Lara, I came across your next post. It mirrors exactly what I have been through. You will lose yourself in all this and it will eat you up and start to infect those close to you as all you will think, eat, sleep and breathe is worry. It will put you on an emotional razors edge and at some point in time you will have a nervous breakdown of some description or go ballistic. I know you you say you are strong but trust me here this WILL eat you and spit you out. I am speaking from personal experience and I am not the only one! I did everything as I was promised the world, promised love, promised marriage, you name it. You cannot force anyone to do anything. Unless you see dedicated, determined and committed effort everyday for the rest of their lives and sadly the chances of this are very, very slim as their minds have been infected and altered by chemicals. Sadly brain damage is not reversable and in addicts the brain has aged itself hugely and cells die out quicker than normal, sadly addicts pick up other mental diseases more often than not and depending on their age the chances and risk get higher especially after 35. There is almost no hope. Sorry to be so hard but you sound like a young intelligent woman and my mission in life is to try and save others from the hell they could go through, if just 1 person will listen or be saved by this then it is good. You are not the addict but you will become one in terms of being embroiled in all the darkness that this will bring and the road is full of potholes and hazards and no matter how you drive it your vehicle (you) will break at some point and maybe the damage can be repaired and maybe it won't, and if it is repaired the vehicle will never be 100% right as something will always rattle, be loose. Lara get help forYOU, see a psychologist or a neutral party, you need to heal otherwise you will spend the rest of your life going in and out of relationships and being the victim and the damaged vehicle. The problem with an addict is that they will get worse and will relapse especailly if they have been using soft drugs and hard drugs over a long length of time - this is not just my experience but many others, and I researched, studied the crap out of this that I could probably get a doctrate in it! Does he also have/had a sex addiction and has he had multiple partners during your time with him? I ask this as Lesley did this to me, the one seems to lead to the other and the stupid pathetic thing is I just logically convinced myself it was just the drugs and I gave excuses to her. It becomes a mind destroying, Soul destroying exercise! You said he is your lover? Are you still involved with someone else and do you have any kids, do they know? *I pray not as the fallout, especially with children, will be huge and maybe not now. My youngest daughter was 3 when I got involved with Lesley and my other daughter was not yet born, she was born 5 years later! The lies and deceit I did was ridiculious to my ex wife was mind numbing, it was so unfair that I even had another child with her. She said she always suspected but never really knew for sure as I travelled alot to California on business and that was where I met Lesley, it was an escape for me initially as I was runing away from my own personal insecuraties, past problems and issues that came from having an alcoholic Mum (my Dad and youngest sister died in a car accident that my Mom caused, so mentally screwed me up). I always believed I was stronger than anyone, could take on the world and my wife used to push me to get help, to heal and I just believed she doubted me and my abilaties and I even felt she was ploting against me! I now know she only had my best interests at heart. The long and the short of it was I got embroiled in an escape from reality. Lesley was energy and life and the fun girl, whereas my wife was reality of me and was my mirror, and I did not really like what the mirror reflected. Lesley was a mere reflection and a fun one, little did I know the hell to come from the mental anguish, the physical breakdown of me, the loss of my family and my real and geniune love, my wife, the damage to my daughters who are older now - my youngest who is now in her teens battles with her existance as she feels that when she was conceived it was just sex not love that brought her into being and has said if I truly did love her mother I would have done everything to be a family, my eldest is another whole story and her anger is unmatched. I thank God that my ex has strong beliefs and resolve and is incistant in my daughters having help and getting strong faith, she amazes me that she is allowing me back into her life and has even said that in time will consider a life as a family again but I still have much therapy and much to answer for. The good news is I am healing, I am getting better each day and am learning to leave the past in the past. I will always love Lesley with all my heart but she was a lesson, a gift from God in a sense as without her I would not have discovered who I really am and how I came to understand why family is the only thing that matters. * In closing young Lara, I will pray for you, H, your family, your life and that God will give you the courage and resolve to move on and get past this chapter in your life and become a complete person.