconditionally loving life. Sadly, I know I can’t make my sister’s husband see the hard work I’m placing into my recovery these days, nor can I make him let go of any resentments he continues to hold onto towards me either. After all, recovery has taught me the only person I can really work on and change is myself, which is what I’m going to keep on doing.
So whether my sister’s husband ever changes or not, I don’t know. Regardless, I’ll continue to offer him the same unconditional love I’ve been offering and pray he’ll one day fully let go of his resentments towards me and return the same. And hopefully he’ll also eventually grasp one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my own recovery to date in that the only person who truly suffers from carrying any resentment is actually themselves…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson