VoyagerIsol

My ex. alcoholic bf moved out at the end of February a month ago. Three days later, I received frantic calls from his sponsor and coworker because he hadn't shown up to work for 3 days. It was another of his once a month, 1 liter of vodka/brandy/whisky a day without food or water, for a week straight, benders. And it was a long line in 1.5 years of the same pattern out of 2 years.
He was a supposed "highly functional" alcoholic, in law, a profession saturated with alcoholics. He moved in with me a year ago because his benders got so bad he couldn't even hold down 3-day temp contract law gigs.
I did all that enabling partners did. I called for help when he was drunk and suicidal, and was living in an empty apartment on the last month of his lease, no money, no roommate, no job...and he ended up instituted for 2 weeks in the psych. ward of the intake hospital.

Instead of realizing how low he had gotten, he picked up a young woman in the psych ward who was there working on her low self esteem and validation through unavailable men issues. Obviously, she developed feelings for him, but as the older party, he didnot draw the line.
After he got out, since he had nothing, he moved in with me and lived rent free while on unemployment. Even when he found work at the premiere law firm, he didn't contribute to rent or take responsibility for shared costs, or even acknowledge my birthday---until months later when I finally asked for his share of the rent, food, and bills.

He blamed me for the humiliation of the hospital and money issues. He had over 100k in debt from impulsive and what to a rational person is "insane" financial mismanagement (losing all his savings in stocks, using his ex's home loan to re-invest and lose that as well, use credit cards to buy more stocks and lose them).

After he moved in, for the first few months, I enabled it and didn't nag, criticize or scream---and did everything--laundry, bills, rent, food, walking on eggshells thinking he was getting better and it wouldn't be a "take, take, take" relationship.

He blamed me for my audacity at getting angry at trying to have an affair with the girl he met in the psych ward. Ultimately, she cut the cord and he expected me to understand as he grieved losing her, and would contact her.

Turns out, once he started working, he was cheating on me with coworker while he claimed he had no time for me, no time to fulfill basic "how was your day honey?" talks, and he used the excuse "You put me in the psych ward" as an excuse to do whatever he wanted to do, whenever, without respect for boundaries or rules or my values--or even basic gratitude.

So when I thought he was slaving away rebuilding his life at work, he was strolling across Central Park every evening with her, taking her out to dinners when for me, he would never share a meal with me anywhere but Burger King and the only way I could get him to go out to a proper restaurant with me was for places with cheap cocktails.

But the whole time, he nitpicked at me and I realized once I found out about her, he had been comparing me to her, where I am "bad' and she is "a saint" which excuses his guilt.

Needless to say, he didn't move out for the next eight months---and whenever he was cheating or felt that he was leaving that month, he wouldn't pay his part of rent or contribute but continue eating my food, using my home, and using me--and expected me to drop everything in my life to tend to him when he had benders and the DTs and shaking and hallucinations and heart palpitations.

I discovered there were always other women. And even me at home, a woman or two at work, wasn't adequate---there were also email liaisons.

I realized now, for the past year, after the hospital, he has been a dry drunk--which explains the abusive treatment, the emotional withholding, the extreme defensive anger and impatience at even having to listen to me say "I had a bad day at work" or "I went to the doctor and I have endometriosis and there maybe a cyst," Your drinking/destruction of apartment/keeping me up for 48 hours to 96 hours with 3 hours of sleep a day when you go on benders and drag me out of bed at 3 AM for sex/booze money/ food, I started having nonstop migraines and had to see a neurologist who confirmed my pituitary gland is swollen and could be in a cystic stage or in extreme stress."

None of it registered. I could be sick and he didn't care or fulfill the needs of some alcoholics who at least show some effort at love and care when they aren't actively drinking. So holidays, birthdays, anniversaries---new year's, were all spent with him looking forward to seeing Eileen at work---the woman who was one of a trail of women he tried to betray me with---but of all the women, they both hurt me, directly and indirectly becaues she persisted after she became aware of me.

I've decided to cut all contact with him. Enabling him and keeping him from hitting homeless/debt ridden/rock bottom when he shows such potential hasn't worked and I should never have let him move in or mitigated the consequences of his actions by providing for him. Everytime he's sick, he needs me and loves me. The after the worst of the DTs are over, the arrogant, inflated, anxious, angry, irritated, blaming, "don't want to talk about emotions or the past or how hurt you feel or what illnesses you have while I was knocked out in booze oblivion. I don't care. It's all in the past and I can only think one thing at a time," was the excuse.

But my question after this very long post is---
with normal people (normal in the sense their relationship isn't clouded by alcohol), much of what friends/wives/gfs/bfs/partners/children of alcoholics do to "control" the destruction of the alcoholic is abuse.

You control their finances, hide their wallet when they're on day 4 of a 1 liter a day bender and you are fed up with patiently detaching because there's no way to escape if he's living in your home--you're anxious when you're not home for fear he's burned the place down, you're anxious when you're there for fear if you go to sleep and he leaves the front door wide open, your safety is at risk. And you need to know their whereabouts, and after a while, when you're burnt out and the "walking on eggshells" gets to be too much and you feel like a doormat, you do get angry and scream, nag, call them every name in the book (cheater, liar, inhuman,emotionally bankrupt, unhuman, unfeeling, talking to a wall, selfish, cold, user, scum. disgusting, etc.)---and all you can associate them with is the drunk, dirty, unshowered wreck who made effort to get up only to get more booze---but would literally lie naked for days in filth drinking and waiting for you to come home so they can be fed even if food is in the fridge or left on the table or floor-----like they're wild beasts.
I also used to check his phone which he called total invasion of his privacy. But everytime there were women distractions---Tam Tams and Cecilys and Eileens and Vanessas and a whole trail of women both totally clueless and not so clueless of my existence, he brought the resentment home to me which would eventually lead to drinking. Or they'd encourage him to drink with them in the middle of the day at work, so by 6 PM, he wants more and by the time he gets home, he uses being able to drink whisky in a flask at work with his coworker as the sign that he can drink responsibly at home.
And as for real friends----alcoholics have no concept of priority setting and values. They don't think like functional people---they'll drop everything, even a sick grandmother at the hospital or a loving girlfriend because a woman they just met 2 days ago "needs them." Functional people know there are varying degrees of priorities for friends, family, loved ones who are integral parts of your life, and friends at work who leave with the job and aren't fully ingrained in your life, and people who are not friends.

In his case, he didn't get the concept of basic priority setting of relationships and energy to invest. So he always made it clear these women came first. After his mistress was found out because I contacted her and demanded that she come and pick him up if she wants to be with him, she can do the work involved too in babysitting him---he spent the next six to eight months of the dead end of our relationship blaming me for losing the woman he was cheating on me with, and constantly reminding me that she was a good woman, she was kinder, smarter, better than I was, that she was beautiful and supportive (honestly, the support was more on the lines of "get better soon" from afar).
And abuse is also defined as isolating a partner from their social circle. He didn't have much friends to begin with. Only colleagues who came and went he developed unrealistic attachments to...especially toward the women.
And he had no connection with his family or the sort of long term support network of friends---it only brought shame and guilt to reach out to friends he hasn't contacted in years.
And as much as I supported him when he reached out to friends, I threw epic fits when he tried to go out with people who are active drinkers, to whom he hadn't admitted his problems, who were fellow lawyers who drank during work hours, pooling money together on Thursdays to split a small bottle of whisky for the afternoon while in the office.
And these were women who would call and text at 6.30 or 7 AM-- Is that even appropriate when you know the other person is still in bed with their girlfriend, to text with 'Wake up sunshine." His mistress Eileen never admitted it--but there were nonstop texts about looking forward to one another's kissable lips and gazing into his eyes, and her wanting 110% out of her man"
and the fact that they were kissing and holding hands during work hours and after work.

So am I an abuser to the alcoholic? Does all the crazy things which turn loved ones into codependent enablers (hiding wallets, hiding bottles, tracking money, hiding keys, interrogation on where he was, if he ate anything today beyound booze, counting hidden bottles, etc.) abuse?


Or is it part of the standard dry drunk tactic of manipulation, smooth talking, blame projection, turn the tables on you and attack you with insecurities and admittances they don't want to see in themselves?

He left because he said toward the end, my screaming and explosive violent tantrums became too much and he couldn't breathe because he had no privacy at home with me, or at work with coworkers constantly asking him about alcohol and constantly bringing up AA. That he didn't want to deal with us anymore. It started with me nagging when he got drunk and lost my cat, left the front door wide open (we live in Spanish Harlem--not a safe place to leave doors wide open) while I was asleep, and when sober, he just brushed it off as "a normal mistake anyone can make"---and didn't seem to care that he put my safety at risk and our home could have been robbed and raped by total strangers who saw a wide open front door. Or expecting me to run out at 2AM to search for him in Central Park--how dangerous that is.

Once I started vocalizing by screaming at him, he started slowly using physical force--choking, shoving me so I'd land on the floor and sprain my shoulder blade and limp, mostly--it was choking and slamming me around.
And he'd deny it later saying he only did it to shut me up---that he was not an abusive person.
And once he started hitting me when drunk, when I'd find him dead drunk spouting abuse while complaining about how much he missed Eileen or had stayed sober enough to see her the day after New Year's, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. and every ******** excuse in the book where in the end, it was me, not Eileen, cleaning him up, exhausted---while I had to listen to her talk about her and how badly he wanted her, I'd lose it and throw whatever I could grab at him--books. The day he told me he had kissed and admitted he was involved with her, was the day he said he was leaving--and it was the day of our anniversary... and I sat there and ended up throwing a bottle at him. When he'd lie there drunk screaming abuse, at times, I'd lose control and throw a soup bowl at his head.

I've been to Al anon meetings but my anger and rage at how crazy it is that alcoholics think their behavior is normal and their treatment of people is normal---it's a very different thought process from other Alanonics who continue feeling low self esteem at being compared to other women, and that self esteem low and inability to say no extends to all walks of their life--even not being able to say "i didn't order a coffee with milk. I ordered tea." Mine was definitely enabling. I developed codependent traits as a result of living with him. But since cutting all contact with him, the myriad of women I come across and wondering if he has slept with any of them or if he was there with me, he would say "mmm..she's hot. Honey. can I sleep with her?" or other crazy things he'd say included "Honey. There's a girl at work who wants to sleep with me. Can I sleep with her? Is it okay to sleep with her?" And I'd say "No" And he'd repeatedly and drunkenly ask again and again and again like a child asking for candy.

It's not just at him. This rage I feel is also for women who don't care that he's an alcoholic and is a total mess. All they see is an attractive, handsome lawyer with a prestigous job...having no clue that a 29-year-old earning half of what he earns is supporting him, caring for him, and even the bag he carries to work is mine---and that he's a classic addict with high functioning sociopathic social charmer personality traits--it's either alcohol, women, or gambling with him.

I thought there was some semblance of the man I loved in there and now that we're apart, perhaps in a year once the chemical fully leaves his body and he is immersed in treatment, I might see the person I once loved.
But he stopped going to AA and regressed back to workaholism and social isolation (work for 16-hours, go home to read and sleep, no exercise, no healthy diet, no long term friends to contact routinely)---and with stimulation probably coming from new female temp lawyers and new colleagues he's befriended who only see the side of him he wants them to see.

I cut contact with him altogether because I got fed up with the angry, defensive, I want you on my terms---but I am not available once I no longer need you to pick up my call whenever I want when I feel tempted by booze.
It was like a take-take-take brick wall. He wants but there's no "How are you? How have you been?" with explosive defensive grandiose statements if I even mention anything of the past---yet he won't engage in current or new basic human communication 101, but expects me to be there still.

Then it hit me, of the 2 years, half the year was spent with a dry drunk and his personality mood swings and irrational destruction, poor impulse control, lack of judgement, and self victimization---everything blamed on others, woe is me excuses.

And then overnight, my heart stopped feeling and missing him once I realized that was the man---he never loved me, I was merely a distraction just like everything else in his life he used to avoid self reflection.

No amount of logic can reason the blatant philandering and using of a person, and total lack of gratefulness and loyalty.

Perhaps he's capable of love, but it feels safer to disconnect and say "that wasn't a relationship. that was a dry drunk"

Hope you can provide inputs. Sorry for this loooong post.