I was in love with a dream. My knight in shining armor. The perfect man. Handsome, strong, masculine, protective, decisive. Kind, honest, generous, trustworthy. My friend, my confidant, my lover, my soulmate.
This is what I saw when I looked into my boyfriend's eyes. But slowly over the years I began to see glimpses of reality. My dream man didn't exist. Everything that I pictured my life to be with the partner of my choice was a fantasy created in my own mind.
The real man was weak, indecisive, dishonest, and untrustworthy--characteristics that are common in alcoholics. Instead of accepting him as he was--a human being with flaws--I decided that I would stand steadfastly by his side and mold him into my perfect mate. The one I thought I'd caught glimpses of in the beginning. But those first years of infatuation were just illusions that I'd dreamed up in my sick mind. The perfect man was never there, not even in the beginning.
When my boyfriend got tired of trying to live up to my expectations of him, he began to rebel against me. He stopped trying to live a lie. He tried over and over again to show me who he really was. But every time he did, I became even more controlling as I continued my desperate attempts to create the man of my dreams.
Eventually, he began to resent me. But that didn't stop my efforts to change him. I believed that I had the power to make him tow the line. To drink responsibly, to become a productive member of society, to behave in a manner that would please me in every way.
His resentments turned to hatred as I clung even tighter to him, still proclaiming all the way that I loved him dearly, and still believing with every fiber of my body that he would fall apart without my loving care and ever watchful eye.
Then one day he had enough. He didn't file divorce papers. We were never married. We were a couple for 25 years and it hurt like hell when the relationship ended.
It takes two people to ruin a relationship. I couldn't save my boyfriend despite 25 years of effort. My relationship was doomed from the beginning. Drunk or sober, no man would ever be able to live up to my expectations because I was not living in reality. I wanted a knight in shining armor to save me. Not from the world, but from myself.
There is only one person who can save me from myself, and that's me. In order for me to learn from this painful experience, I have to be willing to take a good hard look at me.
My boyfriend's drinking was never the problem. It was just a diversion that kept me from looking at the real problem behind my relationship troubles--me.