Rant - Standing Ground
I have, for the past couple of years, attempted to set boundaries to my addict. Specifically, I ask him not to bring crack into our home. My home is my sanctuary and I keep it clean and organized. My spouse does not contribute around the house, except to mow the lawn and vacuum. He doesn’t do dishes, laundry, buy groceries, feed the dogs, organize, etc. The home that is currently rented to us is actually rented to him and he pays the rent. I cover the cable, insurance, phones, etc. in exchange.
When my spouse uses crack, he gets so paranoid that he becomes scared. He thinks that there are people in the room, he takes pictures with his phone to make sure he is alone, he runs from room to room because he thinks there is a monkey on his back. Not literally a monkey, but that there is something on him. He turns the lights on and off. It’s SO sad, and SO scary. But, he won’t stop using.
So, last night, I told him that since he was not respecting my wishes to not use in the house and that he keeps bringing drugs into the home that either he needed to find a place to live, or I was going to find a place to live. I don’t use drugs and I don’t want to be married to someone who uses drugs. There is a HUGE gap in the lifestyle of drug addicts and people who don’t use at all. Drug addicts spend all of their time looking for, using, and coming off of drugs. The moment my husband gets off work, he is looking for money to buy drugs and drugs. If it’s not crack, it’s coke, Percocet, Xanax, Vicodin, Methadone, Morphine, you name it.
Upon putting my foot down last night, he stays up in the living room and comes to bed around 2 AM. He wakes me up out of a dead sleep and tries to have sex with me. I roll over and say that I’m sleeping and to leave me alone. He gets angry with me because I’m not fulfilling his wishes and says that tomorrow (which is today) he is going to look for a place to live. When I speak with him today, he says that he is tired of me talking $%^& to him about his drug use because he “doesn’t want to live this way either.”
So, here is the point of all these elaborate details: it always comes down to my husband being angry at me when I say “No.” I’m the one who is in the wrong. I am the one who is the bad guy for not being considerate of the fact that he doesn’t want to live the way that he is living.
When I say no, all hell breaks loose. Things get broken. Names get called. Voices get raised. Tires are spun out of the driveway. Threats are made for my possessions to get sold if I don’t let him borrow money for dope. He sold the second GPS that we owned (his mother got it for us as a Christmas present) to the dope man for 40$ worth of crack to “spite” me for not letting him borrow money the night before. I used that GPS all the time because I work out of town.
The thing is, it’s not easy to stand your ground, but you have to. I’m not into altercations. I don’t like raising my voice. When it comes to arguing, I tend to cave just to avoid a break out because I’m a person who lives in peace, or did until I met this guy. But, standing your ground against your addict is going to make you question whether you are doing the right thing because they get so defensive about their actions and so angry when they can’t have what they want. My addict doesn’t care about me at all. All he really cares about is the next fix. And if I try to get in the way of that, he will slam me to the side (figuratively). I imagine it’s like this with other addicts and not just my husband.