The pain of staying, the pain of leaving

[prodigal]

I think so many of us are between the proverbial rock and a hard place; it hurts to stay, it hurts to go. I read so frequently "... but I love him." I imagine there is something left that could be called "love", but I often wonder what's left to love of the A after so many years. We tolerate abuse, craziness, instability, irresponsibility, and we frequently minimize the unacceptable behaviors. Or we defend them. Or we ignore them. Or we accept responsibility for them. We end up just as crazy as they are.

I never realized how far into the vortex I had been sucked until I looked at a trashbag filled with slips of credit card receipts last week. I was always a very organized, tidy person. I got things done. I had a good job. I had my own apartment. I was in debt and I was poor, but I was working at getting back my financial "health." Now I have a bag full of credit card receipts that I tote around in the trunk of my car. Two years ago, I always kept all the slips in their appropriate files and stapled them to the monthly statements when I received them.

That was then, this is now. You may be scratching you head and saying to yourself, "What the heck does a bag of credit cards have to do with pain?" That's just it. The pain took over so much of my life that the motivated, energetic, and very tidy (okay, anal) person was squished out and eventually moved somewhere else ...

[elizabeth1979]

Thanks Prodigal.
I agree.
I was definately more crazy than my ex. He had a substance based addiction to blame on his crazy behovior..what the heck was my excuse? Shiest, I must have been out of my freaking mind...proably still am.
My house was a mess all the time, no food in the fridge (no money), the house stunk bc he stunk I was too emotionally spent to clean it. I was a nuerotic head case at work, completely disfunctional, and was like a zombie..and for what?
For what reason did I do this?
Mostly because I thought leaving would hurt more.
I was so so so so wrong.
Leaving was like being free. It was like being re-born.

[Seeking Wisdom]

I understand completely what you are saying. I am trying to rediscover myself after years of living with one never ending crisis after another for soooo long ... when my focus was on just trying to survive the day, make sure we had a roof over our head and food to eat in the wake of the devastation brought on by years of my Ahusband's drinking. My life and priorities have been so altered, I can barely remember the person I used to be. I am on my own now and working on the long hard process of discovering who I really am once again now that alcoholism doesn't color every aspect of my life. I have a feeling it will be a long process of rediscovery and I know I will never be the same again - I have been through too much and I have been forever changed because of this illness.

[embraced2000]

i know exactly what you are talking about, prodigal.....my apt. was a mess, my purse was a mess, my car was nasty, my laundry undone.

my mind was fried. it was all i could do to get up each morning and trudge through the stinkin day. all i wanted to do was sleep and i dreaded even taking a shower or washing my hair.

we become so beat down that we shut down. it's the only way i could cope i guess.

you will get your life back, bit by bit.....you will be free again. and you can organize all you want.

hang in there, prodigal.

[prodigal]

You are so right E .... my house is a filth pit. I remember how I used to spend every Saturday (after working all week and enduring the grinding commute to/from Washington, DC - fun, not!) going to the grocery store, then the dry cleaners, grabbing a quick bite for lunch, doing five loads of laundry, cleaning my house. Every single Saturday. Up no later than 9, out the door by 10, gourmet dinner on the table by 8.

Right now it's about 1:20 pm here. I am sitting in a teeshirt at the computer with my hair in a scrungy. No shower yet. Just sitting here with unbrushed teeth, looking like death, not motivated to move my behind from point A to point B.

This, too, shall pass ...

[prodigal]

Was posting my reply to Elizabeth when you guys were posting. Thanks for the input. It always helps me to come here and know I am not alone. Nobody can feel our pain for us, but just knowing other people are in, or have been, in the same boat helps so much.

Nobody ever said life would be easy, did they? I got a "whiff" of AH this past weekend, and man is that a toxic experience. I think I'm suffering the fallout from that chaotic encounter. But, then, they're all chaotic after awhile, aren't they?

[embraced2000]

i remember when i first started getting my mind back, x was long gone, i was somewhat coming out of my shockolacoma and i began to clean house.

lordy, i bout passed out when i looked in the corners. behind the toilet....oh my lord...it looked like an alien planet.

when i started moving and getting some corners cleaned, it helped me a lot.

but it was so damn big, i actually had to cut it down into grid blocks in my head and just do one little grid a day.

i swear, it would wear me out so badly, i would finish it, feel so good, and fall sound asleep for 3 hours. exhausted.

those were the days, my friend, i thought they'd never end........

prodigal, it took me a good two years to even begin to feel some sort of normalcy. it came slowly and painfully. but it came. it will for you too.

[loveRoy]

Prodigal, it's like my sister says, you lose your center point. I didn't know up from down, east from west. My only sane place was work. I would look at other people and wonder if they were living like I was living. I have always been amazed at how quickly the madness took over. Thank goodness I found this board.

[prodigal]

The pain that really stabs me in the heart is still seeing it as clearly as if it just happened .... it was April '05. He was at an inpatient detox/rehab and it was four days after he had gone in. He wasn't as bad then as he is now.

Anyway, we had an orientation session with all the visiting family members. Then they walked us towards the lunch room. There was AH smiling and so excited to see me. He looked "clean." Pair of dockers on, golf shirt, and tennis shoes. His eyes looked clear and focused. The orientation counselor started laughing, and said, "Calm down, Chuck. She's here now." The counselor told me how highly my husband spoke of me.

That was a moment in time. And to be honest, I think it was the only moment I truly believe that he loved me. That is, for me, the pain I'm going to carry the rest of my life. That man is long gone. The last detox/rehab he was in last June - nah. The bloom was off the rose. The anger was simmering. The love had been extinguished by gallons of booze. All I have left is the memory of a man who looked so young and full of life that Sunday in April. Long time comin', long time gone ...

[embraced2000]

it's a shame, a sad shame.

me thinks you might be feeling bluesy.......thoughts like those you posted used to just rip my heart out. i had to quit thinking of them.

i still think of my x every day, many times throughout the day......i think of him when i lay down at night to go to bed. i used to relive the moments you described, but they kept me in misery. so now when thoughts of him enter my head throughout the day, i stop myself instantly, and say...god bless you tommy.

i try every way i can to retrain my thoughts cause it hurts so damn bad to remember how we used to love each other.

you're right.....the alcohol has drowned the men we knew....but they loved us, prodigal.....you know your husband loved you, just as i know mine did. and they probably still do. there is just a big monster in the way. and we had to get out of it's way.

[TexasGirl]

((((Prod)))))
It is sad. I know what you mean.....my XAH is further than he's ever been. When I left, he just spiraled down at a faster pace than he ever had. He's on this weird schedule now....doesn't work, sleeps all day, drinks all night, does weird things like call my parents at 6 a.m. drunk. He's so very far gone now. It's even sadder because he's 28.

Back to your original thought.....pain of leaving and pain of staying. When I first left, the pain was so intense I would scream and cry in loud, painful bursts. After a week of that, it lessened to maybe once a week. Then a few sad tears every now and then. Today, I go most days without even a thought of him. Initially, the pain was very, very difficult. Now, it's not even painful...

[LGLG07]

i often day dream about the great sense of relief i would feel by leaving my ah .. long gone are the days of dreaming for an emotionally stable / sober / clean husband to come home too . i rmbr when we were dating and he would show up some where i would literally jump up and down and clap my hands at the sight of him . (queer i know , we were young!) . now i too dread when he comes home from work , i freeze up instantly ... still ... hes been sober 8 months ! but still the same unstable person underneath.

I can so relate to you prodigal , how you saw your ah in rehab all cleaned up and happy and gung ho for recovery ! mine was too .. all three times . how much can we really take !

[prodigal]

I've been through three rehabs with AH. I finally gave up and put him in God's hands. There is nothing I can do. I don't even mind his getting drunk anymore. I just see it as what is. Not a dang thing I can do about it.

The abuse is the horrible part. I generally don't speak to him or have much in the way of contact. It's too lethal.

[Pick-a-name]

What a relief to hear I'm not the only one........

I decided just the other day I must be getting somewhat better because now I've at least noticed enough to start to care about doing at least a little something about things around here; I guess that is progress compared to not seeing the mess or caring at all.

[lilac]

I think that our situations just take everything out of us. I have noticed that things I used to not do, I do now.....and vice versa. I understand totally what that bag means.

[chero]

Hey Prodigal, If I didn't do anything today but read your post then it was worth it! To know I'm not the only one who had let things like receipts and laundry and house work slide has made my day!

I'm so tired from dealing with the drinking that on the nights he isn't drinking I'm too tired to care about anything and the next thing you know I'm stuck in a cycle of...what?? I don't know what to call it.

You have a bag of receipts...I have a basket. It's just so not like me. And I'm avoiding my bedroom lest the laundry call me dirty names!

But I feel so relieved knowing it's not me...or not just me! THANKS for the post!!

, Cheryl

[MsGolightly]

prodigal and embraced, your posts earlier made me tear up! i know what it feels like all too well to think back on the times you were in love and cry for the person that doesn't exist anymore. it really is like mourning the death of someone... knowing that the old them is gone and a walking disaster has replaced them.

i've been so down lately - and i think it's because i spoke with my ex and got in a nasty screaming match. before that, for at least a few days, i was at peace, and i wasn't thinking about the girl i loved before... i was thinking about the monster that's taken her place.

[SaTiT]

When I got sober..I thought maybe I was insane,
but when my GF relapsed for 3 years, I felt like
a total lunitic.

I had a streak of gray just on one side of my head,from
my divorced which I thought looked pertty cool, but now there's gray all over.

[cautious]

Today I called a professional to come do a household job that AH--in his healthy days--would have taken care of months ago. I've been waiting and waiting to see if there was a sign that he's still in there somewhere.

But I realized that I'm living in a mess that reflects the state of my family and the condition of my emotions, and no one's going to do anything about it but me. So I did. And I'm going to keep going, even though I still can't believe I'm here.

[FormerDoormat]

Sometimes I feel like I'm always the odd "man" out here. But, alas, that's what makes me FD. I've always been a very organized person and impeccably neat, too. Down right OCD about having a place for everything and everything in it's place.

Not only does the inside of my home have to shine, but the outside, too. Darn near could make the cover of "House Beautiful," I've been told on occassion. But these days, I'm learning to stop placing so much emphasis on the things that don't really matter and focus more on the important things in life.

For the first time in my life, if I don't feel like cleaning the entire house top to bottom every weekend, then I don't. Instead, I find myself curling up with a steamy cup of coffee topped off with my favorite vanilla creamer (and NOT the fat-free type) reading a book or magazine and doing exactly what I want to do. And sometimes what I want to do is nothing at all.

And these days when folks ask favors of me, I find myself saying "no" to the things I really don't want to do--and I don't feel a ounce of guilt over it. I've spent the last 47 years doing things for others in an attempt to make them like me and I nearly lost myself in the process.

It was an insanity of my own making. I would do, and do, and do for others, yet no one ever returned the favor for me. No one ever thought of my needs. I spent an inordinant amount of time trying to anticipate everyone else's needs. Yet, nobody ever did that for me.

I became a very angry, bitter woman. I would go about my daily chores huffing and puffing away. Hoping that some of the other members of my household would feel guilty about how hard I was working and would step up to the plate and help. But no one ever did.

Then one day, I realized that I was the crazy one. I was more worried about how others perceived me and how I kept my home than I was about my own well-being.

Today my well-being and happiness are my first priorities. Having a perfectly organized home and life are no longer my goals. I've decided that it's much more important to stop and smell the roses. There is so much beauty and abundance all around us and I was missing the bulk of it. Receipts can be filed away some rainy day. For now, it's time to play.

[Sunflower]

boy it really is so nice to know that in so many ways we are all in the same boat--not alone and able to share....it really is like the old person died-and who the heck is this? And I am talking as a mother here so it is different--I missed my boy/man. He is sober now as you all know--for a long while-still it was whan it got quiet that evrhting came out of me--and my house????what a mess!!!the closets are all jammed up--nothing is clean its like a war zone and I am usually like doormat--compulsively organized...I finally handed my mom whom I live with my check book and told her to handle my financialaffairs-I had made such a mess of them--forgetting to pay--overdrafts--it's like my brain is fried from being on overload for so many years....I swear right about now I can't add 2+2...and I am sick and in pain on top of it all which makes it so much more fun!!!! Thank you guys for this forum and giving me a place to not feel like such an out cast...

[mallowcup]

The thing I failed to ask myself was, "Does he love me?" Absolutely nothing in his words or behavior would be evidence that he loved me. I loved him or thought so.
The problem was, I wanted to be loved. I couldn't make the connection so I hung on to loving expecting it result in my feeling loved.
I think instead of assessing the way we love we should assess the way was are loved.
With my ex, I came a distant second to a cold beer every single time.

[chero]

Mallow, How do you answer that question, though? Does he love me?

I couldn't want him to more than I do. I couldn't love him more than I do. But how do you know for sure? Do you go on feeling???

[Earthworm]

Eventually the pain of staying starts out weighing the pain of leaving, thank god.

Earthworm

[braveheart6]

"love you" comes out mines mouth but his actions tell me otherwise.

I take the view that they dont love theirself so what chance do I have.

When I took mine back 5 years ago I was told to keep doing my best and everytime he screwed me over another little bit of my love for him would die.
It worked so when things boiled over this time he was instantly out the door because for my sake enough was enough.

The whole thing stinks but I now KNOW I am loveable and deserve so much better.