IPT

Well, she texted back about that she had this there and that here at my house, to not forget stuff. I texted her back that Unllike her I cared about her, her things, and that I knew what she had. Then my emotions got the better of me and I added; what did I get for caring? Hurt and lied to, not even a phone call I asked for 7weeks ago. That all her words about caring for me and how important I was to her was a lot of BS and that I believed her...

Ugggh. WTF... I know I am just looking for confirmation that she DID care. That in some way this is hard for her too. Instead all I did was give her that knowledge for herself and here I am again left with nothing. I should have made her get all of her stuff weeks ago. I just want to scream or punch a wall or something...

Abundance

IPT... breathe....... exhale.....

You can do this...remember - it takes 2 to tango.... don't be a second party to her drama!

I understand wanting confirmation..... I do and I really hope you get it and that it helps you move on.

justtired

I think you said it best yourself...

This struck me in your other post because i really believe it's true.

Learn2Live

IPT,
Your feelings are rightfully hurt. But if you are looking for her to validate these hurt feelings, I don't think that will come from her any time soon. Also, I know what it is like to keep sharing your feelings with the other person over and over, searching for something to make the hurt go away. And you know in your heart that, "If they just____, then I will be happy."

I have done this SO MANY times with SO MANY different people. I would cry, loudly, for hours, trying to get them to comfort me and make the pain go away (the pain that I thought THEY caused by not loving me as much as I loved them, or by not caring about me as much as I cared about them).

But sooner or later I had to realize, it all comes from WITHIN. I learned to soothe myself. I learned that I had to parent myself. And since then, I've further realized that THEY have as much pain, if not MORE pain, than I do. It's unfair to require this of another human being. They just don't have that ability.

IPT

You are right, in some ways she is probably hurting as much if not more than me, for reasons way deeper than this relationship.

I just don't get it, that someone you spend SO much time with is unable to reach out to you...even when you ask them too and practically tell them what you need. How can one NOT interpret that as being purpously hurtful?

I want her to hurt the way I am..... it's sick, I know, but if I am honest it's true. I think that is why I posted the thread a while ago asking RA how it was for them. It makes me feel better knowing that she is hurting too. Maybe it is a way for me to grasp that she just is in so much pain, and lacks the skills or strength to do what seems the only right thing. I can tell myself that over and over but somehow the pain does not go away.

There is so much anger, resentment, and hurt.....

cherrie1

IPT
I understand your anger and your hurt we all have it when dealing with our addicts. As a parent if I really let my head go there I just can't even begin to conceive how my child that I love with all of my heart and have always been there for could tell the lies, steal and hurt us like he has. I know it is his illness. I will always be tied to him emotionally and hopefully if he continues in his recovery physically too but I can no longer allow him to bring me/us down. Since we are not the addict we can not understand how their drugs take over. That is why I have gotten some comfort reading the posts by the addicts in recovery and how they were thinking at the time.

You can not control her or her feelings but you can begin to change things for you. You deserve better. I am sure she is hurting too. But when they are active in their addiction they only care about themselves and how they can use us.

Hang in there.

teke

sorry you had to go through that but it really is ok. you will get through this. like they say, dust your self off and start over if you have to. i think you are still doing ok, a least you can recognize where you are.

i slipped with my ah so many times for so many yrs. i know how it feels to want to hear something, anything that would give me some kind of comfort, after all, i was there whenever you needed me.

i think she may want her things but i wonder if its really all about the things. my ah would call asking for things that he forgot but i really believed his true motive was to try to figure out whether or not the door was still open, just in case he needed it to be one day. if i didn't contact him, he would eventually check back just to see if he could figure out where my head was at.

most active addicts don't think like normal folks, i always tell myself.

dogged

you have to realize your dealing with a mind of a child in many cases..they do not have the capability to deal with lifes issues or emotions in the same way we have learned..i truly beleive they are stuck in the year they started using and did not grow much past that point..thats why its so hard for them to deal with stressful situations they never had the tools..as we did at a pace of development through our pre adolecent years into adulthood..one almost has to look at them with pity and sadness...believe me, they do not think like an average person who is not addicted...so i wouldnt take anything they say or do as personal,,i know harder to do sometimes..but with practice you get pretty good at it eventually...just put the focus on you,,and dont worry about them..they are survivalist, and dont be surprised if your replaced..they need to focus on others to survive,,,like i told mine.go ahead and find someone else..see how long they will put up with you bull sh**, see how quickly they will leave once they find you out.. because do i know he will be playing them the same dance and song as he did with me. do i love him? yes i do. but i can still love from a distance. and keep that distance..

Freedom1990

Be glad that you don't get it, because in order for you to truly get it, you would have to be in active addiction yourself.

IPT

Thank you everyone - you are a Godsend...

This seems to be the only way I can get thru this.... I have heard it before, heck I've seen it. Her stomping her feet like a 10 year old when she was mad! We were moving something one day and she got overwhelmed (moving a piece of furniture for crying out loud) and TOTALLY lost it! I was sort of shocked.. why can't I get back to where I DIDN'T even want to be with her? For crying out loud I left her 4 and half months ago....what the heck is wrong with me?

IPT

Dear God..."getting", it has been sucking the life out of me for a long time. Just like an addict though all it takes is a little exposure and I am sucked in!

bluejay6

Be careful, IPT, with your need to see her as "hurting." It can keep you from seeing clearly who she is.

What we DO is who we are. Not what we say or what we intend. What we DO defines us.

It seems to me that she is not yet a late-stage addict, which means she could actually be having fun out there.

And maybe she wants you to see her as a wounded little girl so she can get whatever she wants, save face, and stay one up. It's always a masterful con when an addict who is an abuser manages to make the victim feel sorry for him/her. I see it everywhere and just shake my head in disbelief. Then I remember what I was like, some years back. Feeling sorry for my poor addict. All the while I was being so emotionally abused.

You can turn this thing around on a dime if you finally see her for the con artist she really is. Just my opinion.

You are wasting your breath preaching to her about her behavior.

Bluejay

IPT

There is no more preaching, trying at anything, or trying to change her. The truth is I AM seeing her for the con artist she is…that is exactly where all the resentment and anger are coming from. I am angry at her for dong it to me, angry at myself for letting it happen.

She is not a late stage addict..if anything, she suffers more from low self esteem, co-dependency, and severe depression than anything else. She is most certainly not having fun in life and that is written all over her face. I used to look at her and wonder how a person could look so sad, beat down….That is what killed me, I HATE to see people suffer. In my line of work (healthcare) I fix people everyday….this was not fixable by me…but... When I got out of school the hardest lesson I had to learn (after some failures) was that as smart and good as I was, I could NOT fix everybody. I really thought that I had the tools and knowledge to do that. I was naive, but confident and optimistic until I hit the wall of reality.

This relationship was a new experience, but worst of all it was not just stranger, but a person I cared for deeply, in an arena I knew nothing about (family addiction, drug use, co-dependency, sexual molestation, etc, etc…). I am by nature driven, like to learn, am inquisitive and more often than not successful at what I set my mind to..…a recipe for disaster in this situation. The first year was decent, totally denial and deception. Then It took literally 2 more years to grasp the concepts of what was going on and I was dealing with, and the last year to try and extract myself from it (largely due to the information I got here about boundaries and me having to make the changes I needed to in order to make my life better).

This episode, I had not contacted her for 6 weeks….all the while I had this “stuff” built up in me. She left me hanging in so many ways. There were things I needed to say and express, answers I was seeking. I’ve journaled, vented to friends, and a therapist, but NOT HER, the person who I NEEDED to vent it too. When she opened that door that had been shut for so many weeks now it just came out….there was no stopping until I consciously saw where I was going again and stopped it there.

The relationship is dead, has been for weeks if not months. The grieving, learning, and healing from it are still very much a work in progress.

gowest

I could have written this too.

I will say, and I don't know if this helps or not, when I recently had my addict standing in front of me SOBER and saying LET'S TALK most of my impulses to vent/question to him disappeared.

I didn't really think about this in depth until I just read your post.

It wasn't about trying to "keep" him or not cause conflict. I think that I have grown to the point where I all of a sudden understood that for the most part it would be futile to even go there.

If he was truly capable of answering my questions, or hearing me vent things wouldn't have ended the way they did in the first place.
The old analogy you often see here of not being able to get bread from the hardware store.

Rather than rehash the past (it has been over 5/6 months) I chose to ask "why now". It took him about three days to get back to me with an answer. I could tell he had really thought about it and his answer made sense. It came from his "sober place/mind".

He still couldn't show up.
He did treat me with honesty and respect and that did help.

All I can tell you is that I still miss him but I too date, have a very busy and fulfilling life, go to Al-anon, see a therapist, and in general am "ok".

I have days that are really hard but it does get easier.

I have moved from:
I want him in my life to,
I wish he was different so he could be in my life to,
he is who he is and therefore can't be in my life,
and I don't know where it will ultimately end up for me but I have seen progress in myself regardless if he is making progress.

Jason448

I know it is frustrating wondering what was real or not in your life with this person. Did she mean I love you when she said it or was she just trying to be nice. We the lover of the addicts may never know what they felt for us, however we know how we felt about them. What is most important is that our feelings for them were true and that we know when we said I love you we meant it. When we gave that person a hug, we wanted to. We may never know if the addict really loved us or not, the thing that is really sad, they may never know how much we truly loved them.

P.S. If you punch a wall tip #1: Make sure you don't hit a stud, it hurts, trust me.
#2: If you need to repair the whole in the drywall, let me know I can give you some quick fix tips.

Learn2Live

When I have the kinds of feelings you are having IPT, I go to a quiet place and turn into myself and look to see what I think I want or need. Often, we think we need other people to fulfill us and meet our emotional needs. But as we mature emotionally, we (those of us who are able to change our focus AWAY from others and toward our own selves) realize that we don't need ANYONE to fulfill us. We let go of the parent-figure we grew accustomed to when we were young and doing so helps us to learn how to give OURSELVES what we need.

As a side note: The addict in your life is completely unable to do this. She is so obsessed with fulfilling her needs, including the emotional ones, with drugs and substances, and other things, that she is incapable of looking at herself because it is so very painful for her to do so.

Reading about what I am going through also helps me. You could go to the library and look up books on "Emotional IQ." I don't always read the whole book, I might just read through the Table of Contents, read the introductory chapter, and then scan through the exercises they give. It just gives me a little education of what I might be experiencing and how I might work on it so I can be stronger.

You CAN get back to that point. Yes, you made the step to LEAVE her and soon you will be ready to MOVE ON. These are two different actions. Be patient with yourself. Live in the present moment. Understand that change does not happen overnight. You follow your feelings and your instincts. And when letting go does not come easily in your heart or in your psyche, it just is not time yet. But I promise you, the time will come when you are ready. Your job is simply to keep breathing until it does.

It helps me to keep my eyes straight ahead, and not look back, and not look sideways.

There is nothing wrong with you IPT. I have this problem every single day of my life. Why can't I just get along with people? Why can't I have the relationship I want? Am I too sensitive? Do I expect too much? Am I just a miserable complainer who is never happy? So every day I have to keep telling myself, there is nothing wrong with me.

You are growing IPT, these are just growing pains. And the Universe has brought this very sick woman into your life as the grand opportunity to LEARN YOUR LIFE LESSONS. Focus on learning the lesson, NOT on beating yourself up. That's why we are ALL on SR-By sharing our experiences and our own unique understandings, we learn from one another what the lesson is, and how that lesson can help us to make healthier decisions in the future.

Be good to yourself, go easy on yourself. You are so worth it IPT.

IPT

That is what I was doing (sigh)....

I am much better today . Still sad, hurt, bewildered and such, but no worse than a few days before. I am moving forward at a snails pace but moving forward afterall. I was talking this am and we came to the conclusion that part of my recovery (and lessoning the feelings of hurt, failure, and rejection) will come from accepting that I "lost" to fighting addiciton. That it wasn;t about her not accepting me, or that we didn;t work on the relationship enough, do the right things, etc.

If it quacks like a duck it's a duck right? What it it looks like a beautiful, healthy 30 year old female who likes many of the same things you do.... I guess in the animal world they do not have free choice of sorts... we never see a duck just decide the don't want to go south for the winter. Humans can decide when they want to be responsible or not..or maybe they can't because they just don't know any better.

Not sure where I was going with that, but I guess just that I look at her and see a person. I need to remember her and see the sick, unhealthy person that she really is. Not the illusion of the healthy person that she sold to me so well and that I cling to and expect her to act like. Isn't that a trip? She seels me this "package", and then doesn't understand why I am upset that it was fraud......

daisylady

This touched my heart and made me sad because it is SO SO true. Thanks Jason.

IPT-I was sold the same fraud you were-many of us were. My fraud is my AH, I married the fraud. :wtf2 The only way my AH has loved me or given me anything in the last five years is by helping me make my beautiful baby boy and for that I am eternally grateful. Without my son, I would probably still be living in the chaos day after day but I want better for my baby. I struggle with seeing my AH as an addict too. I constantly think about the "dream" of having him get sober and having a "normal family." I know I will probably file for divorce at some point, but I am just not there yet..I am still working on getting there in my recovery. I have taken baby steps for sure. This addiction stuff is not easy but if we stick to what we know and keep going to meetings and coming here I think we can only get stronger and smarter! Take care of you.

doonya

"P.S. If you punch a wall tip #1: Make sure you don't hit a stud, it hurts, trust me.
#2: If you need to repair the whole in the drywall, let me know I can give you some quick fix tips."

That made me LOL Jason 448. Particularly because I have been there - done that

And speaking of humor ..... I recently drove with my 91-year-old mother to have what I knew was going to be an awkward visit with an active addict. I asked mom how she always manages to pull off these visits without appearing uncomfortable. She said she tries to inject a little gentle humor into the situation and solemnly pronounced that "laughter doeth good dearie." Actually, I think a large part of it is that her hearing is shot and she misses most of what's being said. But still, she has a point. And it's not like she doesn't know what she's talking about. She was married to an addict for 64 years.

It may be too soon for humor in your case IPT. But try laughing out loud for no discernible reason. It can't hurt

IPT

Ditto - been a long time thank God...Though the other night I sure was wishing I had a heavy bag! I might actually get one. Instead I pretty much tried to kill myself on the treadmill instead (in a healthy way of course...runing and walking up the steepest incline it would provide!).

Pulled this from another thread but it summed up so much for me. She will be picking up her stuff next week. I am considering leaving a letter with it. Yes, purely to try and manipulate her to tell me some things. Even if they are lies I feel like I need to hear some things from her and express to her what I am feeling. Still on the fence about it and I am aware that what I hear back may not be what I was looking for. Waxing and waning about this....