Hopeworks,
I needed that post. Thank you so much.
This is what I had tried to explain to ex. I have found no fruit, only words.
When we we first started dating, ex attended church with me, he professed to be christian. We discussed that after I moved we would attend the church in his community. He did this for awhile, but after the drinking started, I was going alone with the kids (my daughter and his son).
After I left, he told me that he was attending church. He would even ask questions and talk to me about the sermon. I found though that he never went. His son was here visiting and I took him to church. He told me that he had not been to a service since I left No. Carolina.
The rehab that he went to in Atlanta was not 12 step. They do not recommend AA, and since leaving there he has attended SKYPE sessions and spoke to counsellors on the phone, but that is the only support system they provide. I talked to his counselor a few weeks ago and found that he has not been honest with them. He had reported that he had only drank a couple of times, and did not tell them about his arrest in August. He told me that he had talked to them about that.
Prior to this, he had made promises to go to AA. I printed the schedules for him and he never went. After I left, he told me that he was going to AA. Twice he called and said he had just left meetings, he was obviously intoxicated so if he did go, he went drunk or drank afterwards. I found a picture on his phone of the AA big book with 3 empties on top of it. He had taken that pic and sent it to a friend. All while telling me that he was sober and trying. No fruit.
Now that he has moved back to where I am, he has expressed that he is angry that I haven't invited him to my dad's church. I have explained that I haven't because he hasn't felt the need to go to any other church. The Church that he went to when he was a child is next door to his mother's home. She is there weekly and would love for him to go there. There would be about 100 other congregations he could choose in this county. I don't see a desire to worship or trust God or be around Christian people, I only see manipulation.
I pray. I pray that he will find true repentance, real change which will last. And I know that not allowing him to put this on me anymore is important too. If he were in recovery, I feel like I would know it. It would shine. This is not what it would look like.