When my husband was actively using and was clear he did not want to stop, we separated. The situation was different, everyone’s is… he was working, paying half our bills, we had arguments but it was not an abusive situation. I just couldn’t tolerate his behaviors of lying, staying out half the night, my losing trust in him. Much later, after he had been through rehab, he told me it was my sense of self-preservation kicking in. But I knew nothing about addiction then, neither one of us or any of our families had addictions, he got hooked on prescription pain meds due to a sports injury. I thought he would come to his sense after a while and come home, but it took a year for him to come home.
I had to keep on living my life, focusing on my work, taking care of my son, spending time with family and friends. None of it was easy, so I know in some way how hard it is for you to be moving on without him. I think you are doing a great job taking care of yourself. I think you need to keep doing this. The answers you need are inside, and its ok that its not all clear in your mind right now. We need time to process things, and make decisions.
Looking back, I would have done a few things different. I would have tried to get my husband to accept help for his addiction while it was at an early stage, through his doctor of course. Early on, I don’t think he would have even needed rehab. But addiction is progressive, and like you are saying there are chemical imbalances going on, changes in the brain (you can look at brain scans at National Institute of Drug Abuse website). The changes are real, and they affect critical areas of thinking, feeling. So I wish I had used means that were available to me (unique to everyone and their own situation) to attempt this. This is one of my regrets. Some people regret doing too much, I regret not doing much of anything – all because I didn’t understand at the time. Once I learned about addiction, I had a lot more compassion, and understanding of his illness.
Personally, I like the suggestions where people gave you to perhaps look into treatment, especially if there is insurance, and offer him this help. It doesn’t mean you have to reunite by the way. The extent that we offer help /support is something we all have to decide individually. Right now your about to make a life change, and it might be inspirational for him. Just to make it clear, I don’t think it has to be a sacrifice of yourself in order to save another.
Another thing that helped me through my journey, when he was in rehab I worked with a therapist, and when I talked about my marriage, she asked me simple questions to get me to define the foundations of our relationship. What was it made of, was it strong, was it built out of love and other healthy things, was it real. And through this I had the answer I needed to move forward in trying to heal our marriage. It also works the other way around, those questions can help a person realize the marriage doesn’t have a strong foundation. So maybe thinking about this in terms of your own marriage would help.
Sorry you are going through this.
Its very exciting about your new job. You are going to be ok.