seekerofsanity

I hope I'm not in the wrong for posting here as a newcomer, but I really have no one to talk to about this in my life. I have been with my bf for most of 10 years, and we have a 9 year old son together. I am by no means perfect, and I have my own issues that need to be dealt with ( that could be said to affect our relationship just as much sometimes). However, my bf has a problem with alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana.

I knew he was drinking and smoking when we first got together, so was I. We were 19 and 20, it was the norm. After a few years, I quit altogether. My son was growing up, and I grew out of it. He did not.

His alcoholism would cause him to do things like be out until 5am drinking when he had to be at work at 7am. He would stumble in and fall over and I would have to pick him up. He would be really grabby and clingy when drunk. He would try to take our then 2 year old son out for walks at midnight and I could never relate to him as an adult or parent because he would be sprawled on the ground babbling like a baby when I needed him. He got fired once because his boss was tired of him coming in smelling like alcohol, and I don't know what else transpired to make his boss want to fire him. I know the alcohol affected more than just him being drunk or hungover. He had a "system" of excuses and denial for it. We have had other issues of course, the same kinds of issues that most couples have (money, parenting, etc).

I have left him multiple times, but each time I came back. Partly because I am not altogether healthy myself due to a lifetime of being put down and abused, and had a hard time making it on my own with a child in tow, and partly because I always felt guilty.

Fast forward to the last year or two. I had left him at the end of 2009. I told him it was over this time and moved to my moms a few hours away. He followed me and promised things would change, again, and because I was feeling pressure to move out of my moms, I moved in with him in February of 2010. Things were -better- but not good. He continued to drink, though his days of falling over and staying out all night were gone. He continued to smoke marijuana and cigarettes. I asked him many times to stop all of it. Eventually he quit smoking cigarettes. As for the alcohol, he would go a week without buying any and expect me to give him a trophy. However, the next week he would practically be racing through the store to get to the liquor isle. He has managed to work most of the time we have been together, except for a few brief times when it was me who was working while he was home with our son, or while he was on unemployment, but that only really made it worse sometimes. Because he was still drinking and staying up late, he would be aggravated in the mornings when he had to get up early for work. He would sleep until a few minutes before he had to leave and then race around yelling at us to find his stuff and make him a lunch. Yelling and aggressiveness has been a part of his personality for a long, long time.


He lost his job at the end of 2010 and worked odd jobs to pay the rent. The rest of the bills basically went unpaid. I cut corners and tried to be frugal while looking for work, but he refused to stop buying marijuana and alcohol.

We had to move in with his mom in June of this year. He went back to work again for the same employer who fired him and has rehired him a few times. Recently, he started smoking cigarettes again. I told him if he ever started again I would leave him. Now, I know not everyone gets that cigarettes are just as bad as other drugs, for health reasons, but it's true. The smell makes me nauseous and gives me a migraine, it smells horrific, and who wants to kiss a smoker? It causes frequent colds, and increases the chances of his family, me and my son, of getting cancer.

Well, I am very observant, so I always catch him. He will say he won't do it anymore, then I catch him and he denies it. He LIES to my face. Then admits it later and says he lied because he didn't want to get in trouble. That sounds like something my 9 year old would say.

Even if we hadn't been fighting non-stop the last 8 years, even if I hadn't lost all respect for him years and years ago, and even if he hadn't started lying to me, the fact that he still thinks life is a big party and he NEEDS alcohol and drugs as part of his "me" time is a deal-breaker for me in our relationship.

I've seen what it does to him, and to others, and I don't want it in my life at all. I don't want it in my sons life. It runs in my bf's family. His brother and father are both alcoholics, though I think his dad went through treatment and now is sober. We have not seen him in 9 years, and he has never met his grandson. He doesn't have to be falling over for it to be affecting him. It affects his reasoning, his critical thinking skills, and his ability to be an equal to me in parenting and making adult decisions. I feel trapped. I had a serious talk with him a couple of weeks ago and told him I was done with it all. I told him we have different morals, different likes and dislikes, had little in common anymore, and were constantly fighting. i told him i didn't think it was fair to force me to be around those things or to make me live the kind of life I didn't want to live, and vice versa. he of course immediately started trying to placate me and say things would change and he loved me and I'm his life, etc etc. I've heard it all before.

Since then, he has continued to do it all, and lie about it, with the exception of course of the usual two day period following a fight where I say I am done with it all. He can be very nice sometimes, but I can't trust him anymore. I know he loves me, but love is more than a feeling that you can't live without someone, it's doing everything you can to make that person happy and make their life better. neither of us is doing that for the other and haven't been for a long time. I understand my own complicity in the situation, as i said I am not perfect.

I just don't know how to get him to understand that he is not healthy, I am not healthy, our relationship is not healthy, and I truely believe the only way to even begin to fix it is to take time to ourselves to work on our own issues, independently before we can help each other. IF he can be helped. I really don't know. I know he has to want to change for himself. I just don't know if he will ever feel that way. We are both full-time college students and he works full time. He brings in money, he's not completely useless, but I don't think I should have to settle for a life of misery, just because he has supported us, or because he tells me I'm being selfish and just want to run when things are tough.

I am seriously considering, no more than considering, praying I have the courage to move out in January when I get my only source of income, currently, my student loan disbursement. I want to move to be closer to my family, and maintain a home where there is some form of stability for myself and my son.

The problem is, I am so rundown and I doubt whether I am doing the right thing, whether he is right and I'm being selfish and should stay with him because he needs me. I just don't know. I apologize for the length of this post.