Still so lost
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 3
Still so lost
I'm lost. I was enjaged to an alcoholic till he decided that he couldn't be with me anymore. Even though he left i begged him to stay. He moved half of his stuff out and then drank. I kept telling him I wanted things to work despite that fact that he was out drinking, would verbally abuse me, scream at me, blow me off, etc. The day after we finally completely ended things he got drunk picked up a girl and took her to a hotel. She then took it upon herself to send me pictures of them at the hotel. Horrible right? Yet here i am two months later still crying over him. Still feeling like I want to save him. What could i have done differently to make him stay? Should i have been okay with his drinking? these are the things i ask myself. He has not once begged me to take him back, or told me he's going to treatment. Why do I hang on to him? Why can't i get mad at him and be done with it? My family and friends cannot understand why i still love him and hang on when he has not made any move to make this relationship work. I miss him terribly.
I'm going to therapy, to co-dependents anonymous, taking anti-depressents and still feel lost.
I'm going to therapy, to co-dependents anonymous, taking anti-depressents and still feel lost.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Kansas
Posts: 10,182
I am sorry for your pain, but it sounds like you are reaching out for help in several areas. It does take time to grieve the loss of a relationship. I think I was batty for a good year after I left my AH. Keep posting and sharing. Pain shared is pain lessened! :ghug
Member
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 132
IMR -
Sounds so much like my story. The details are a little different, but strikingly similar. My boyfriend of 4 years took up with another woman on Halloween - 5 days ago - without bothering to mention it to me. I found out because a neighbor told me. He's now telling me that he wants to be with this other woman and that he wants to quit drinking and to quit me.
Sounds so much like my story. The details are a little different, but strikingly similar. My boyfriend of 4 years took up with another woman on Halloween - 5 days ago - without bothering to mention it to me. I found out because a neighbor told me. He's now telling me that he wants to be with this other woman and that he wants to quit drinking and to quit me.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 132
I feel all the same feelings as you IMR. I feel like I need to explain to him why this new woman is no good for him, why he needs help, etc. I've been with him through 4 years of ups and downs. He's told me that he loves me and that I'm his best friend. That nobody else understands him (probably because there's nobody else in his life). We both own our own homes, so I never lived with him, but we spent every night of every week together. Of course, every night involved beer, wine and liquor - not on my part because I don't really drink. I know that I'm also co-dependent. I know what I need to do, but I'm still in love with him. Just because he's decided to cut his feelings off doesn't mean I'm able to do the same. We've broken up so many times I can't even remember, but he ALWAYS comes back with a new proclamation of love. This time is different though -- it's never involved another woman, so this time is hurts tremendously. How do I start to put my life back together? I've blocked his phone numbers, but that won't stop him from showing up on my doorstep.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Stumbling toward happiness
Posts: 4,706
IMR,
I'm glad you found us. Lots of us have been through the madness of living with alcoholics, and the way WE start to feel like the crazy ones.....
I'd encourage you to keep up with therapy, CODA, etc. How long has it been? This will not be healed in you overnight.
I think if you were able to take five steps back, you could see there's no logical reason to crave a person who lies, abuses you, drinks, cheats on you, allows a woman to send pictures like that to you, etc. if it were someone else telling you the story you've just told us, you'd shake her by the shoulders and say, "Huh? Why would you want THAT back?" It's degrading to accept such treatment and to want it back. BUT....that is the nature of codependency: reason and logic don't always enter into things, emotion and habit rule the roost !! It makes us do some pretty self-destructive things sometimes until we can really get it under control.
I say this as someone who cringes when she reads back in her journals and sees the things that codependency led her to do.....but I stuck with my recovery and am so grateful I did.
Keep up with what you're doing, and keep posting here. Lots of support here.
I'm glad you found us. Lots of us have been through the madness of living with alcoholics, and the way WE start to feel like the crazy ones.....
I'd encourage you to keep up with therapy, CODA, etc. How long has it been? This will not be healed in you overnight.
I think if you were able to take five steps back, you could see there's no logical reason to crave a person who lies, abuses you, drinks, cheats on you, allows a woman to send pictures like that to you, etc. if it were someone else telling you the story you've just told us, you'd shake her by the shoulders and say, "Huh? Why would you want THAT back?" It's degrading to accept such treatment and to want it back. BUT....that is the nature of codependency: reason and logic don't always enter into things, emotion and habit rule the roost !! It makes us do some pretty self-destructive things sometimes until we can really get it under control.
I say this as someone who cringes when she reads back in her journals and sees the things that codependency led her to do.....but I stuck with my recovery and am so grateful I did.
Keep up with what you're doing, and keep posting here. Lots of support here.
Formerly known as soconfused11
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Colon, MI
Posts: 410
IMR,
Welcome to SR! I am sorry that you are going through this, but just hang in there, you have come to the right place.
And as far as what you could have done differently, I still ask myself that same question, could I have done more, or done better. I am working on accepting what people here tell me, which is you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. His life, his choices. What you can change, is what you do. Your life, your choices.
I also find myself saying, maybe I should just have accepted him, drinking and all (all including, lying, being verbally abusive, taking off and coming home when he feels like it, cheating), but the fact is, I couldn't accept it, and he didn't want to change. So I had to start setting boundaries. I always had the fear that if I did, I would lose him. And low and behold, my fear came true. But now I am facing my fears, my hurts, and I keep hearing that the payoff is so worth it.
Isn't that the truth though? The other night, I read through some e-mails/journaling.....it's one of the first times since he started seeing the OW that I was mad. Furious, at him and myself for putting up with it!
Now, I'm back to being sad and missing him. One day at a time.
Welcome to SR! I am sorry that you are going through this, but just hang in there, you have come to the right place.
And as far as what you could have done differently, I still ask myself that same question, could I have done more, or done better. I am working on accepting what people here tell me, which is you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. His life, his choices. What you can change, is what you do. Your life, your choices.
I also find myself saying, maybe I should just have accepted him, drinking and all (all including, lying, being verbally abusive, taking off and coming home when he feels like it, cheating), but the fact is, I couldn't accept it, and he didn't want to change. So I had to start setting boundaries. I always had the fear that if I did, I would lose him. And low and behold, my fear came true. But now I am facing my fears, my hurts, and I keep hearing that the payoff is so worth it.
I say this as someone who cringes when she reads back in her journals and sees the things that codependency led her to do.....
Now, I'm back to being sad and missing him. One day at a time.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: California
Posts: 239
You should get help for you in addition to Meds. I have a therapist that really helped me understand the disease and my codependency. You can be happy....and he could continue to drink and abuse you but you can only control your happiness.
Black and Yellow
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Colorado
Posts: 1,359
Originally Posted by IMR 
I kept telling him I wanted things to work despite that fact that he was out drinking, would verbally abuse me, scream at me, blow me off, etc. The day after we finally completely ended things he got drunk picked up a girl and took her to a hotel..
Read that. Over and over again. YOU don't deserve that...NOBODY does.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 149
Originally Posted by IMR
I'm lost. I was enjaged to an alcoholic till he decided that he couldn't be with me anymore. Even though he left i begged him to stay. He moved half of his stuff out and then drank. ... What could i have done differently to make him stay? Should i have been okay with his drinking? these are the things i ask myself. He has not once begged me to take him back, or told me he's going to treatment. Why do I hang on to him? Why can't i get mad at him and be done with it? My family and friends cannot understand why i still love him and hang on when he has not made any move to make this relationship work. I miss him terribly.
I'm going to therapy, to co-dependents anonymous, taking anti-depressents and still feel lost.
I'm going to therapy, to co-dependents anonymous, taking anti-depressents and still feel lost.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 3
Thank you so much for your responses. I was just at my therapist's last night and we talked about where i'm at. She told me to just accept the fact that I am not over him, instead of questioning it. But I do question it. Why am I so stuck on him? Why does the fantasy of what we could be override the reality of what we are? Maybe it's because i lived in denial for so long when he was sober and we would fight and scream and he would threaten to leave me, that this seems like a dream. I am afraid that that is what i am holding on to, is a dream of what are only possibilities. He has not come to me begging me to take him back, or telling me that he is going to get sober so what am i hanging on for?
Member
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Stumbling toward happiness
Posts: 4,706
IMR,
I'll tell you what my counselor told me; maybe it'll help.
I'd been through some equally dreadful things with my X. I mean, the most degrading, horrible stuff. And still I pined for him, waited for him to call me and want me again.
My counselor spent a couple of sessions explaining how we each get something out of our romantic relationship. The other person is like a key that fits certain doors we've always kept closed - whether it's because they say the right smooth words, or they understand our past trauma because they've had similar, or for any number of reasons.
We keep them in our lives for a reason - or several reasons.
It takes a long time to get over a relationship if we aren't trying to understand all of the functions they served and find other ways to fill them. These were the functions my X served in my life:
--kept me from having to eat alone
--kept me from feeling that I wasn't loved
--friendship
--someone I could talk to
--someone to cook for
--someone who needed me (in my case, to bail him out)
Etc. Until I could find people and things to fill all of those functions and others, I kept trying to MAKE him fit that keyhole, even though I knew he never would again. But things started to ease when I did things like start having regular dinners with friends, volunteering and feeling the love of people I helped, cultivating new friendships by dragging myself out to workshops & events I cared about, regular phone dates with my family members who cared about me, etc. etc.
It's HARD to take the first step. I felt like my feet were encased in concrete and all I could do is stand there and cry out for him to come back and make it easy on me.
What functions did your BF serve in your life? Make a list.
Pick one that seems easy to fill with someone/something else. Give it a shot. Even the act of trying will change some of your pain to pride in yourself.
I'll tell you what my counselor told me; maybe it'll help.
I'd been through some equally dreadful things with my X. I mean, the most degrading, horrible stuff. And still I pined for him, waited for him to call me and want me again.
My counselor spent a couple of sessions explaining how we each get something out of our romantic relationship. The other person is like a key that fits certain doors we've always kept closed - whether it's because they say the right smooth words, or they understand our past trauma because they've had similar, or for any number of reasons.
We keep them in our lives for a reason - or several reasons.
It takes a long time to get over a relationship if we aren't trying to understand all of the functions they served and find other ways to fill them. These were the functions my X served in my life:
--kept me from having to eat alone
--kept me from feeling that I wasn't loved
--friendship
--someone I could talk to
--someone to cook for
--someone who needed me (in my case, to bail him out)
Etc. Until I could find people and things to fill all of those functions and others, I kept trying to MAKE him fit that keyhole, even though I knew he never would again. But things started to ease when I did things like start having regular dinners with friends, volunteering and feeling the love of people I helped, cultivating new friendships by dragging myself out to workshops & events I cared about, regular phone dates with my family members who cared about me, etc. etc.
It's HARD to take the first step. I felt like my feet were encased in concrete and all I could do is stand there and cry out for him to come back and make it easy on me.
What functions did your BF serve in your life? Make a list.
Pick one that seems easy to fill with someone/something else. Give it a shot. Even the act of trying will change some of your pain to pride in yourself.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
