oneday66

I mean, completely be done and detached and not really invested in what he is or isn't doing.
The horror of this is daunting. After verbal abuse, some physical abuse, being blamed etc etc.. I still haven't let go emotionally.
I've found out about escorts and $50,000 spent on drugs in the last year alone. I've been threatened...financially and emotionally.
I have external peace now... he's out of my house and we have no contact.
I filed for legal separation, hoping that it can get finalized this year so that I can file as single next year on my taxes and have some immediate protection from whatever craziness he creates..

But I still love him. I don't get it. Its maddening. I have an advanced degree, a professional career, and am in all other aspects smart and capable. This makes no sense. I'm 40. All my other boyfriends.. when I was done I was done and never looked back... this isn't like that... maybe because I married him, I don't know. Somebody told me you just wake up one day and are done.

Please tell me what helped you move on..

HBerry43

Fake it til you make it, One Day at a Time.

I wish I had the answer. I met my addict when I was 12 and now I'm 44. A friend asked me last week, "Heather, what will it take for you to say 'Enough?'"

For me, I've spent a lot of time faking it--some days better than others. I keep busy and I reach out to friends daily, usually all day.

I've been cheated on, humiliated, ignored, abandoned...

One thing that has helped me is taking complete responsibility for inviting this insanity into my life. I read a lot of Louise Hay and she teaches that we are each 100% responsible for who and what comes into our lives. So, according to Hay, I have some deeply-ingrained beliefs from childhood that I deserve this poor treatment. I use affirmations a lot and it helps.

Sometimes I try to take a step back and look at the addict as if I had never met him before. If we were strangers and someone confided all the things he had done to his ex, would I be interested? Or run like hell?

Be good to yourself and treat your heart with a lot of love and care. Don't beat yourself up for not feeling what you think you are "supposed" to feel.

I think your Joseph Campbell quote says it all.

gurlie214

For me, it took a good year of therapy to realize why I couldn't just 'let go' and more importantly, what was making me accept this kind of behavior from someone. The truth is, I was as sick as he was....just in a different way. I think at first a lot of it had to do with pride and ego. I wanted to be "good enough" to save him. I wanted to be the reason he walked away from the party life and that is ridiculous. It's actually quite arrogant, not to mention dangerous. I accepted things from him that I never in a million years would have accepted from anyone else. Then it became almost a challenge, like a win or lose sort of sickness. I had all of this time invested in this man and by God, I was going to be good enough to save him. It's pathetic and a total sign of how codependent I really was. It's embarrasing to admit that I was that insecure and had so much to prove, but to be on the other side of this thing now and to think like a normal healthy person....all I want to do is 'give back' and help others. Not in an unrealistic "it's about me" sort of way; but in a healthy, reaching out to others, I've been there sort of way. Hang in there and most of all, know that you are not alone! Hugs and love to you!

FindingErica

I'm still trying but frankly, the poor treatment that I have gotten over the past 4 years especially, was enough. I had accepted some nonsense from him over the years, I always felt he was selfish and took me for granted, but nothing I would actively divorce him over. But the last 4-6 years, I have been the frog in the pot that slowly comes to a boil. I just got tired of putting up with his junk and it was over. I had a definitive moral set before we met, and he slowly eroded it almost from the get-go he was violating my boundaries, that should have been a warning sign from the beginning. But getting high in my house, that should have been the final blow, but I thought I could save him with this elaborate plan to move. Him destroying my hard work, a years worth of work to move to a place that would have furthered my career, gotten us out of debt and put me closer to my parents and my disabled child in a state with better services. It was like he lifted his leg on all my efforts and I basically got abandoned in this place I didn't want to live anymore- this stupid state that he is from, that I never wanted to move back to 9 years ago. And I am the one stuck here, every time I think about it, I feel angry and that kills any love I have for him. And yet, he was still manages to pull my heart strings until I found the exchanges between him and two separate young women he was trying to get into their pants, from the sound of it. That killed it. Whenever I feel myself caring or wanting to patch things up, I stuff those feelings down and move forward, I remember I was abandoned in this cold miserable state while he is making friends in the new city he just had to go to and even screwed that up. He is no good for me and I am not going to waste anymore precious time trying to make stale milk fresh just because there were some "good times" over the years.

marusea

i honestly dont know...its been six months since my ex moved out of the house we were living in and got with another woman, i still cry myself to sleep every night. im going to counselling and trieng to get on with my life. it gets easier, during the day i keep myself busy and im ok,but night time is very difficult...i guess one day i will be better i just need time...

zoso77

It took two things: my AXGF leaving me for another addict via text message, and her admitting multiple infidelities.

And it was really a gift. See, she wasn't hiding who and what she was anymore. In the short term, what gave me comfort in an odd way was knowing that she was both a drug addict and had a character disorder (Borderline Personality Disorder). Her sadism, her cruelity, and her utter lack of self awareness was explained by those illnesses. And I took one look at the whole picture, which was finally clear, and said to myself, "The new guy can have you."

What you really have to do though is decide you're not going to be a victim. You can't allow him, or anyone, to have that sort of power over you. And not to be flippant, but HBerry summed it up pretty well with "Fake it 'til you make it". That's what you have to do.

Go read how to survive a breakup with an addict on the sticky notes. I hope that helps you.

Best,
ZoSo

marusea

atleast she broke up with you but i was cheated on for 2 months and then when i do find out about it he blames me for his affair sayng that i pushed him in her arms,then he says its because i wasnt there for him and she was so i shoudnt judge him for doing something for himself only. when i asked him what he wants to do about it he said " i dunno...whatever you think its best,im not leaving lara(the other woman) till i know things will work out between me and you" such a heartless man. i decided to leave him it was the hardest things i ever done. he just wont take any responsability for it. worse of all she is a recovering addict like him,they met at ananon meetings...im terified at the idea of them moving in together and our little girl spending weekends with them...

zoso77

I was cheated on for months, too. She told me that over text message, with little 's at the end just to try to rub salt in the wound. I can laugh about it now, because I'm at a point in my recovery where I don't think of her as an addict or a Borderline. I just think she's simply disgusting.

What makes you think he has the makeup to take responsibility for his actions? Why is it up to you to make him take responsibility for his actions?

Addicts that are actively using or not in true recovery are self-indulgent by default. It's all about them, and they will make huge, non-sensical cognitive leaps to justify ANYTHING they do. Whenever you find yourself tied up in knots, trying to figure out his thinking, you let it go by acknowledging that he's sick. If you allow it to be, it's that simple. If you're asking yourself, why did he do A, B and C, the answer: he's sick. That's the answer for everything.

You let it go by working on you; you look at your choices, your behaviors, and you do some hard core, brutally honest self assessment. And you learn from it all so that down the line, you don't make the same mistakes.

I'm not saying any of this is easy. You'll have to sit with some feelings you don't want to sit with...anger, sadness, resentment, and everything in between. You simply accept that this is where you are RIGHT NOW, acknowledge it sucks, and keep moving on.

ZoSo

marusea

well i do try and look after myself i also go to counselling,made a lot of new friends and started reading a lot more. he is suppose to be in recovery but to me he seems to be getting worse. he does go to meetings a few times a week and everytime his mum asks for a urine test it comes clean, so he's not using but he behaves like an idiot. he started cheating on me with a heroing addict that has cancer and is anorexic!!!!! basicly chose her over our little family?tried coming back to me and lied that he left her... tells everyone that asks about me that he loves me. if anyone can make sense of this behaviour? i doubt it very much. like zoso77 said :he's sick...it just breaks my heart for my little girl she didnt deserve this joke of a father

story74

Time. realizing after every attempt, nothing will bring them back.

Impurrfect

My situation is different because I had become the A (an attempt to deal with my codie feelings) and was in love with another A.

I'd been locked up, gotten clean for a while, ran into the now XABF#3 and relapsed. It was when he told me to F the car I'd worked so hard to get, that I could "earn enough money for us" - read prostitution, that I said "I can't do this any more". Not the addiction, not the codependency.

Why then and not the other 100+ times I'd heard that? SR. I'd been lurking here (did that a couple of years) and I was starting to realize how codependent I was. I was tired...of the bs, his jail stents, and I'd gotten a glimpse of life without all the chaos.

I once had a friend who was not an A, nor was her husband. She told me that he had brought her roses, written a nice card, but she was done. Her words were "too little, too late" and since I've been learning about codependency, I understand that.

For some of us, we have to talk ourselves through NC (no contact), cling to our support. That's okay, because in the long run....we just know when enough is enough, when it's too little too late.

Big hugs and prayers,

Amy

Vale

What did it take for you to REALLY let go?
----------------------------------------

SR,mostly. That's why I am so grateful to SR members.
Their stories,their wisdom,their caring,their understanding.

Words don't seem to be enough to thank you all--but they
will have to suffice.

What it took to "Really let go" was realizing that not caring
any more was the most caring and compassionate thing I could
do for such a tortured lost soul..

(Getting on a jet and going 3000 miles home didn't hurt either!)

kmangel

I am not married to my addict, he is my son, but what helped me detach from him was separation. He was living at home with his father and me and being front row and center kept us enmeshed with his addiction.

lesliej

I think that a strong community that holds you accountable is one of the best things to do for yourself...and, ironically, for others too!

My family, friends, and AA circles had heard everything. over and over and over. trying the same thing and expecting different results = insanity...and they/we KNEW it. Still...I struggled with letting go of this deep deep source of love that I had discovered with my ex. I will probably never know how much was really really real...and how much he took on in his chameleon ways to keep me bonded to him...

I bonded to him out of my own pain, my own past, my own dysfunction, my own attachment disorders, my own need...and then his chameleon manipulative addictive ways just added fuel to the fire!

SO....I found my way to SR!! I still needed help, I needed accountability. I joined here the night I had him moving out, because I knew my OWN slippery ways of wanting/desiring/craving/needing him back...the seductive lure of remorse and forgiveness...the emotional intensity and power therein.

SR...this community has helped so much in my accountability. the 24/7 helps because we need so much support in our decision to detach and free ourselves (even, yes, whether we stay or go!).

And then...it's all about detachment, no contact, and TIME!
I am leagues away from where I was!!!!!!!!!!
TIME. time to feel free, to embrace life without sick conditions, to feel JOY & HAPPINESS!!!!

YES.

GoldfishSyn

I think how much it takes is negatively correlated to one's self esteem, i.e. the higher your self esteem, the less it will take to convince you that you are done. That is why it is important to focus on ourselves, as cynical said. When you truly love yourself and believe that you do not deserve the maltreatment then you will be done. I'm still a work in progress.

Ilovemysonjj

For me it took the desperate and soul crushing betrayal that caused me to look at my A (who is my son) as an entirely separate person from who I imagined him to be. I knew that the person who stole and lied was the addict, and I did NOT want to keep a relationship with that person. By separating the addict from my memory of my son, it helped me detach. I also believe firmly in the power of God and by releasing my son (not the addict in charge), I would trust that HP would take care of me.

I understand that many of the posts are from girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives, which are a different kind of heartache, but we all have something in common. We had to give up on OUR dreams for the relationship and accept that we are truly powerless over the other person.

February13

I'm still not done but moving out with our little girl to a really family friendly neighbourhood really helped. So have the three months we have been away from him, one day at the time (I remember days of pushing the swing while saying the serenity prayer over and over in my head). The Alanon meetings helped a lot too.

We saw him yesterday and he told me he didn't know if he could ever forgive me for moving out, that it was such a cold thing to do. I think I smiled. I tried not to but it was funny. He had been using heroin for over a year in our home, I don't feel that I had a choice at all. Had I been more sane I would have moved out a lot sooner.
I don't think he can take any responsibility for his actions at this point in time. Maybe he never will be able to.
On and off I am angry at him but overall I wish him the best.

hello-kitty

It took a commitment to myself that I was going to live a life that was true to my beliefs and value system no matter what it took. It took boundaries. It took consequences. It took me learning to treat myself kindly and forgiving my shortcomings. It took self-examination and a willingness to fail. It took faith. It took support. It took self-respect. It took hard work. It took self improvement. It took unconditional love - of myself.

I had to be willing to take the advice of those who had been there before me. I had to take risks. I had to do the hard work I needed to do to change MYSELF.

It had nothing to do with how much I loved the addict in my life, and everything to do with me, and a desire to be true to myself no matter what.

Schab33

Well I had a ABF one I never truly let go off ...I tried and he moved out ..I tried hard not to answer the phone or return emails or texts ..some were nasty and some were him realizing the consequences of his actions ...then nothing ...the day I was going to bring him home he overdosed...It's been almost 5 years and I still have moments...

Now I am dealing with my son's addiction what is keeping me strong in detaching is because he is using heroin ..I have tried like everyone else begging, yelling, crying ..can't get through to him ..but yet I continued to support him this month I am not and I am praying that not only will it help me but eventually him ...I am not sure actually if there ever is a defining moment I think its a matter of one day you look in the mirror and don't recognize yourself because you are so caught up in the madness of an addiction that isn't yours....its a hard thing to face...

Ilovemysonjj

I am not sure actually if there ever is a defining moment I think its a matter of one day you look in the mirror and don't recognize yourself because you are so caught up in the madness of an addiction that isn't yours....its a hard thing to face...

Well said Sue.