I had the hardest time being sympathetic at all. Since I learned he was using drugs on the exact day our daughter was due, he quit using, then detoxed for the next two weeks. I had our child a week after the due-date and he was detoxing and whimpering and crying and sleeping (and sleeping and sleeping,) and I was so utterly pissed at him. I was the one who had a baby. I was the one who had a c-section. I was the one who had to feed the baby, stay up with the baby, take care of the baby (and myself.) What the f? Seriously. No sympathy for that. None.
The relapse detox pissed me off as well. He lied about it at first and said he was sick. He would lay in bed and cry like a little kid. Ohhhh.. ohhh... oooooaaahhhhhhhh ohhhh (kind of a nasaly whining cry.) And he would do this all night in between twitching in bed and snoring and then he'd get pissed when I went into the baby's room to sleep because I couldn't get a wink of rest with him flopping around in bed and moaning like a hurt dog.
During that second detox, I went to stay at my mom's a few days into it, just to get away from him. I couldn't stand to be near him. I couldn't turn the television up very loud for fear of waking him up. I couldn't do the dishes because that would wake him up. I felt like a prisoner in my own home.
He called me a few days after I left and begged me to take him to the doctor because he had a nasal infection. I did, but since he was a captive "audience, I took the time to bitch at him for the entire 20 minutes during the drive and I poured out every single bitchy, mean and nasty thing he'd ever done to me and how it had made me feel. He couldn't get away, so he had to sit there. And he did. And he cried and whined and whenever he'd start to back-talk, I'd slam on the brakes and he would holler and cry some more about being in pain.
He had to wait 2 hours at the doctor (this was a clinic,) and he just lay on the examination table and whined/moaned some more. I left him there to get some lunch and he called me for a ride back home when he was done.
The thing is, now that's he in recovery, whenever he gets sick, I find it very hard to feel bad for him. I'm trying to be better about it, but I still remember the s*it he put me through. Every day's a new start, though, right?