Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Super Spy

Today is one of those days when I have to remind myself how much happier I am when I don't try to control everyone's life.  Some days it comes so much easier than others and unfortunately I don't think I get an easy day today.  

I don't know what made me do it, because I wasn't feeling suspicious or angry or really anything at all the other night, but a couple nights ago I did the old codie-check of D's phone and found a couple of texts he'd sent to a (girl) friend discussing a trip she wanted to take to France to go mountain biking.  Nothing strange or odd--I know this girl, she's a very old friend of D's, and this is something she'd want to do.  Until the one where he said something about the beaches being awkward.  And then she replied that nude beaches were gross.  And then he said something about topless ones not being so bad but old men in speedos being gross.  (Cue freakout here.)  

I confronted him about it immediately, and pretty calmly too actually.  I just asked him what was up with it, showed him the message.  He said that it wasn't anything, that he had just been joking with her about the gross old men in speedos, hadn't meant anything by anything.  I asked him about it again this morning because it's been niggling around in the back of my head and bugging me since then, wondering if he really, really could have said something like that without even one iota of him meaning it in a suggestive way.  He still claims it was nothing.  I still don't feel satisfied.  Maybe he really was just saying that it wouldn't be bad for her, as a girl.  Maybe it was just a harmless joke and I'm overreacting.  But I don't know, and that's the rub.  Now I'm struggling with the fine line between maintaining my boundaries and not trying to control him and his recovery.  

I need to just learn to quit with the super-spy work. 

3 comments:

Wait. What? said...

old habits die hard - I know how that goes...been there done that.

the good news is you recognize it now - there is work to be done!

Anonymous said...

Good job recognizing this! The urge to spy and snoop can be strong, but I've found that it never really makes anything better for me. It just gets me more worked up and upset.

RockiBottom said...

This is something I really struggle with. I spy not wanting to find something... hoping I don't. Of course even if I don't find anything it just makes me wonder if he has gotten better at covering his tracks. It really is a harmful habit we have.