Promises

D promised to me today, in the car, on the way to his polygraph appointment (he has to complete and pass a poly in order to finish his probation) that he had disclosed everything to me, and that he had been sober since he said he had been sober (11 months yesterday). He promised that he had been honest throughout the past year and had nothing to hide going into the polygraph.

He passed the test. Thursday is his official last day of probation.

On the way home, he promised me that on Friday, his first act in being probation-free will be to take me to the city (which is across state lines, and had for the past two years been verboten without express permission from the PO) to eat dinner wherever I want.

For the first time in longer than I can think, I actually believe that he will keep his promises.

As I told him last Thursday, I do not believe he will never relapse--and he didn't promise that. I do, however, expect that if he does relapse, he will tell me in a reasonable amount of time--and he promised to do so. As of now, though with the honest understanding that anything could change at any moment, I believe that he will keep that promise, too.

I'm also making some promises to myself. I promise that I will never again allow someone to treat me in a way that is unacceptable. I promise to stand up for myself when my gut tells me something is amiss, and not to sit back and accept obvious lies even if they are comforting. I promise that I will be strong enough to set clear boundaries and keep them (fyi: anything illegal is a Deal Breaker, acting out with a real live person is a Deal Breaker). I promise to keep working on me, and to remember just how far I (and we) have come if things seem over my head. I promise to be myself, take care of myself, and love myself as much as possible. And most of all, I promise to believe I can keep those promises.