Lara,
When I met my boyfriend he was only a few months clean from cocaine, and we were still able to form a strong foundation built on honesty, trust, respect, silliness, and love.
In our case, We did not adhere to the by the book guidelines that some people strictly follow. I mean, there is nothing wrong with that if you subscribe to it, but in reality it is my belief that all things cannot be measured by a timeline: one year for this, must be two years for that, and so on, and so on.
I think what worked in our favor was the fact that my boyfriend took responsibility for his own self care, and he did whatever he needed to do in order to build himself up, and prevent a slip. My boyfriend didn’t follow any defined recovery method, but he did work with a doctor on a weekly basis for a long time.
I think the trap that a lot of couples fall into is that somehow the relationship becomes a threesome. Me, You, and Your addiction. The recovery from addiction gets so much attention, its gets bigger and bigger like a snowball rolling downhill. All the normal things in the relationship get obscured by worry about his addiction, his recovery; and the whole dynamic changes to something less .
I fell into that a little bit in the beginning, but I was fortunate to have a fairly solid life that had been defined before we had met. Family, career, friends, hobbies; and that allowed me to focus on something else whenever I would worry.
In the beginning I read a lot about addiction, recovery, methods of recovery, varying opinions and views, codependency, and all of it. But again, it became a snowball rolling downhill and picked up a momentum of its own, and that wasn’t right for me personally. I just had to stop and make a snowman out of everything I had accumulated and say this is enough.
I was never one to have my emotional bags packed and ready to go, because to me that would have kept a barrier between us and it just wasn’t what I wanted. I also did not establish any boundaries because I felt that I would have to feel my way through if he should happen to relapse for example.
To me a relapse could take on many forms and each would have to be evaluated individually. For example, a few lines one night, swapping drugs and popping oxy pills, disappearing for a week on a coke binge, or hiding ongoing use form months from me. Too hard for me to create all these detailed boundaries regarding what if……
My boyfriend is now my husband, and we have been married 4 years. He did in fact have a relapse during our first year together. It was short lived and he got himself right back on track and I think actually used it as a learning experience. I will note however, that when he first relapsed he pulled away from me and I could feel it. He did it because he was hurting and he wasn’t ready to share it with me, and he did it because he wanted to get control before he let me in on it. At the time it hurt, but later I had a better understanding of how raw his emotions were at that time, and that hurt healed.
We are still very much in love, and have a great marriage based on trust, respect, silliness. But now it also has a bit more depth to it because of all we have been through.
Based on what you posted, I only have a couple suggestions. use this time apart to think about what you want and need. And use it to have fun also and do things that are totally unrelated to addiction or codependency. Nurture yourself.
Some people have said that your boyfriends attitude and pulling back are signs of not potential relapse, but a full blown relapse; its possible. Another thing that seems common and I don’t know if it is applicable; does he have a sponsor through AA that is encouraging him to take a break and focus on himself? I read that often on SR and no one has mentioned it here yet. (Seems they have a rule pn the books about no relationship for a year or some such thing.)
I hope things turn out well for both of you.