I feel like I need to post a retraction - sort of as an apology even though the person I feel bad about judging doesn't read this blog - thank God. Who the hell are any of us to ever judge anyone anyway? I got a powerful lesson in that once while doing a fifth step with my sponsor and ranting my head off about a family member. I realized that I bitch just as much about people, I make just as many judgments about people. Sitting around and talking about how judgmental someone is means that I am no better really.
So, I have to stop calling the guy - "the guy who is an ass." Because frankly- that is a judgment that I don't have the experience to base it on. That doesn't mean that I am not going to try to talk myself out of associating with him - but the truth is, it's not a judgment that I can make. The most asshole thing he did to me was pursue me when his sponsor told him not to date. How bad of an offense is not listening to your sponsor and going after what you want - even if it is for the wrong reason or a motive you are trying to hide - or that you maybe don't even understand? I mean, we are all guilty of that - not listening to our sponsor. You just have to hope that when you don't listen - you don't cause too much damage - or if you do, that you are mostly damaging yourself.
I ended up married to someone that my sponsor told me not to date (oh wait - she didn't exactly tell me not to date HIM (she told me not to date at all) - she couldn't tell me not to date him, cause I didn't tell her I was dating him - so I am guilty of lying also) - of course we only got married because I had breast cancer - but still. Then - the second most asshole thing he did was call me the day after we went out to tell me that he really thought he needed to take his sponsor's suggestion not to date for a while, even though he wanted to date me - because he really needed to work through some issues and didn't want to treat me the way he has treated people in the past. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for him I guess - I had a hard time being mad about this - I say unfortunately for me cause anger is my favorite and most useful emotion. The thing is - I ended up respecting him more for that than I would have if he had continued to pursue me. Because first of all - he called me to talk about it and didn't just disappear like an ass - and second of all - he made a decision not to treat me like shit.
It is true that when he called me that day - he told me some unflattering things about his past and about things he had done - but again, I can't pass judgment based on this - it wouldn't be fair. He never did those things to me. At least he had the guts to do the right thing - frankly, I probably wouldn't have - I mean it takes guts to apologize and to do what you don't want to do - as opposed to just going after what you want. There are times when I still - even though I know that it's a bad idea - go after what I want, just because I want it. You know - I want what I want when I want it, which is as soon as I can get it, and I want as much of it as I can get - I hear that all the time at meetings. If I had been him - I am not sure I would have made the honorable choice.
Frankly, I certainly wouldn't want anyone judging me based on things I had done in my past, or holding those things against me, or talking about me because of it and there is plenty to judge when it comes to my past relationships. Maybe he has legitimately worked on things over the past several months - and true - you can't undo years of fuckedupness with just a few months, or years even probably - but it's progress not perfection. We are in a program premised on change - we are all here on the theory that you deserve second chances. We need to change - we have to - and I don't just mean change by not drinking when we used to drink - I am talking about deep and fundamental changes to a person. There was a time when I might have said - "once a something [fill in the blank - cheater, liar...], always a something." But I am not so sure about that anymore. I've changed too much and I've watched too many people change. I've watched my motives change, I've watched myself make choices that I knew were right even though they weren't what I wanted...
I have to believe that kind of change is possible, because if it isn't possible - then all of us in AA are fucked.
This is really about me and not about him, and my ability to make a right choice in the circumstances.
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