1va

I hear about people with ex addicted husbands, and all the terrible things in their realtioship that made there ex such a dislikeable person, and I almost envy them.
My husband on the other hand (and I'm sure there are more just like him) is like dealing with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He's so caring and selfless and nice, and then his addiction takes over and there's no one else in the world but him. He's talking to a counselor, which is way more than he's ever done. I see some change, and I know real change is gradual, but I'm not convinced this is real change. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful he's never abused us, cheated on me, or really stolen from me. I'm greatful he doesn't deal and hasn't been in any legal trouble.
I'm so confused right now. We have a 5 month old daughter, and while I want her father in her life, I don't want it to be at the expense of her happiness. I don't know if any of this makes any sense.

Ps. I do attend alanon when I can.

keepinon

Keep going to alanon..make it a priority, it helps to counterbalance the insanity for me!

outonalimb

1va...

Welcome to SR.

I completely understand what you are saying. My exah is a very loveable, very funny, very affectionate, very generous, and thoughtful guy. That is, of course, when he isn't caught up in his addiction. His addiction can turn him into a very selfish person...a liar...a manipulator. It's most definitely like a dr. jeckel/mr. hyde. I also have wished I could hate him. Wished I could just remember the bad things and not the good.

I also have a child with my exah. He was 3 when my (then-husband) decided it might be a good idea to give heroin a try. It's been a long, painful road ever since. My son is now 11.

I had to divorce my exah to protect myself legally and financially but I did so with a broken heart. Divorce didn't bring me happiness. Nothing can make me hate my ex. I still love him. I've just learned (after many years...many struggles...) that I cannot allow his addiction to threaten my well-being or the well-being of our son.

I think you'll find that there are ALOT of us here who understand what you're going thru. Even though our relationship to the addicts might differ (some are our children, our friends, our parents, our spouses, ex-spouses etc.)...the struggles are incredibly similar. You've come to a great place to learn about what you can do...and more importantly...what you can't do...to make your life better.

Welcome again...
I'm glad you're here.

hello-kitty

Welcome! You're not the only one who's ever felt that way about their spouse. Most women on this website see redeeming qualities in their Dr. Jekyll. That's why they stay with them and put up with the Mr. Hyde for so long. They keep hoping the man will change, that they can help them change... but we have a saying around here:

Lord
Grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change other people,
The strength to change the person I can,
And the wisdom to know it's me.

1va

Thank you all for the welcome. Outonalimb that's exactly what I needed to hear. AH relapsed first pot, then meth, and eventually back to heroin. This is a battle he's been fighting since he was 12. We moved in with his in-laws when our daughter was born so I could take a maternity leave. This is when he relapsed. He comes back and says he really wants to get better and asks for help, for another chance. I'm positive he does want to get better, but it's only about a weeks time before his addiction takes over again, and I'm left wondering how many times am I going to let him just come walking back in? I've asked him to please just leave us alone, don't talk to us, see us, or try to conact us, but he came back anyways saying he was really done... again.
I'm trying to find a place I can afford to live that he can't just saunter on in to, I feel like I'll finally have some peace if I can just get that barrier between us.

BayAreaPhoenix

Hello Kitty hit it right on the head, it's a common thread for spouses and partners. We want to see the best in others, especially our significant others - What got me in trouble is that I stayed for so long that any good feelings I did have or good qualities I did see in my XAH had been eroded amongst feelings of resentment and finding out about being lied to for years, etc. I didn't say when soon enough!

Welcome to SR, you will find a lot of ES&H to help you on your path!

outonalimb

Yes, getting your own place will help. I left our beautiful marital home, filed for bankruptcy, and started over from scratch. I rented a tiny little home and saved for 2 years until I could buy my own house (which I've been in for almost 4 years now). My home is my haven. I've been able to give my son a stable life no matter what his dad is doing. Best thing I ever did for myself.

Make a plan. Even if you have to take baby steps getting there, you WILL get there.

aah1977

Welcome! There are so many of us on here who are or who have been in similar situations. Mine is an awful lot like yours. My husband very seldom drank, but was a social pot smoker since college. When we found out we were going to have to do infertility treatments to get pregnant he stopped. Then after a back injury he was introduced to Oxi and the rest is history. By the time our son was 9 months old he had entered himself into an inpatient rehab program. I have seen him go from a man that would give the shirt off his back to even a stranger in need to someone that would steal that shirt off your back if it meant he could get a fix. Prior to opiates he was funny, caring, honest, ambitious, hardworking etc. Now he is someone that everyone who knows him will keep at arms length because we just don't know what he will do. Even when he went into rehab he had never been in any legal trouble, but that changed very quickly as the disease progressed. To see how his life has transformed in the past couple of years is remarkable because his life is unrecognizable. To this day I doLOVE him, but I HATE so much of what he put me through and I finally realized it. We have been separated since January and he relapsed a little over a month ago. He is clean 12 days, but I have learned my lesson and will not put my trust in him or let him bring anymore ciaos into my 2 year old's life. I know what it is like to want your child's father in their life-you have a dream when you plan a family. He needs to want to and nothing you do is going to make him do that. It took me awhile to realize it and as I move forward in a normal stable life for my son I will only allow his father in if he is 100% clean.

Wishing you all the best!

sofacat

1va- "I'm grateful he's never abused us, cheated on me, or really stolen from me."

Welcome to SR....my XAH is an opiate addict. Though he never cheated on Me with other women, I would refer to the drug as his "mistress"....it sure felt that way.

Now that he is moved out I am noticing things that are missing...a watch, a video camera, etc...an addict will pretty much do whatever it takes not to go through withdrawal, and if they have no money, they become VERY resourceful....even if it means stealing something from you. As the disease progresses, so does the behavior.

As for the abuse, no he didn't abuse me....I DID. I let myself stay in a relationship that was consuming me, and I let it happen.

I love Mr.Sofa....he is one of the funniest, smartest, cutest, sappy, playful, lovable men I know....but the addiction was just too much to bare.

One minute I had Him, one minute I didn't. It was torture, for both of us.

SR and the people here really helped my see myself and where my life was heading. Glad you are here.

Hey ahh...you and I went through our breakups together....you sound great!!!!

1va

Thank you all for sharing. It's nice to hear similar experiences. I would love to make it to more alanon meetings to hear these kind of words but unfortunately being a single mom, working 40+ hours a week an hour away from home doesn't leave me with a whole lot of me time.
Today is a good day, AH is out of sight and out of mind. When he's gone I'm so content, I don't care whether or not he's using, or where he's staying, he's not anywhere near our daughter and has no access to my finances so it doesn't matter to me. I can only take care of my daughter and myself, I know this all too well. I can't wait to get a place of my own. If he wants to get better he can do it without disturbing my life.

Thank you Sofacat, the addiction is just too much for me to bare as well, I've tried so hard for years, and I'm just not someone who can live with an addict/alcoholic and still have my own life.

newlife24

Trust me hun. If my ex were easy to hate, I would never have dated him. I've dated too many egotistical, lying, deceitful, cheating losers in my life to put up with their arrogance anymore.
My ex was a gentle, kind, loyal man with a terrible addiction to pot. So much so that daily he risks his relationships with his aunt and family to grow the stuff under her roof!
I knew then that nothing that I said or did would keep my gentle kind ex from doing drugs. I knew no matter how nice, I had to get out of there. I had to leave him.
So now, I'm just trying to find a happy medium between hating him and being grateful for his presence. He treated me well but he treated pot like his #1. His "other woman" if you will.
That's the part that I hate about him....So if I had to answer today, I'd say that I half dislike him, half miss his druggie butt. Its hard to hate someone completely when you feel its not totally their fault.

scaredconfused

I married the man off my dreams 2 years ago we met 3 years ago at the time i didn't know he was an addict i was on vacation in this country
Now i come from a country where pot is legal so i should have known better but for some weird reason i didn't
Soon he confessed to me he was addicted to coke still i didn't understand the magnitude off it all.
Untill we slept in a park he left me in a hotel without food and money for days drove by with another woman in our car two weeks after we got married
My son was with us throughout all off this and has no clue tried to keep my head up for him. when he came back (the money was gone) he said he was sorry and asked for another chance and i gave him that the dr thing
I cannot hate him I am sorry I cannot
when he is not using he is so sweet and caring .....
I would ask him what he had done and i would get half answers and blamed his memory being bad so I thought i would be patient and maybe he would tell me in due time
He has been sober for 1 year then relapsed stayed clean for 6 months and relapsed last december now he has been sober for about 6 months again and i can tell he is changing his emotions and memories are comming back slowly
but so does the truth step by step and some is truly hurtfull
but i would rather know the truth how painfull it is then wonder for ever.
But i also discoverd that i do not know if it is to protect me that some things he leaves out call it a six sense.....
you just know

he has left and returned 9 times he knows that if this happens again i will leave to the country i came from
The whole stopping he has done on his own no help from anyone and i must admit i am very proud off him
but I have found i have alot off problems with what happend and what he put me through .....at the time i think i was in survival mode but now i have some time to breath and it all comes flushing back to me
I do not want to confront him with it cause i Know he feels so terribly guilty about what happend and he should but at the same time i do not think he fully understands what he put us through and the damadge he has done to our relationship and i want him to know
plus i have so many questions so many
Now i am at the point i do not know if i can live with what happend and that makes me feel badly because he is clean now and i do love him so so much

I feel lost and alone cause he is my only friend in this country
I lived through so much already and forgave the people that raped me how can i do this to my own husband i want to forgive and forget but feel unable
mostly cause i do not know the truth
i am scared

wicked

scaredconfused,
this describes the feelings i had so well with my crack addicted ex husband. at the time, i don't think i ever took a deep breath, and i cried in my sleep.
the weekends are sometimes slow on sober recovery, but there will be many others here to share their experience strength and hope with you.
have you read any of the sticky posts yet? they can be very helpful to you.
you now have another friend in this country.
please know you cannot change him, cure him, or control his addiction.
if he has "dry" periods without any recovery program, the cycle will just get closer together. (the time between binges) as a recovering alcoholic, i could not even look at the damage i did to my family without a recovery program.
i hope you will spend more time here and learn what you can do for yourself and your son to live a better life.
beth

OceanSize

over the last 2 crazybusy workweeks i received 2 emails from xabf.

one told me i was beautiful and amazing.

the other one congratulating me on a recent success, praising my success, "you are a bad ass" "you are the incredible" and "i am thinking about you and overall remembering what you're about"



and...what? what does that even mean?

i wasted time trying to figure it out. more than a few hours per email, at least.

but i didn't say anything other than thanks. one word. and while i want to shun him, send him away, i still wonder if i should say more than "thanks"

so the title of this thread really speaks to me. in the long run, i've continued to relent to powerlessness, so i'm not doing anything more in response. but the emotions that follow are confusing, and i'm grateful to have the space to figure it out.

meanwhile, i miss him. and i'm pretty sure this is less of a co dependent kind of "missing" and more of "fun is just more fun when we are together"

so difficult to hate, so i'll keep trying to detach with love. and love him i do! i also love my life, and love having this space. i miss him so much, but i'm ok. and i do want him back in some way. but i'm ok, and this process is feeling better and better. for once i feel healthy, but still do want him back in the future. ugh...?

(what bs emails tho, right?) "rememberng what you are all about" does that even mean anything? is it even positive? it almost feels manipulative?

scaredconfused

thank you so much for saying this to me
and i am new here at first i was a shamed to hang out my dirty laundry so it took alot to
even register here
I feel like i failed in some sense
He is not in between binges i truly believe he wants to stop using but he is very scared to accept help from others cause he has been shown in the past that it was not truly help at all it was for their gain
He has decided to do it all by himself and he is hanging in there and we talk alot about all that happend it seems to help both off us alot but with certain things i still have a problem and i do not want to undermine his efforts to constantly bring those things back
He has been doing drugs for more then 30 years and he has never had a sober moment until we met
He says he has a reason to be sober now and i can tell he is truly trying
i know you must have heard all this before and then i will go well he is truly different
and he is
but i suppose most woman say that
I know alot off addicts and i see the difference between the serious wanting to stay clean
Is it so unheard off to be able to do this by himself
and thank you for calling me a friend and telling me i have another in this country
your feedback truly helps me just writing this down does makes me see things clearer
I have made a choice and i knew when i met him and maried him he was an addict true he has been trying to kick it and has been succesfull for some time yes he relapsed but for now i am gratefull for the more then six months he is now clean
I did tell him and i will if he relapses again i will have to chose for my son and cannot continue this and i will go back to my country it will so tear me apart but i see no other way
That is me trying to stop enabling him by taking him back everytime
do not know if it helps in anyway but by letting him back in our lives semi easy
i felt like i was
again thank you for your encouraging words it means alot to me

teke

hey

your story sound so much like mine, dr jeckle and mr hyde. after 21yrs of a 24yr marriage, i HAD to separate myself and kids, his addiction and behavior was literally driving me and the kids insane.

he too had off and on sobriety, moved out many times and i let him come back just as many times but his addiction got progessively worse and i just couldn't take any more. i honestly believe he wanted to get sober but he was not truly ready and willing to do whatever it took for him to stay sober.

in my case, i believe my ah had no problem with using or leaving because i believe he thought all he had to do was stop for awhile, make a few promises that would get him back in until the next binge and it got worse and more frequent as his addiction progressed. not to say this is whats happening with you, i honestly pray that its not. i said that to say, like others have said, keep the focus on you. he's gonna do what he's gonna do, with you or without you.

i too am a recovering addict with a few yrs clean and to "just say no" was just too hard for me to do without help. i know that there maybe some addicts who can quit on their own, i really do pray that yours is one of them. you guys are in my prayers

sunnygirl68

I was on the addiction roller coaster for 7 years with my XAH, I always believed him when he came back professing that he was "done", but he always managed to find his way back to the drugs over and over. I used to think how much easier it would be to hate him, but now the feelings I have for him arent hate, but not really deep love either. I care about him as a person and I love the husband he used to be, but he killed the deep and intense love I used to feel. I believe that my own heart/head knew that I couldnt keep going through such emotional chaos that it just finally shut down towards him. (self-preservation or detachment?)
The only thing I fear now is that I wont ever be able to have deep feelings for anyone.
Now he is on his 6th or 7th incarceration in 16 years...10 do 5 for forgery to fund his addiction...I told him after the last incarceration that I wouldnt be a prison wife again and I meant it. I dont miss him anymore, rarely think about the "good" times either.

zbear23

Hi 1VA, and welcome to our little corner of the universe. I am a recovered addict and I can tell you from many years of personal experience that until you truly understand the nature of addiction as an illness, you will continue allow his excuses.

One pretty accurate definitioin of addiction is "a broken promise." I not only broke promises to others, but mainly to myself. Every time I swore I would never use again, I was sincere. But sincerity seldom can address the pure insanity of addiction: that I could, somehow, use a drug again and this time it would be different. I'd proven over and over that this was never the case, but my insane addiction always provided some excuse, some ratiionalization. Sometimes there was no thought involved at all: one minute I'd be clean and sober in my living room, and then I'd find myself with a crack pipe in my hand wondering...how did this happen? Insanity is how, and that required long term treatment.

Although I went to several rehabs, the long term treatment that made the difference for me was AA (and NA). I could not....and hardly any addict can...simply stay clean and sober on my own, without reachng out for help. Simply making a sincere decision to stop was me tricking myself. It never worked...not once. When I got serious about stopping, I was willing to do whatever it took, and that meant placing my well being into the hands of others who had proven they could stay clean and sober. It required the courage to walk through my fears, to become rigorously honest with myself, and willing to put aside my old ideas in favor of learning a "new design for living."

BTW...one of the most common signs of addiction is that it causes personality changes. Eventually, those changes seem to stick, even when the person is no longer using. Which is why there is a difference between "recovery" and "abstinence."

blessings
zenbear

sherby

I'm new here and I really don't know where to start, this is my first post. First Of All I'm so sorry you all have had to endure these painful experiences. I Lived with by Ex BF who drunk 2 to 3 times a week (beer) occasionally moon shine which made him very evil. He was never physically abusive, but when I would confront him when he was sober, he would say drinking 2 to 3 times a week is not a alcoholic, I however believe that it is a form of alcohol lisem when you feel you have to drink 2 to 3 times a week every week plus he smokes pot ever other day. He was very sweet, loving and kind but I found he did not like me having friends nor did he like me on the phone very long whether it be with friends or my family members. He did not like me on the computer. I have a 13 yr old son whom lived with us, he treated him very well, but he did not want my 18 yr old daughter living with us, & when she did come visit he acted very cold toward her. I finally could not take it no more his Jeckyl & Hyde routine, so I left and returned home to my husband at the time while I was living with boyfriend, Me and Hubby were in the process of a divorce. I so miss the fun & Loving side of my ex and he wants me to come back and says things will be different but I can't trust that. I also got very attached to his daughter whom is 8 yrs old that's the sad part too. My hubby knows that I have deep feelings for this man because I wanted to be honest with him. Before living with this man I dated him for almost 3 yrs but did not see the Jeckyl and hyde routine. Since leaving him I miss him and his daughter, I seem to think about him constantly even though I don't want too. I don't want to love this man, but I feel I'm very weak when it comes to him and I wonder why can't I just be happy with my normal husband. I feel I'm a very very messed up individual. Honestly a part of me wants to go back but I'm too afraid that things would not change. I feel miserable, but see my hubby and I are so different in so many ways. I have to ask him to mow the lawn and feed & water the dog. He sleeps alot and is on the computer alot but he is a good man. My ex was the opposite if he seen things needed done, he done them and this is one of the reasons I miss him too. Plus he and I done things together, such as fishing, camping and 4 wheel riding and we talked alot. My hubby doesn't make big conversations with me unless I start them. I'm sorry to be rambling on but I'm so very tempted to go back. I just don't know if I can move past this because I love the other one so much, I love my husband too just not sure if its the same kind of love. Again I'm sorry for the long post. I just feel very vunerable and sad and confused. Thank You all For Listening

scaredconfused

hello teke

first thank you for all you told me
and i take it that your trying to say to me that i should not try to fool myself and be cautious and i am i have to say i mean this is not the first time but i definatly know this will be the last time .....if he relapses
and he to knows this ....to old to play games and i feel i should not with my or my sons life .......yes i am picking up my life
if in the worst case he does relapse and i truly HOPE AND PRAY HE DOES NOT WITH ALL THAT IS IN ME AND I WANT TO BELIEVE HE CAN DO THIS......just to make that clear i am not waiting for him to fall flat on his face no i would rather that he succeed
cause above all I LOVE HIM

but yes i am picking up my life and he can be a part of it if he stays clean or he cannot when he cannot stay clean
It would not be fair to my son nor a good role model to continue this
then but for now i am cautiously hopefull and i do have faith in him and believe that god will help him and strengthens him

thank you all for your kind words and cautions
it truly means alot to me and my family