crystafur

I need some more help with the trust issues that I am having with my boyfriend in recovery. I am hoping that someone that has been in a relationship for quite some time with someone attempting recovery (again) can help me with some wisdom on how I should handle it.

Long story short… we have been dating nearly ten years. I knew he was in recovery for cocaine and pill use shortly after starting our relationship. I had no idea what that really meant. He went to an occasional meeting at the beginning, then stopped. He said he had it all under the control and actually felt no desire to use. I believed him. I am the child of abusive alcoholics. I didn’t realize until recently how sick that also made me. I am a full-blown codie.

Last year in August I found out that my boyfriend had been on a “marijuana maintenance program” for quite some time (almost two years that I know of). He had lied to me about the drug use when I confronted him, he lied to me about his money problems (all along), he lied to me about work he supposedly had (all along). He told me that smoking the pot wasn’t really a big deal, that he did only for the migraines and that he had stopped on his own (oddly about the same time I first confronted him after I found a pipe in his pocket). His lies are very convincing and believable. I cannot tell the difference when looking at his face, even now.

He claims that I never knew when he was high, and that he never smoked it when he was going to be around me and only when he had a migraine. Contrary to the watered-down story I got, I found out from a mutual friend that he had been getting high on painting jobs for months with a friend of his, but I never confronted him with that truth. What I do know was that he never had money, he always had creditors calling, that he hasn’t had a steady job (he is a house painter) or any medical benefits to pay for proper migraine medicine since I met him. But yes, of course, I am in love with him. Cant seem to find it in myself to even want to break it off with him, especially now that he is back in recovery.

When he finally admitted to smoking pot after I found the second pipe, not knowing any program, I immediately called a friend he and I both knew in NA to get him to a meeting, and I told his family what had found. I know now that was not the proper course of action, but I was devastated and wanted to “help” get him back on track. With just letting those two people know and “outing him”, he was pretty much forced into a place where he had to get back into a program or lose everything. He was very angry with me about that at first, but later said that was the only thing that made him see how far gone he was. That had I not ratted him out, he very well may have continued claiming “clean years” when he really wasn’t. (this is the mentality that is def causing me anxiety now)

I am wondering if his recovery is a legit desire to get clean and change his life or if it was just him giving into the pressure to comply. Can he still be "faking" his clean time. He seemed to be doing all the steps in rapid dedicated order until recently. In February he started his amends step and now seems slowed to a stop. He made amends to a brother and an ex-girlfriend (which was hard for me) and his mom. I was not included in his amends (yet) though his smoking pot nearly destroyed me.

I has been almost a year, and I am seeing things that don’t sit well with me and I don’t know if its just because I have such massive trust issues now and that I am literally looking for red flags everywhere and of course, seeing them, or if its all just my codie messed up-ness that is untrusting and in fact, maybe cutting off his honest attempts at staying clean.

He feel off a ladder and broke his ribs in March, that is what really started getting me anxious as he was on percocets and really liking the high. He gave them to me to hold so that he wouldn’t take them all at once, because that is what he does. He seems to like staying on that edge of being clean and being around those that aren’t like he has some power to not give into temptation. It bothers me that he loves that whole culture still, the druggie music (he frequents dead shows where pot is smoked liberally), the druggie crowd (many many of his current friends smoke it daily), and when he talks about how he loved the feeling of getting high, he looks like he is remembering the love of his life and it really unnerves me.

He ran out of pain meds from the ER well before the pain went away. Weeks went by with him intense and unbearable pain, but yet he was still supposedly working everyday, all day, stretching, lifting, being on ladders, despite broken ribs. He started having weird physical symptoms like bloodshot eyes (he was so tired because of not sleeping) and sweating profusely even in airconditioning (must be getting sick) and having a stuffy runny nose (from sanding sheetrock) and weird eating habits like not eating at all and then eating everything in site, and weird scab on his lip and hands that he cant remember how it happened. He gave me all reasonable explanations I guess, but part of me is thinking that he is doing something again, for the pain.

He caught me looking at his phone because I wanted to see if he had called his old dealer. I told him I thought he was getting high and he offered to take a test, but the truth is (which I did not tell him) is that I really thought he might be smoking spice now, not weed. He has been working with the same painter friend that gets high and drunk on the job all the time. My boyfriend tells me that he is such an example to him of what to avoid, but I am thinking he is protecting his supply. He works with this guy, a childhood friend, who does not support the recovery efforts and is constantly offering substances. His friend and his friends wife smoke spice now because it cant be detected in regular test s.

I am fearful that is what my bf may have been enticed to. It has made me slip-up in my own program and become a mistrustful investigator again. I don’t want to be hurt again, I don’t want to be caught off-guard again, but I also dont want to lose a potential healing in our relationship because I am being paranoid. I know its bothering him.

My bf knows I am having serious trust issues but I haven’t told him all the details of what I know and / or susptect, especially where it concerns this friend of his that he works with all the time. I know there is still lying going on in regards to when he is working or not, or where his money goes and the bill collectors are still calling. He still doesn’t have a job that is steady work and I worry about what will happen in the winter when the painting business dies out.

He doesn’t talk to his sponsor everyday like he used to (only a year ago), now its more like once a week. He recently skipped his home group two weeks in a row and it really rattled me. I told him about that. He said to let him work it his way.

I still cant shake the feeling that I think there is something going on that he is not telling anyone. Is it possible to “fake” recovery and a program, even to a sponsor? Maybe its not drug use thats the problem but some of the other areas of his life that are messed up that I am feeling unsure about. My brain is spinning with all this. Do I have reason to mistrust him or is it just another codie craziness that I really need to do my own work on? How long does it take to get trust back, if ever? How can I feel secure about him really working his program legitimately? Should I confront him truthfully about what I do know and about his friend that he works with that is really causing me anxiety or should I just keep it to myself and work on my own issues. I feel that anything I say to him is tipping him off and if it is true, he will just get better at hiding it from me when he is working with the guy.

Can I ever learn to really trust him again? Has anyone out there gotten past the trust issues and been able to continue with a healthy happier relationship? I am so messed up. Thanks for letting me share