Been lurking these forums for a few months now and this story really prompted me to register and finally get my story out there.
I know it is an old thread, but I found it with a Google search today, and while it has been 4 months since leaving my ex (then trying to get her back), the grief and torturing of everyone else, yaddah yaddah, I realized that my story was really no different than many posts I've seen around the web.
I met my ex in the courtyard of a complex we were living in at the time. We hit it off right away and went to dinner the same day. She confided that she was an RA (5 yrs) (goes to meetings, asked me to go but I thought it was something SHE had to do for herself) and that she did smoke bud (and later said she liked her drugs, which I took as, ok, occasional good time with pot, maybe she likes painkillers). At the time I had no experience with the lives of RA's
I've had many pot-head friends over the years, and while I had my stints with it (years before and during our relationship), I just can't handle a whole lot of any chemical in my body. Not because I am an addict, but generally consuming anything steamrolls my head.
We fell for each other right away. In a manner of speaking, we burned out as fast as we got involved. However, all the things she had going for her, I wanted. Her faith, her job, her interests, creativity, peaceful home, etc. It was all there. I couldn't have asked for anything else from whatever deity you choose. Believe me, I did ask many moons ago before I became an atheist (recently adopted loose Buddhist philosophy). I waited 15 years for a woman of this magnitude to come around, and that is the part that hurts the most.
Anyway, after 3 months, my lease was about to end, and I brought up the idea of moving in together. We got along really well. And things went well, for a very long time, although I had no idea that I had my own issues that had been laying dormant for so long. They surfaced, and it was more than she could give in return, and I did not understand that, or myself. Still, we kept on and I adjusted, albeit slowly, but I did a lot of wrong things that I was always taught to do, such as bringing work issues home, talking to the folks about my relationship issues (lack of boundaries), emotional stuff, working nights, etc. This really did start taking a toll on her, and I was completely oblivious to what she required. I suggested that we quit smoking pot, and we did, for a month, and maybe she toked here and there.
I remember a couple times she said some things that made me stop and wonder what she was talking about: "I'm trying really hard not to **** it up", and she would tell me repeatedly that she was in love, liked me, left messages, everything, but something just seemed out of place. She smoked her bud, quite nearly as a smoker smokes cigarettes. Once at waking up, once again before work, once again if there was a long enough break at work, and again a couple of times after coming home and before bed.
Anyway, some things happened where she lost her job, then her car went in the *******, and because she had virtually no credit and refused to work with banks, I was really the only one to buck up. She found another job after a few weeks, but couldn't generate money flow, so I went, got wheels that we shared, paid a few months rent, food, etc. Finally, things started turning around. We talked about getting married here and there, moving out of state and how this whole thing was just the right thing to do. Pushed by unseen forces, in her dreams, in my desires. We both thought it was literally meant to be. We both asked the cosmos for each other. Perhaps, careful for what you wish for....?
So we got a bigger place. We had room for each other. Space. Good thing. Then, her daughter came back to town, and I was warned that she would bring back a lot of old stuff. Whatever that was inside of her, I do not know to this day. And soon, The two of them, as well as a daughter's friend started hanging out more and more. Our home became a smokehouse and finally I started losing tolerance because I did not want to lose what we worked so hard for. She bent, at first, but soon I told her to take it outside. I started limiting her "freedom". Big no-no.
But then strange things started happening. She started to exude an over-confidence that was, by large in tandem with her work and faith, somehow illogical (at least in my view, at the time), and made illogical disagreements about the simplest of things, she became somewhat irritable (for obvious reasons in my corner), and then the rash came. She always talked about these intense hot-flashes, and how god awful she stank when she sweat and how nobody was capable of keeping up with her daily life for very long. Honestly, she had a very busy schedule after she got her job-life on the go, which is good. But the behavior she exhibited began killing me emotionally. Indifference, apathy, mood swings, more aggressive confrontation. I started reaching more and more, wondering what the hell was happening to us.
Then's when I found a spoon with a crystalline substance in it, not bent, no tarnishing on the bottom. I remember one day hearing a crushing of something coming from her bathroom. I saw a glass pipe in her stash drawer. I went looking for stashed bottles, hoping that maybe it was only drinking and that what I saw was just paraphernalia of her pot lifestyle, but I will never know to this day.
I always gave the benefit of the doubt, up until the very end and in many ways I still do, as I recognized my own culpability.
After a really belligerent statement, by her at my parents' house, no less, on Thanksgiving, and being blown off three weeks in a row, just to go for a walk, like we always used to do on Sunday, I finally asked what the avoidance was all about (at the time that it could have been just me). Not one answer.
I came home the next morning, apologized, kept it short and while she was half asleep, she said it was ok with kisses. Three hours later, after listening to her cough, gag, and blow out her nose in the shower for 20-30 minutes, I got my head ripped off after greeting her good morning.
All because it was 6 o'clock in the morning when I apologized. Had no idea what the hell was so hurtful and full of resentment.
I turned over the lease to her and I moved out that day. I did try to get her back, but the standard stages of a break-up remained. For the last 3-4 months I have been a wreck, done all the wrong things after a break-up like this, and even started my own drinking habit, which, I do know I can curtail. I am bright enough than to let it consume me, although I have started smoking again, which I intend to stop.
I spent a year and half with her, and it tanked like a lead brick in water the last two months. Although, it isn't enough time to get to know someone, even as adults in our 40's, I still think that there is still a hidden maturity in this and there still is a feeling, deep down, that there is still more to gain and to grow from in this experience on both our parts. This period has been painful. I am a very loving man, even more rightly so now that I have my head in a better place from my issues. And still, I have the deepest of feelings for her in spite of her peaceful needs, and addictions.
This may sound stupid, irrational, and completely self-destructive and opposed to every recommendation out here, but the reality is that nobody's perfect, no matter how perfect they may seem for you. Maybe my timing wasn't where it needed to be to understand her necessity for higher power, peace of mind and personal/ spiritual growth, including my own.
When you do love someone, unselfishly so, you would do anything for them, and die for them. Be patient, understanding of their world, respect and admire that.
I'm not saying I am to blame for the whole relationship, but what I am saying is that regardless if someone is an addict, or in recovery, that they too, seek the same things as you, but on a different level that requires a compatibility and understanding in you. And it goes for both parties. You make the commitment to walk through hell and high water. As long as you're happy doing it. People can adjust, and it is a choice. But that choice cannot be at the cost of a morality; only through compassion and pure love.
But I still love her, always will, and I would, without reservation, do it all again with the new knowledge I have.
So, take what you want from this story. It's long, it's hurtful and sad, for me. Flame away, or say don't think about it, just move on. But what I saw and what I felt and what I did I may not do for anyone ever again. Not because of hopelessness, but because the day I saw her, I knew something deep inside that couldn't be explained.
And when someone needs you to understand them and speak their language and you have love for them unlike any other person, commit to that and don't ever let go.
Thank you, SR. And thanks everyone for your coming advice, posts, and the discussions I've read here in recent months.
music2myears