casper4095

Hi All,

My ABF broke up with me this past Monday after two years of many ups and downs. I know I should be thankful that he walked away when I haven't been able to. The logical side of me thinks about how much better my life will be now but I just can't get my heart to let him go. The sadness I am feeling is, at times, completely overwhelming . I am trying to just let the emotions out but I guess deep down I am in denial over everything that has happened.

I first met him while we worked together about 16 years ago. He was on work release at the time so the guy I got to know was completely clean and sober. He was an amazing person but we never entered into a relationship back then because he knew that he was a "bad guy" and it would only lead me down a path that wasn't good for me. You know the old cliché "good girls like bad boys"? Well that was us to a tee. We were just friends and he continued to have legal problems off and on. He eventually left the area to try to get himself out of trouble but in true addict fashion he just attracted the same kind of people that he was trying to escape from here. Fast forward to present time.......... He was in a really toxic situation and I was in a place where I could help him out. I sent him a bus ticket so he could get home. Without really understanding the severity of his disease or the severity of my codependence I agreed to date him after he had been back home about three months. That is when the craziness really began........

Two months after we started dating he entered treatment for alcohol. I stood by his side thru the process and when he got home he instantly relapsed. As in he stepped off the bus and went strait to the liquor store. I really should have walked away right then but it was a combination of what I had learned during his treatment (it is a disease that he has some trouble controlling) and being in love with the idea of who I knew he could be that made me stay. He got right back on track though and entered a halfway house. Over the course of the next year or so we had some really bad times but for the most part things were pretty amazing between us. The bad times were usually REALLY bad. It was during one of his really bad relapses, which I found out later also included drugs, that I found myself ready to accept al anon. It was a God send for me. His relapses became farther and farther apart and it really seemed like he was on the right track finally. Between Oct and now he had remained sober and clean but then at the beginning of May the wheels fell off.

He relapsed on crack and made some seriously ridiculous choices in the meantime (letting people move in to his ONE bedroom apartment). After binging for a week we went through the whole "I am done and I am sorry" phase and things were kinda ok for about a week. He was isolating and beating himself up during that time and I was trying to get him to talk about things but I had a lot of family issues going on and he was working a lot so I was kinda just letting him have space to do his thing. Last Monday we had a really good night out and then Tuesday evening he started using again. Against my al anon teachings I started back into the cycle of trying to question the truth out of him which backfired when he told me that he was done with our relationship. I got the you are too controlling and you never let me hang out with my friends and you are too much like a mother. The relationship was too frustrating to him and he didn't want to continue. I know that this was pretty much a textbook way to push me away so he could relapse in peace but it still hurts. Immensely.

I know I am better off but I can't get over how you tell someone that they are the best thing that has ever happened to you and how much they love you and enjoy having you around to the cold person who broke up with me. It was like there was no emotion at all and he just kinda looked thru me. I know that is not the "real" him. He told me that he still wants to be friends. I am trying to be ok with that and I am trying really hard to not contact him. I am just not the type of person to give up so I am having so much conflict in my mind right now.

Sorry for the super long vent but I had to get all this out. Any thoughts on my situation would be greatly appreciated....... I could use a dose of truth right about now. It may be the push I need to get him out of my system.

SuzyMarie

[QUOTE=casper4095;5382224
I know I am better off but I can't get over how you tell someone that they are the best thing that has ever happened to you and how much they love you and enjoy having you around to the cold person who broke up with me. It was like there was no emotion at all and he just kinda looked thru me. I know that is not the "real" him. He told me that he still wants to be friends. I am trying to be ok with that and I am trying really hard to not contact him. I am just not the type of person to give up so I am having so much conflict in my mind right now.
[/QUOTE]
Welcome, I have been there and I know it is very frustrating and it hurts. I too, knew "who" my ex was right from the start and I still jumped in head first. Thankfully, you have only had 2 years...I lasted a decade! In my opinion, a person in active addiction is not capable of a healthy, respectful love. I think we satisfy a need and they will do/say most anything to keep the lifestyle going, with the least amount of grief from anyone else. And when you buzz too much in their ear they can easily discard you, whether it is to just not deal with you and your need to fix/control them for the time being, or they move on to someone else who will continue to enable the lifestyle but is not yet aware of the game. I would fool myself into thinking my ex and I had some kind of 'normalcy' because he would have long stretches (months) of not using, but he was not working any kind of program, so definitely not sober in the spiritual, emotional, and moral sense. So when he would cast me aside, it hurt that much more because I was in denial about how unhealthy the whole mess was...me included! I have been in a recovery program for years and I know how much I still struggle at times so can I can imagine how difficult life is for someone who is fighting substance abuse and not working any kind of program. Bottom line, it's not up to us to save another person. We can only work on ourselves and get to the root of WHY we put ourselves into such a toxic situation in the first place. Hugs to you. You will come out the other side of all this...if you allow it. It takes introspection, self help, and mostly, time...it is a great healer.

atalose

In this situation, that statement speaks volumes to you about your codependency and the need to focus on getting that in check.

You simply cannot hold onto someone who doesn’t want to be held.

And no excuse, justification or wish is going to change that.

Break ups hurt, it takes time to heal and it takes time away from the toxic relationship to fully see it for what he and it really was, not the fantasy we made it out to be.

I’d go back to meetings, maybe some counseling because being codependent on someone who’s left you can leave you on the borderline of being a stalker with the obsession and under the disguise of “friendship”.

JOIE12

you have already laid out your reality. Please let it sink in. You know what has happened. You know that being with an addict is nearly futile. The only loss to be suffered ... is yours.

Codependence is a very real obsession. Most of us have been there and work each day to keep ourselves in check. Save yourself, you are worth it.

<Hugs> casper

casper4095

Thanks everyone. Everyday it gets a little bit easier. I still really miss him though. I am trying to be patient with myself and keep in mind that eventually I will no longer tear up at the thoughts of him not being in my life. I tried to practice separating him from his disease while we were together and I think that has become a stumbling block for me in the break up. In a strange way I feel like it was the substances that broke up with me not him. I know it seems silly but that is my honest feeling on it in this moment. It is almost like I feel cheated on by his DOC.

Anyways, Thanks again.

Jorgenss

Sadly, the doc is their love. I could not separate the addiction from my addict and ended up leaving him.

It hurts, I have set backs, a broken heart just stinks. However, learning to love myself is what matters most.

Sending you big hugs. Take care of you!

JOIE12

drug addiction (heroin) is perhaps a battle that was never designed to be won.
It will drag the addict and loved ones to a dark place where eventually it beats the crap out of even the strongest person,

I tried to leave my ABF for 3 years. A part of me could not give up on him.

The strength required was greater than SAMSON ! this man literally died several times and I revived him. He had a few seizures over a year and a half. I was there for those too. NOTHING could make me walk away. Not even all the common sense in the world. The horrors I witnessed scarred me.

I'm not even sure what finally did it.

I loved this man more than my own life (obviously, because what sane person would willingly stay?) ... I made the decision though .... and I knew that my life depended on it.

Please wake up and see how important you are to the people in your life. We all care. We have all been there.

ShootingStar1

I know I am better off but I can't get over how you tell someone that they are the best thing that has ever happened to you and how much they love you and enjoy having you around to the cold person who broke up with me. It was like there was no emotion at all and he just kinda looked thru me. I know that is not the "real" him.

This IS the real him. He is all that he is, good and bad. You can't realistically separate him into two separate people, then like one of them but not the other as if the "bad" guy was destroying the potential of the "good" guy.

He is who he chooses to be, and in this case, he chooses addiction over everything else, including you.

I am just not the type of person to give up so I am having so much conflict in my mind right now. I think the hardest part for me to really understand was that it didn't matter what kind of person I was, and it didn't matter whether I wanted to keep on fixing him or not.

It was very difficult for me to accept that my husband was an adult and fully empowered and entitled to choose to live exactly as he wanted to, whether or not I thought it was good, bad, indifferent; healthy or unhealthy; not reaching the potential I saw in him, or anything at all I may have wished for.

I finally came to believe that it was arrogance on my part to try to impose on him my vision of "what a good life for him" was. He had the right to choose his own path and make his own decisions whether or not I thought I could do better for him.

Knowing that didn't help much for with the grief of letting him go, but it did eventually move me on to the path of respecting his right to live his life as he chose. And that moved me on to focusing on myself and what I needed to choose to be healthy. And that moved me toward letting other people be who they are and who they want to be, and choosing who I want to be with on the basis of our compatibility, not on my potential to change them into who I would like them to be.

And that is worth a huge amount of peace and contentment. I don't have to shoulder what I see as others' burdens and fix them; I can focus on my own healthy choices and get close to other people who want to do the same. I'm learning this now, three years out of my marriage, and I get happier and happier and seem to be drawing healthier and happier people into my life.

It's hard, the grief can be unrelenting at first and then periodically afterwards, but for me, it is worth it.

ShootingStar1

zoso77

casper...when you have enough posts under your belt, send me a PM.