stilllearning

Hi folks,

I've been lurking on the boards for months and only started posting for the first time a few weeks ago. I'm a RA, AcOA and my most recent ex boyfriend is the only alcoholic I've ever dated. He didn't ever take a drink around me but alluded to his drinking having been a problem in his last relationship. I think he kind of thought that he could use me as a means of recovery? That's a wild guess - but honestly, I can't see any other reason that an active A would want to be with someone who's in recovery and open about it upfront.

We were together a little under a year. First three months were mostly great. He was kind of there but not there a few months after that and then was honest about the fact that he'd had two relapses in two months. His pattern was to call in sick to work and not answer his phone. Stupidly, I was almost relieved when he told me - my rationale was that he had been doing great on his own, he just needed a program and everything would be fine. Solved!

Not solved. He became passive aggressive, mean, aloof, witholding and manipulative pretty much as soon as the bingeing was out on the table. Interspersed with pockets of the man I fell in love with again. Heartbreaking. Confusing. We broke up for a week at my instigation about three months later (he went on a week long binge during the breakup then signed up for alcohol counseling and wanted to reconcile). We were together again for about six weeks before he broke things off for good. Another woman "friend" had been introduced to me about a month before the final break and they, naturally, began a relationship as soon as things were over.

That was six months ago and I was a mess. Could barely eat or sleep and had spent so many months in hypervigilant mode that I was literally jumping at my own shadow. I've only made contact once, a month after we split. I was calm, but was looking for some sort of explanation for ... the crazy behaviour, the flip-flopping, the I love you, I don't love you ... I still (STILL) wasn't sure whether alcohol was a factor.

I have been doing better. Al-anon is helping. The boards are really helping. I wouldn't get back together with him if my life depended on it. I was really in a bad way by the end - too much baggage from the past, too many triggers. He hasn't made any kind of contact at all since the split - and I'm glad in many ways but it hurts that I really didn't matter at all.

The one thing that I haven't done and seem unable to do is to de-friend him on Facebook. This hasn't mattered at all because until recently, he was never on there. I had (swear to God) almost forgotten that we were still friends. He only has a handful of contacts (it's not really his kind of thing) and OW isn't one of them. He's started popping up regularly in the last month or so and the part of me that is still hurt, and sick, is having trouble with this. It would be healthy to just click that box and cut the final tie. But I guess that having spent so much time and so much emotional energy - the fact that there's still this one (tenuous, unhealthy) link matters to me in some way.

I would love to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience or dilemma. I would like to be healthy enough that he's on there and I don't give a hoot what he's up to. Or to feel healthy enough that in a year or two I can be in a place where he's just like any other friend on there. But I'm not there yet - and cutting that final tie seems really ... final.

Why am I scared of final?

SL

IamSaved

Hello learning...

Final is scary because it is...final! What if I can't check up on him? What if I de-friend him and he gets better and wants me back? How will he ever reach me? What if..what if..what if..

Only you can decide when to cut the final tie. For me, it was deleting all his log ons and passwords off my computers. DELETED! And it was scary, how would I know what he was doing?

I don't. I don't want to. It was the final connection, and getting rid of the final tie was like freedom for me. Peace, and clarity. I am now free to pursue my own life without worrying about his issues, problems or what he's doing.

I hope this helps you to DELETE and move on and get some peace in your life! He's weighing you down! Cut the tie, and be free!

Kittyboo

Looooong before Facebook, if someone REALLY wanted to get in touch with you, there are other ways.

I too have had the Facebook delimma's, But mine was actually somewhat opposite, as soon as I even had a GLIMPSE that my XA was communicating with his ex again, I deleted him, that night in seconds, I did NOT want to see it.
Now granted, after that it has been up and down with the Facebook thing. That was 9 months ago. (wow, I didn't realize it had been that long!) And for 7 months I was a wreck over this man. I'm getting better. I even deleted my entire fb account in December to give myself some space.

I recently did start it back up. I will admit I have done a little snooping....and received one drunk email from him "apologizing", then after he sent it, a couple of weeks later he blocked me. (Gooooooood GRIEF!)

Facebook rules your life as much as you allow it to. Doesn't cutting that final tie need to be FINAL? The thing is that it already is final. This link just keeps it alive, but only in your mind. What about this "connection" are you holding on to?
You could delete your ENTIRE page, not just him, and the people that you want in your life and want to find you would find you. Facebook is simply a social networking site, it is not an emotional or physical connection to someone. It's technology.
If you delete him from your friends list....he's still on facebook. Personally, I think deleting him gives you your power back. It's actually extremely liberating! Wouldn't it be FABULOUS TO TAKE BACK YOUR POWER? You control you....he does not.

I know the struggle with this. But really, in the long run, you will realize how trivial deleting him off of your friends list really was.

You said "I wouldn't get back together with him if my life depended on it." ......then there is no need for him to have the privilage of viewing YOUR life on facebook. Who cares about his life....he doesn't get to see YOURS.

Hugs

stilllearning

Thanks guys, this is helping. The first time I realized he was on there my heart was pounding. Then I got kind of numb to it. I have no idea whether it's a coincidence but I started getting phonencalls where someone would call, wait 20 seconds and then hang up right around the same time. That lasted a couple weeks then stopped.

You're right - he shouldn't get to see what's happening with me. There are some joyful, beautiful photos on there from the last few months. Because I started spending time with old friends again, stopped isolating and began living my life. He has been so completely incommunicado that I guess I didn't think about his checking out my own page, or even wanting to. Isn't that nuts?

KeepPedaling

Soooo emotionally damaging to have contact with him, even if it's just lurking around on fb (I learned that lesson just this week). I think it's so important to go no contact. It's helped me so much.

Also, I wanted to say congratulations for making it through all that while in recovery, staying strong, and continuing to work hard on recovery. You sound really strong.

stilllearning

Thanks KeepPeddaling. OMG I don't feel it this week. I'm kind of exhausted. I'm working two programs and licking some pretty deep wounds - new and old. I also quit smoking two months ago so I am now so completely crutchless that I guess I'm staggering a little. I get in my head why this relationship was so painful. And I know that no matter who he's with, those issues have gone nowhere. But ... but ... but ... Today really hurts. I hurt. There has been more change and upheaval in my life in the last three years than should even be possible.

And I am so, so grateful that I'm sober but the happy joyous and free part isn't really feeling very happy or joyous right now. Rough day. I freelance and a contract that I have been waiting for a month to be finalized was cancelled yesterday. Nothing to do with me - the project just isn't going ahead. Biiiig dent to my security - it would have been 6-9 months of steady, lucrative work and I now have to find something else.

Today I just want to lie down in a little heap. I guess that's what the ruminating/being upset by FB is all about. I'm tired and my sense of security has been upended again.

BuffaloGal

Final is scary... but few things in life really are final, and for me, FB ain't one of em.

Today I crossed paths for the first time ever on FB with my A ex husband... we finally have a couple of mutual friends, it was inevitable, and he popped up in my margin as a suggested friend.

And... I hit... X. I've never looked for info about his current life online, I don't have the "need to know" gene.

It didn't feel good, but it didn't feel that bad either.

KeepPedaling

AND you quit smoking! See, you're tough. That is so hard (I did it about 10 years ago and still remember the hell of it). I have ups and downs too with my break up. I go through all the cycles, great one day, worried the next, crying the next, angry etc. But I've found it to be so much less painful WITHOUT him triggering MORE suffering. I totally took a nose dive when I looked on his fb (he has it public). Sucked. I won't go there again.

I think I have enough to hurt about, I don't need to seek him out to get more stuff to be hurt by that I'll have to recover from. I ask myself, "do I want work through and heal just these 100 emotional bruises or should I go back for 100 more?" It's pretty easy for me to answer that question now.

I'm grateful that you're sober too. That makes me feel happy and hopeful. It makes me super happy that you're sober and strong. So cool. You'll get through this and you'll get a good steady contract soon too. It's a contractors market right now for sure

dallas3300

Thanks so much for sharing. I completely sympathize with "He became passive aggressive, mean, aloof, witholding and manipulative pretty much as soon as the bingeing was out on the table. Interspersed with pockets of the man I fell in love with again. Heartbreaking. Confusing." I also completely understand how you feel like you are jumping at your own shadow. Gosh, it's always nice to see how so many people here have similar experiences.

I, too, can't wait for the day when I no longer give a "hoot" what my ex is doing on Facebook. I have deleted him, but since we still have mutual friends, I can see his page. I get nothing out of looking at it but pain, but the curiosity is so overwhelming, isn't it? The devils on our shoulders....

For me, "final" is scary because there is a part of me that wishes he would be sweet and loving and nice again...and would act like the person I lived with for a year. But he's probably not going to change - and even if he did, I would just end up un-doing all the progress I have made over the past month or so by giving him a chance to hurt me again.

It hurts SOOO much to feel like you didn't matter because he doesn't try to make contact with you. I hear you!! I am just hoping that by working on ourselves, we will be so much better off in the long run than if they DID try to get us back in their lives all the time.

IamSaved

My ex never had a FB page, the cell phone he had was on my account. So, I guess I am lucky. I took his cell phone the day I left, (He never sent texts anyway! ) and I have no worries about lurking around his FB page, cause he never had one to begin with!

But he did manage to sign himself up on adult friend finder back in Aug 2009, and blackcrush.com the day I left...things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmm

After I found those things, I no longer felt the need to 'check up' on him. All it did was hurt me, and make me feel terrible about myself. None of this was ever my fault, and if those are the kinds of websites and women he thinks he wants, GO and be free! I prefer to wait for a man with integrity and honesty. NO MORE ADDICTS!

It's all a matter of when you are ready to finally let go. When you are ready, you will know. Stay strong!

transformyself

I think, for me, this all has to do with trauma. I was so truamatized by my marriage in general, then with the affair. Girl I couldn't eat, sleep, work, drive, parent. The affair was all I talked about for a year and a half.

I think other, healthy folks, break up, grieve and let go. This is different. This is about US not them, but we still have to get to the root of it.

My therapist has been on vacation for two week, but starting next week we're working on handy tricks for triggers. Can't wait.

Good luck. thanks for sharing.

Duped

It really sucks when you finally come to the revelation that a relationship that you put so much time, effort, love and honesty into was in actual fact one big fraud. I still struggle to come to grips with that. In a way, I too am in denial about just how much it affected me. I wish I had the answers. Perhaps time will be the difference. All I know is I am forging forward with my life and my work and letting the chips fall where they may.

stilllearning

Thanks everyone, all of this has really helped. The deed is done (gulp) and I feel a little bit lighter. Yes, it absolutely blows to know (and I do) that I meant nothing to him. The longer I was with him, the worse I was feeling about -myself- and the less there was of the woman that he was attracted to in the beginning. I don't want him back. I do want me back.

Are there people out there who manage to get into relationships with an A and stay intact? Or does this disease make casualties of all of us?

Learn2Live

Checking out his FB page is just a FIX. Keeping him on has nothing to do with finality; you're not afraid of finality. You're afraid you will no longer be able to get that FIX. Your heart POUNDS when you look at his page, doesn't it?

stilllearning

Learn, truthfully, no. I hadn't been checking his page since the breakup - for the same reason that I avoid places he might be, haven't called or emailed and have asked anyone who knows him not to "update me" on his life. He had been gone-gone for months so when he appeared on that news feed thing, hell yes my heart pounded. It hasn't been so much checking his page as just knowing that the link is there and feeling .... off about it.

But still ... and elements of this are in all of the posts above - I guess the not deleting him immediately was my almost indulging in magical thinking? "Maybe he'll get better and, and, and .... And isn't it -rude- to cut some one out of your life????" But he was nothing if not rude and I never treated him with anything but dignity. Truly. I think he hated that actcually - he seemed to want me to loathe him as much as he loathed himself.

Maybe part of me didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his presence bothered me enough to remove it? The fact that the phone hangups started at the same time he suddenly appeared made it feel like a "look at me" gesture (really, when I say handful of friends, there was pretty much nobody on there). It may not have been him, but I don't know anyone else off balance enough to do the hangup thing.

Regardless, it's done. I particularly like the point about social networking being technology and not a real connection. It's what you make it. My friends are all over the country these days and it's nice to be able to stay in touch and watch their families grow. He was the only person on there who I wouldn't sit down for a meal with. That's what felt wrong.

Learn2Live

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I know what you are afraid of. That sounded stupid and I apologize. Most of the time, I'm really just talking to myself LOL.

Kassie2

I am discovering that trying to figure out why we react to some things one way or another is just another way of avoiding the inevitable - facing feelings we don't like.

Final is just a word - the meaning we place on it is what we have to deal with.

Today was a day for me of realizing that we really can't avoid things we don't like - and have them go away on their own - we have to face our fears and move through them one way or another.

Seems like you took a step, breathe and now take the next one.

Learn2Live

Rather off-topic but I would like to share because it has to do with my Boundary work: I also use FB for fun and getting and keeping in touch with OLD OLD friends. But I also recently chose to evaluate my friend list and set some boundaries. I had friended many people who I had never met; they were just friends of friends or people I had "met" on-line. I think it is a good idea, if you use FB, to occasionally go through your friends and evaluate whether or not you really want them to see your personal interactions, do you really know them or were you just being nice and accepting an invitation from a complete stranger, etc. Also, set your PRIVACY and SECURITY settings appropriately, especially if you have pics of yourself and your kids on there. AND delete old boyfriends you are trying to move on from

stilllearning

Thanks Learn, Kassie,

Learn I totally hear you - and he was -absolutely- an addiction by the end of the relationship. That's why the first two months literally felt like withdrawal. He wasn't online so I could let this one thing go ... but the situation changed and in the interests of NOT mainlining my keyboard (because I know I could get to that place) I've had this feeling of - buildup? I guess to making the move I needed to make. It was a good lesson though - if him just being on there got me rattled, there is no way that this man could be in my life for real in any way again without me losing my marbles.

Kassie - really wise. I don't like the feeling that I spent all that energy and felt such a connection with someone who doesn't even have enough of a place in my life (or me in his) now to even have the tiniest technological link to.

I don't like that I was cut off at the knees and discarded after giving someone my love and support and getting so little in return. This was the one place that I hadn't been ditched, maybe? One tiny corner where all that pain and love mattered.

Ugh. I don't like those feelings.

Summerpeach

Still; giving love is never a waste since it's not about whom you give it to, it's about your projection and how it made you feel at the time.

If you're able to give love, that is a gift in itself.

And yes, it took me YEARS of therapy to realize this myself.