My story, like Barbara's changes as I learn and grow; I develop deeper understandings as the fog lifts yet more so (even after a year of him being gone) and as I begin to break through some deep seeded denial.
I know why I chose unhealthy relationships, although at the time I thought again and again, this time will be different. I suffered from depression from a teenager and was bullied at home and school. Both my parents are the children of alcoholics, both are true codependents, yet both manifest completely different charactertraits of this. I always knew I had low self esteem, a very poor mental image of myself, my worth and my lovingness. I always felt that I had so much love to give to someone, if I just found that right person to wisk me off my feet. I romanticised every relationship I entered and lived in a drama world.
between ages 17-24 I had become a single mum and never really spent any time alone; I healed my broken heart by getting into another relationship as soon as, I didn't want to be alone. Being a teenage mum, I felt that it was my job to settle down and find a dad for my daughter and get that picture perfect family. I dated a pot addict and my first alcoholic. I had already been to counsellors and doctors over and over about my depression.
At 25 I met my now exabf. It was not love at first site and we got together after meeting 6 months earlier. However once we got together the relationship progressed very quickly, like all my others. He would spend increasing amounts of time at my home, we would stay up till late having a drink together and smoking pot (something I had tried in the past and during my relationship with exabf, I used this as an emotional crutch to numb out my depressed feelings and unresolved pain from my past). He inevitably began staying over more and more and eventually moved in and his house lay empty.
I should have woke up to the red flags all around me at this time - my increasing use of pot, his anger outbursts, his consistant lack of money, his physical outbursts against me (he would shove me over or grab me around the throat), his need to drink every morning after work, his patchy attendance at work, his sour relationship with his ex over his 2 kids. I reasoned away everything, made excuses for him, blamed myself, and formed a negative opinion of her. I even learnt that his mother was an alcoholic, but I did not understand the dynamics of ACoA as well as I do now. I really didn't realise he had anything to work on. I was so happy to have found someone who loved me and who I loved; the dream of having the family life I so desperately wanted overrided everything.
During our time together exabf was unreliable, but I still went ahead and got a mortgage in my name for us both to have our first home together. Within the first 6 months of us living there, exabf lost his job and was unemployed for 3 months. During this time he was proactive about finding further employment and his drinking was not heavy, although he did binge drink every few weekends, when he drank, he drank till passing out and sleep walked and wet himself where ever he was. Still the connection was not made in my mind, he was just sleep walking and couldn't help that. Our debts began to mount but with him now working again I thought glitch over and now we can get back on track.
Than his mum was taken into hospital. she had been lossing weight for a while telling us she was dieting, but we soon learnt she was very ill with liver problems. She still drank, and it wasn't until she was taken in to the ER oblivious to the world and anyone in it from the toxins in her body, that she stopped. By this time (only a few weeks after her first trip) doctors told us her liver was failing, as where her kidneys and basically all her body was being poisoned by toxins her organs could no longer remove. She died of heart failure just a few weeks later.
Exabf's drinking spiralled and he withdrew from me and everyone else. He became increasingly abusive toward me day in day out verbally and emotionally. He began skipping work to drink and made new friends who shared his love of drinking/drugging. Over the next two years, he turned into a person I had never met and I was loosing myself in the madness. You all know the many behaviours I could describe in this part, so I won't bother to reiterate.
I began to pull away from him. I went to doctors and got myself on antidepressants, I saw a therapist, I moved out, then back in. I found SR and the people here. I still have three folders at home full of threads taken from here, I would read over and over to myself every evening to get me through and to remind myself I wasn't mad and I was not alone. I knew my friends were out there pulling themselves through too and it gave me comfort. I still tried to get him to join me on this recovery path I had found, I still tried to get him to wake up to his problem.
After a year on antidepressants, 4 months at SR, and on and off therapy I finally woke up. He was not ready to change, and I was too tired to wait and I could no longer justify my future with him to myself or unlearn what I had gained in knowledge about abuse, addictions, and myself. I was growing and changing, and he was not. He had tried on and off sobriety, but was never committed, and I was committed to my recovery. I had stopped leaning on substances to numb me. He was unemployed again and I had carried him, enabling his addiction for over 3 months, he did not try to find work this time. Just stayed at home and drank.
I still loved him very deeply, my heart had not died toward him and telling him to go was extremely difficult. I gave him a month to find somewhere to live and stayed true to my word. The day he left I sobbed. I never thought the day would come when I would end it. I had never ended a relationship before.
The last year has been a real journey of self discovery and true awakening within me. I have learnt alot, but still have much to learn. I still journal, still work on my issues, I am a work in progress and I know this is my lifes work and it is well worth it.
My ex is still unemployed, still drinking, still in denial about his problem. He is still without a home, as he went to stay with his dad, who kicked him out and now sleeps on the sofas of kind people who have yet to wake up to their own codependency.
I am much happier and healthy since he left, I am now living my life, not just watching it go by me, an active participant who is really enjoying the experience and thankful for the paths I have tread and where they led me.
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx