Originally Posted by artist83

SFEMME24,

I'm not comfortable voting for whether or not I believe you should give your boyfriend another chance or not, because it's not my choice to make - you have to make this choice on your own.

Don't make the right choice for the wrong reasons - whatever decision you make needs to be your decision, not a decision based on what others think you should do. In the end, you have to live with the choices you make.

Although I haven't voted, I do have a few words of wisdom for you. And again, I'm not telling you what to do. Just look at it as the perspective of someone who has no emotional connection to you or your boyfriend, someone who is looking at your situation objectively.



The fact that you are questioning his sincerity about getting and staying clean is an answer in itself. Look at it this way - His WORDS mean nothing & his ACTIONS mean everything. Throw everything he has SAID to you out of the window. Now, look at what he has DONE in order to get clean and stay clean. When you take away his words, do his actions prove to you that he is serious about his recovery this time around? Are his actions enough for you to believe that he is sincere?



This part of your post immediately caught my eye because I felt this way for a long time. I was with a cocaine addict for 6 years, and every time I thought I was ready to leave the relationship for good, I ended up backing out of my decision because I was afraid of having no one. How was I supposed to pay the bills on one income? How would I keep up the house when I was stuck at work all day and night?

I didn't want to ask my parents for help because that meant that I would have to tell them why I was leaving him, and I just couldn't hurt them in that way. I had already hurt them enough by staying in a hopeless, miserable relationship for so long, and I wouldn't allow myself to hurt them any more by revealing my that my boyfriend was a drug addict.

I lost so many friends over those 6 years and I felt like I had no one to turn to. HE was all I had, or at least that's what I convinced myself into believing. And boy was I wrong. I finally realized that I didn't have him at all - I had a verbally abusive, controlling addict who stole from me and spend my hard earned money on drugs. I had a thief and a liar living in my home.

One day, I finally had enough. I didn't care if I had no one to help me - I would have much rather been homeless than living with him. I was no longer afraid that I wouldn't be able to pay the bills or keep up my home without him because NONE OF THOSE THINGS MATTERED ANYMORE. All that mattered to me was getting this man out of my life, and I didn't care what I had to sacrifice in order to achieve this.

My whole point here is that it seems that part of the reason you are hanging onto this relationship is because you are afraid that you won't be able to survive without his help. In order to make the right decision, you have to forget about the bills, the home, and anything else that have monetary significance. You have to look at the RELATIONSHIP for what it is and look at HIM for what he is, and forget all the rest.

Hope this helped you in some way. Hang in there and take care of YOU!