Lightseeker,
Thanks so much for sharing your story -- I'm sorry to hear what you have been through, but glad you have found this community -- and glad I have, too. For decades I have been a do-it-yourselfer, lessons learned in childhood, that I could take care of everything myself. I have never been good at asking for help. Like I said, I am at the point where I have been charmed by his adamant reminders of the good times, and my experiences with the bad so persistently downplayed and re-characterized, that I don't know what is what anymore. I don't THINK I have had the illusion that marriage will change him. I guess my illusion was that, maybe, we would continue to grow in understanding and patience and partnership, and that any slip would be a mutual challenge to combat together, as partners. Believe me, as I just typed that out, I wanted to slap myself upside the head.
There is no official wedding to cancel, no deposits or reservations. I have a ring, and all I have to do is hand it back and shut the door. See? Sounds easy, doesn't it? He reminds me there was so much joy and great times to come... and what a loss it would be if he never picks up a drug again and I gave up on him... How it would be my loss.
I am just back, tonight, from an Al-Anon meeting, and it was AMAZING. The only other one I've been to was just over a year ago. At that meeting, I had no patience, thinking that the people in the room were complaining, but that I had the CHOICE to leave my then six-month dating relationship. It annoyed me that I was sitting in an Al-Anon meeting when life is so short -- why did I need to be doing THIS, for some guy I've known six month? In fact, when I left that meeting last year, I went to his house, where he was passed out and, I didn't realize, was just starting out a seven-month relapse. That next morning I told myself I was outta there, and didn't go back to Al-Anon. Here we are, a year later. Engaged. Obviously, I wasn't outta there. Went to a different Al-Anon meeting in my town tonight, and it was fantastic. In many ways, because I knew I wasn't there FOR HIM, but for me, and for my past, and for my present, and my future. In one day, I got this inspiration from this board, and strength from the meeting. And all I had to do was ask.
