HerHubz

I know each person dealing with a spouse's addiction has to personally decide when enough is enough and remove yourself from a toxic relationship, but may I ask people to share their experiences so that the idea may not seem quite so crazy and ":out there" to me?

Please only share if you're comfortable doing so and I won't be offended in the least if nobody replies since I know it's incredibly personal.

Thanks

beeswax

Last year, my AH lost our apartment. We got evicted because he spent our rent money on dope while I was in the hospital. I found the kids and I a safe place to stay, but the person who owns our house has been taken by AH before, so the rule was that he was not allowed to live here. When I thought he was sleeping in his car in January because he had nowhere else to go, I let him sleep here for a night. He swore he was clean. I found a needle in my bathroom the next morning. That's my line. Not sure what really made the difference-- I should have known he was lying to me. He acted completely in character for an active addict. But it was just the last straw. Now he has only supervised contact with our children, and I am going to be filing for divorce and full custody of them as soon as I can afford to do so.

bunkie65

For me it was safety, what was best for my kids, finding the courage and this took time. Some live with active addicts, me I could not. The healthier I got the less I enabled and changed what I was doing the worse he got and my situation became physical. The night it did I left and never went back. Prior to leaving I spent 2 years in alnon meetings sometimes 4 or 5 a week. I really did change from the inside out. I tried to let go with love but could not while living with my active ex. I had no bed and started from ground zero, as everything was in his name. The bed I had in my pole barn (was brand new, my fathers after he passed) he sold without me knowing while we were together. I could not afford one until I got my taxes in Feb, I left in November. I slept on a couch for 3 months. I had left 2 other times prior to the final time. I went back with promises of getting help a trip to rehab only for him to get out and get worse. So then spent 4 years alone angry and sad. I functioned and went to meetings here and there. 2 years ago I decided to let go of the anger and work daily to not pick it back up. It was very freeing to finally release that bitterness. He is still using but thanked me for leaving because he lost everything and what he went through he would not have unless I left. He has tried to build his life back and went to school 2 years ago, but thinks he can control his using. We spent 4 years of pretty much no contact and glad we did. I was hard to explain this to my sons but they are teens now and have been to alateen. The last two years we have had some contact and he has seen and talked to our sons on sporadic whims. He can't be counted on and I have no expectations thus no resentments. I work on me and go to meetings and live and let live. I don't get it right all the time but I know how to find serenity and seek it daily. I let it begin with me. Hope this helps. Alonon slogans kept me going many many nights while living in the madness. Today I could not ever live with an active user and for me that's what I don't do. I just know its not acceptable for me and I have boundries and this is one. This is what I choose for me and what works for me. I love my ex and pray for him but my life goes on weather he uses or not.

zoso77

For me, the decision was taken out of my hands. My AXGF decided to dump me for someone in "The Fellowship" via text message while I was at work (and attached a picture of her and the new guy for good measure). Then she confessed to sleeping with (at least) two other men while she was with me. So, she was the one that ended it.

That said, what that did for me was trip an emotional kill switch. For me, I had tolerated a lot of awful behavior -- most of which I haven't shared on this board. Suicidal ideation, epic cognitive distortions, manipulation you can't imagine in your worst nightmares, I endured it all. But when she did what she did, Lights Out, Party's Over. My love vanished. In its place is disgust. See, she made a big show of how she had X amount of months clean time, but she wasn't in recovery at all. Cheating, lying, using people...business as usual for her. Enough was enough, and I decided two days after her little stunt that she did me the biggest favor she could possibly do.

I don't hate her. But the thought of her makes me sick. She's disgusting, vile, gross, despicable...a sick person with a sick mind.

So, she ended the relationship. But I chose to close that chapter of my life emotionally. I've learned more about addiction and character disorders than I ever wanted to know in 2011. And if faced with the prospect of dating an addict, I'm not going to go there. My happiness and well-being is too valuable for me to compromise.

Everyone's different. There are addicts who have found recovery and have done a lot hard work about getting honest with themselves. Some of them post here. And those are the posts I enjoy reading the most because the insight they've gained about themselves is invaluable. But how many addicts reach that stage of recovery?

So, all I can say, HerHubz, is you do have the right to your own well-being. However you decide to go in your own situation, treat the other person with compassion if you can.

ZoSo

incitingsilence

Enough is enough really doesn't have to come to some last straw based on their actions...

I hope that you know you can opt out at anytime, and you always could.

I didn’t leave but I can say that my enough was enough came about because I couldn’t stand myself anymore and how I was acting/reacting and allowing the fear and the worry and the what if’s to drive me crazy. And the more I looked at me, well I wasn’t nearly as angry with him as I was with myself.

Threshold

when your life is better without them, than with them, it's enough.

My X told me "enough" when I went away to work for a few months and he decided his life was better without my chaos.

Kindeyes

I divorced my xah when the pain of staying with him was greater than the fear of leaving. I just knew when enough was enough. And then....of course.....the begging and apologies and "I'll change" began.....but once my decision was made there was no going back.

And it happens when it happens.....not one minute sooner.

gentle hugs
ke

lesliej

I stayed long enough to know that I had tried everything I could in my power to help.

I stayed long enough to see that anything and everything in my power did nothing to help.

I stayed long enough to witness the cycling of excuses, lies, manipulations, smoke screens and bargaining, etc, etc, etc.

I guess I had to see the cycling in order to more clearly understand, first hand, how insidious, cunning, baffling and powerful his addiction is...and that the twisted denial is something that I cannot untangle...and that my love probably contributed to the denial, and that I had to get out of the way.

I stayed until accountability for myself, for my life, for my community...was seriously at stake. I stayed until I was exhausted. Until it was ridiculously clear that addiction had "won". I stayed until I had been humbled.

I stayed until the desperation of the dream of our romantic possibility finally transformed into compassion for both of us.

I stayed until I loved myself enough not to subject myself to trauma.

I stayed until I gave myself the breaks...the repeated times away...and built up time on my own in order to believe that life on the outside looked a whole lot more beautiful and creative and peaceful then it did on the "inside" spending my life in a chess game with addiction.

check mate.

LoveMeNow

I think we have enough - when we start loving and caring for ourselves. My AH is out of the house, I see him differently, I don't love him the same, the trust is gone...but I haven't fully learned to love myself yet, so I haven't completely had enough! But I am better than I was and getting better everyday! I have set backs too but now I can pick myself and move forward unlike before!

I hope that make sense!

FindingJoy

Leslie. So well put. It certainly is like playing chess with the devil. The interesting thing is we can all get up and leave the game at anytime but I'm stubborn and a Codie... I try at times to win the game versus being happy.

Thank you for the reminder.

Great thread!!!!

Windmills

In August, after 3 years of pain and abuse and living in the shadow of his heroin/crack addiction, social services finally remembered that my daughter existed. They came out and told me if he relapses I had to leave and take her away from her father. I don't really think he ever stopped using, but I found evidence that he was smoking crack on October 31 2011. That day I packed some bags and walked out, contacting social services to let them know. From then until mid January I was on an insane roller coaster, still being manipulated and controlled by him. One day I was staying at my mum's house and a drug dealer was at the door, looking through the windows threatening me and my almost 2 year old. I had to run, and the only place they wouldn't find me was my ex's house. So off I went. The next morning his sister said to me 'you're bound to be scared, this is only the third time this has happened to you, right? You'll get used to it'. Right then I knew enough was enough. I didn't want this to be my normal, I didn't want to live in a nasty, filthy, mouse infested home like they do. I didn't want my daughter growing up thinking that it was ok to live that way. I also found out that same day that he had sold my tv, DVD player, DVDs, surround sound, my camera, and my laptop with all the pictures of my daughter on since she was born- I didn't have hard copies yet, which he knew, and now they're gone forever which I think is the thing that hurt me most overall (more than a punch in the face from a 6ft, 17st man!).
Anyway. That day I really felt enough was enough. Around the same time I was lucky enough to meet a lady who works at my nearest domestic violence project and all the pieces of my recovery started to fit together. I'm not 'there' yet, but I'm working on it.

verylost

My AH came home from a trip to vegas with a stripper...I was 9 months pregnant and we have a 4 year old. I sent him to rehab...a crazy fancy expensive one...while I was at home working full time and I gave birth to our second child while he was gone. He came back...within a few days he used again. He swore that was it...and that still wasn't enough to make me move on. Then a few months later I found out he had opened another CC and blew through all the money. I don't know what he used it on and I no longer care. When I found out about the CC I immediately called my mother and told her...I knew if I didn't I would have made up an excuse or found a way to forgive him. I couldn't do that...this was a terrible environment for me and my children...so that was finally it for us. It still took me awhile to realize it was really over...I think him call asking me for money to bail his 'roommate' out of jail was the end or maybe the time he asked for money after I had been at the ER all night with our son...I can't say exactly when it finally clicked that he is in fact not a good person and I don't want him in my life. I've reached a place where I now understand that I simply won't understand what motivates him and it's not worth my time to care. I have two children to raise and to make sure they don't end up anything like him. He claims he's clean and he might be...but I don't care. I am OK and the kids are OK...life is easier without him around. I can get up each day and go through my day and I don't care where he is or what he's doing...his drama no longer controls my life and I now several months later I actually have a life of my own! I will never go back...