Thank you
Wow, thank you all for your complete honesty and advice about this. I will take time to recover from the addiction to my abf. He is a loving, kind person when he is not using, but I often wonder why he was present in my life?
He has dealt with so much more than what was in my first post. He conceived a child with a one night stand the spring before our graduation in 1980. The mother did not tell him until July 1980 after I had given my virginity to him. Of course, we both broke things off immediately but was still in love with him though heartbroken. We kept vaguely in touch over the phone during the holidays but drifted completely apart. After working out of state for a while he returned in 1995 to our town and during what he says was "a drunken episode", impregnated the first child's mother again. This second child is 12 and autistic.
Because he did not love her and refused to marry her, he says it lead to her confessing the first child (now 26) was not his. This hurt him because he worked part-time during college and physically handed the mother money for the child who was in custody with his parents most of the time. He had failed to keep receipts or anything, and she sued him in 1996 for the child that she said was not his (at which time his father had cancer and died)..and won a judgment for 15 years back pay, along with the autistic child's support. The judge did not order a pat test because his mom says "he had signed the birth certificate as a teen father". He says he knows for sure the second child was his (but still did not get a pat test..the reason why is beyond me). Because of his anger towards the mother, he refuses to see the autistic child except only every Christmas at his house. He also is dealing with his 26 year old being gay. Talk about issues??
He says he has been in rehab once for painkillers after his father died but I have reason to think otherwise because he lost a good job behind it I believe. He says apparently they did not let him come back to work after he injured himself and after the rehab where he did not finish the course of treatment (which may be the reason).
At any rate...thanks again for all of your love and advice. I will take some if not all of this advice and focus on my healing and caring for my children. It is taking all I have to not call or e-mail him now. I love him that much. Sometimes I wonder if I am really okay in my psyche, if I am just nuts over this addict.....because I have hoped so much that he would get well and we would live and grow old and happy together...wishful thinking?
Thanks again to you all.
Love,
GG