I’m A Reformed Enabler Who Now Lives By This Mantra
It's proving harder than it sounds.
Oleksandr113, fcscafeine, interstid | Canva I was in the middle of the worst of our marital problems. My husband was upsetting our entire household. Our children were begging me to leave their father. All we wanted was peace and for him to stop his newly adopted outrageous drinking behaviors.
"You know what the problem is?" said my son.
"What?" I asked.
"Dad doesn’t care at all," he said. "And you care too much."
Out of the mouths of babes.
Especially, since this is what we had just learned in marriage counseling. My husband was diagnosed as lacking empathy and I was told I’m an enabler. Enablers are overly caring people who tend to remain in bad situations for too long because they make excuses for the bad behavior of people they love.
My signature excuse during my husband’s escapades?
"He’s a good person in a bad place."
My son wasn’t wrong.
During my husband’s drinking, I begged him to care. I begged him to care that he was upsetting our children. I begged him to care that he was upsetting me. I begged him to care about our family.
I begged him to care about his own self-respect.
It didn’t phase him.
I continued in marriage counseling to learn more about myself. And I was all in for that hour. I soaked in every word. I really tried to grow and evolve. But then I would return home and get into our normal habits and the enabler in me would rear her ugly head.
I refused to get out of an increasingly unhealthy marriage.
I would add additional excuses.
"I need to keep our family together for our children."
"He’s never normally drank like this and scared us before."
"It’s not constant, he’s doing it only periodically."
"I need to figure out what’s bothering him because he must be in pain."
The enabler cared too much to leave.
Of course, there’s another signature of an enabler. It pairs well with the caring part. And one day in marriage counseling my therapist said it out loud.
"You are a worrier," he said. "And no one is harder on Colleen than Colleen."
My worrier gene was Olympic-sized. It could give me quite an emotional workout.
What will happen to him if I leave? How do I leave when he's in such a bad place? What about our family? How will my children do in a divorce? Where will we go? How will I pay the bills? How will I start over? Can I do this on my own?
Then entered the "No one is harder on Colleen than Colleen" part.
I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this situation. I can’t believe my choice of a man has hurt my children. I can’t believe my staying so long has hurt my children. I have made so many mistakes. How will I ever forgive myself? My children deserve better than to have had their home disrupted like this.
While I was doing the overly caring–worrying gymnastics, my husband still shockingly didn’t care.
When I finally ripped the Band-Aid off and divorced him I made a promise to myself. But it’s been really hard to keep. In fact, it’s taken me several years to even inch toward it. Because it’s such a feat for an enabler to achieve.
Not to mention, there’s an irony to the new mantra this enabler has adopted.
What do I now repeat to myself?
"I don’t care."
Colleen Sheehy Orme is a national relationship columnist, journalist, and former business columnist. She writes about love, life, relationships, family, parenting, divorce, and narcissism.