Last week I was sitting at home, tired after doing some work on the house, looking forward to a nice warm shower. Suddenly my wife said to me: “Hey, why don’t you take a shower?” At the tone of her suggestion, I started getting angry for her giving me unsolicited advice. Who is she to tell me what I should do? She is trying to control me! And I felt the impulse to say: “I was about to take a shower, but now that you mentioned it, I am not going to.” I would teach her a lesson!

Luckily I had just enough recovery to keep my mouth shut. So I took the shower, though with much less appetite than before. When I slowly calmed down and enjoyed the shower, I came to understand what was going on inside of me. My wife had said something out of love. She cares so much for me that she just knew that I was looking forward to taking a shower. “Hey, go take your shower; I know you would love to.”

And because I am a love cripple, I could not see her love and care for me. I distorted her message of love into a message of hostility. That is how I always receive other people’s messages for me — that they are against me, trying to control me, tell me what to do, as if I am stupid. Thus, I have been fighting back against this hostile world around me. “Stay away from me, leave me alone!”

But now, I could see that I am just a love cripple. My wife is not at all hostile toward me. Instead, she says kind words to me, words expressing love for me. I felt tears welling up in my eyes! How cruelly had I reacted to this expression of love. Suddenly, I wanted to be with her again!

I remembered what my sponsor told me: “The measure of your recovery is the measure that you are able to receive love.” Now I understood what he meant. As a love cripple, I push love away from me, unable to recognize it. But in recovery I am slowly learning to trust people and to see and receive the love they want to give to me.

The next morning I shared the incident of the shower and what had been going on in my head with my wife. She had not had a clue! She didn’t even remember the incident. She looked at me, smiling, and said that it must be very complicated to live like that. I admitted that it is complicated indeed — even taking a shower is difficult. We both laughed! She was about to make coffee and asked if I wanted coffee too. Then, immediately she wondered if I still want coffee now that she had asked me. We laughed again. I felt really connected with her. This must be what is called intimacy: Into-me-see.