For about 2 months I was seeing a new guy, say his name is John. Things were going great with John, I was starting to fall for him. I've yet to meet a man like John, he seemed to be everything I wanted and everything I didn't even know I wanted. He saw me in a way I never saw myself and made me feel so special. Things were starting to get serious. Just this past Sunday we were talking about making plans to travel together and talked about our relationship as if it had a serious future.
About a month ago, John revealed to me that he thought he had a minor drinking problem. Made it out to sound like he just needed a couple beers a night to make him feel normal. He went home (back to Canada) for the holidays and came back saying that he stopped drinking and that he felt good as new. I believed him and we got back to our normal routine. So much romance and fun, it was almost to good to be true.
This past Monday, I get a text from John revealing that he didn't stop drinking back when he said he did but that he had decided to stop that day. He said he wasn't feeling very well but tried to play it off. I didn't know what to think but tried to remain supportive. Tuesday Morning, I get a good morning text and he says he feels 100x better. Still a little skeptical I go along with it and we make plans to hang out that afternoon. Around 1pm, I get another text from John saying that he doesn't feel well and that he doesn't think he can hang out anymore. At this point I'm really starting to worry. I try to offer my help and be supportive but, once again, he plays it off and says he'll be fine, just needs some rest.
Then later, I get a text asking if I could come meet him at a park that we like to visit to talk. I'm starting to panic. I don't know what's going to happen. I get there, he is visibly shaking. He leads me to a bench to sit and tells me that he's leaving. Going back to Canada to check himself into a treatment program. He lied about the severity of his problem. The two beers he originally told me about was actually about a fifth of hard liquor most days. I'm devastated. Devastated for him, devastated at my realization that I have to let him go. That we have to go from talking all day every day to not knowing if or when I am ever going to speak to him again. He doesn't want me involved in his recovery. He said that because he cares about me, he isn't going to contact me until he is sure that he can remain sober and that he can't promise me that the two months of treatment will even be enough. As he says this, it's clear he's having severe withdrawal, shaking, glazed look in his eye, he even threw up at one point. It was terrifying to watch.
I'm crying. Sobbing. I still am. He's all that I can think about. Obviously, my number one concern is that he gets better, that he no longer worries for his life because of his addiction. I'm so proud of him that he took it upon himself to seek treatment without having something completely devastating happen in his life as a catalyst. He's young, 28, there is a lot of hope for him, even if he doesn't feel it. But with all of that, I can't help but feel broken. I simultaneously watched the man I had just let myself begin to love be in the most pain and fear that I have ever seen and also watched the relationship I cherished so deeply crumble, reduced to nothing, in a matter of seconds. And I have to carry the pain of our destroyed relationship on my own. I had so much I wanted to say to him about us, but I couldn't. I wouldn't do that to him. Burden him with my pain from having to let him go when he was already dealing with so much. And even if I did, I don't think he had the capacity to do anything with it. It wouldn't have been fair to him to tell him that he just broke my heart.
But it's not fair to me either. To have to carry this on my own. I feel like I'm broken. I've had panic attacks since that moment. I don't have an appetite. He's all I think about. All I worry about. His last words to me were, "I need to go. I'm sorry. I just need to go." and he got into his car and left. He had no capacity to worry about me or about us. And I wouldn't have asked him to even if he did. I can't even contact him because he doesn't have a phone in treatment. I don't even know where he went for treatment! I literally have nothing. Nothing but the best memories of us together. But now he's just gone. No transition. No contact. One second here and happy, the next it's as if he doesn't even exist. He said he would try to reach out when he was better, but who knows if he actually will and, if he does, when that will be. So I'm left here, dealing with the aftermath of the bomb he dropped on me and walked away from. He had to walk away.
I understand he had to. He had to walk away from me. He had to choose himself, to choose life. And I feel guilty that I feel so deeply pained by my losing him, as I know it's nothing compared to the pain he feels with his addiction. But I do, I hurt. So bad.
This doesn't happen to normal people. I try to talk to my friends but they have no idea what to say to me. I'm great in bad situations, so good at processing things and moving forward. But this is too much. I have no idea what to do with these feelings or where to go from here. He's gone. That's it. Am I going to hear from him in 2 months when he's done with treatment? And even if I do, what does that mean for us? Do we try again? Do I want to take that on? Am I capable? Given the option now, I definitely would be with him every step of his recover and after. But he didn't give me that option. I wonder if that's a good thing, if maybe letting me go was a gift.
All I know is that I miss him. My heart is broken. And it's not the typical broken after an ended relationship, and I would know. I am well acquainted with bad break-ups. But I didn't know that this kind of broken existed. I know ultimately I'll be okay. But I miss him. I miss us. We had so much. And now, there is nothing.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for on this forum. Is there any advice one could give me in this situation? All I see is a ****** situation without any clear reasoning behind it or lesson to be learned. But I felt like I needed to share anyway. This is too much for me to hold on to alone.
And apologies for my naiveté at any moment in this post. I should mention that I am only 21 and am probably in fact quite naive.