gertie5474

I am pathetic. I begged him to love me, and he refused. I want to be done hurting, but I know that this is just the beginning of the pain. Some days I want to embrace the heartache, and other days I want to fight it. Today I want neither.

I feel like I strung the relationship along, and ignored the red flags. That he was deliberately doing bad things so I would leave, instead of being straight up with me, so he wouldn’t look like the bad guy. He still cannot (will not?) be truthful with me about much.

I blamed the addiction, and not him. It was there before I came around, but I never thought it would have such a profound impact upon his life. I thought if I showed him the love he so desperately needed he would be happy and want to grow, both as a person and a couple. It didn’t happen.

I like to blame the addiction, it takes focus off of the truth. The truth that I was discarded easily by a man I love. If I blame the addiction, and not him or me, it helps me feel less rejected.

Well here I am. With a young son that has an addict for a father. He will never experience seeing the loving bond that made his existence possible. It is gone, maybe it never even was there.

I still yearn for the crumbs he throws me. The texts about the weather. The brief signs of jealousy. Even knowing of his self-destructive ways gives me temporary relief of the heartache, until I feel sad for him, then I want to show him the light. To help him want to save himself.

My heart and my mind are at war. I want peace. But I am still scared. I am scared of losing the love I have for him. That to me seems self-destructive on my part. And I am scared I will never lose the love for him, and will be heartbroken the rest of my life. Not sure what I want more. And I am not sure how to find that out.  I want to accept it for what it is. I am ready to feel the bad stuff, and stop ignoring it, or fighting it, and move on with my life.

Leftover nagging doubt: What if I am wrong? What if I am supposed to hold on to my love for him? What if I go through all the pain, and find out that’s what I was supposed to do?



Any encouraging words of advice for handling my sorrow would be helpful. Thank you.

SeasonlessWorld

Don't know what to say except that I know how you feel. I am also struggling with a breakup and feel like a pathetic loser for wanting to contact him. What has helped me is reading as many books on emotionally abusive behavior and addiction as I could find. I am not saying you are being abused but educating myself on what was happening to me helped a great deal. But the truth is you deserve to be treated with respect and love no matter what his problems are. I don't have as much experience with this as many people on this board do, but I realized after breaking up with him for the third time that there was nothing that I could do to make him see things my way. Nothing! Just like you are reaching out trying to cope and make sense of all the nonsense in your life, so too he must reach out and make sense of his life. You can't be sober for him or make him love you the way you need to be loved, just like I can't make you realize that you are a worthy human being. You need to come to that conclusion your self. I am still learning to value myself by the way!

What also helped me was coming clean to my family about his behavior. I spent two years making him seem better than he was. If there is a no nonsense person who you trust like a therapist, or family member you might want to try that. (There is a lot of no nonsense(ism) on these boards so keep reading). Male friends are good for this too. Saying the stuff out loud really helps you realize how crazy it is. That's why so many here recommend Al- Anon or Narc Anon meetings. I have never been to one of those meetings but have read the positive stories and it seems like a good thing! Make a list of all the bad things he did to you and read it out loud. Keep it on your phone and look at it when you feel like backsliding.

Wanting to be loved is normal being afraid is normal. You are human, you make mistakes. However, You were born with dignity, do not surrender that dignity to anyone. Love does not require that you make yourself small. It was over the day I realized he was judging me for putting up with his stuff. Here I was turning myself inside out trying to help and love and nurture him and he was judging me for it! He called me desperate among other things. I thank him for those words because they help me not pick up the phone when he calls. And I know that even non addicted men do this too, if you compromise your values for them they will judge you for it! My cousin learned this the hard way.

I'm not saying I have the battle won but its a start! I am happily 4 months broken up and 1 month no contact. I hope this helps. Please take care of yourself!

Txhelp

I feel your heart breaking through this message. I am so sorry that you are feeling so sad and rejected.

Drug addicts are incapable of loving. They don't love themselves and they certainly cannot love others. If addiction was a part of his life when you entered then you probably didn't know the real person...without active addiction.

Really time and a lot of work will help you recover. Get some counseling; go to alanon or narcanon.....and get out of your brain. It does get better with time but his recovery is up to him. You can't love him enough to make him sober.

gothbarbie

I feel your pain Gertie :/ I too am still dealing with the thoughts & rejection my ex did to me for the 2nd time. He was an opiate addict/ alcoholic so his moods were way to wishy washy for me but I stupidly stood by him. He would want me one day then the next not & keep talking about me moving out bc he needed to be alone etc.. It was all emotional abuse. I too like to blame the drugs for him not wanting me but that''s another thing I often struggle with ..is that really the reason he didn't love me back as much as I loved him. I hear all of these stories on here about the woman leaving the guy but hardly ever him leaving her, so it upsets me & makes me angry that he didn't fight to keep me around. We have also been broken up for 4 months now & no contact for 4 months also. I moved away after the split bc I was kicked out of his apt when his sister whisked him away to rehab & have yet to recieve any sort of communication asking how I'm doing, did I make it ok (I drove 2000 miles to stay with family for awhile bc I had nowhere else to go at the time) , so it's def been a struggle for me to say the least. I still have moments of high strung anxiety about him & missing him but as the above poster ^ said, I've thought of all the crappy things he either said or did to me during our relationship & it has help with feeling less rejected. Everyone goes thru this in their life at some point or another, some more than others, I've gone thru it 3 times in a row with different guys. Was he an addict during your relationship or just a jerk? Who broke up with who & why (if you don't mind me asking) I like to hear other people's stories bc it really helps me.

AnvilheadII

aw gertie....I might be good to review what YOU think LOVE is....

love doesn't ask us to throw ourselves under the train to try and stop it from hitting the other. love isn't anguish. despair. pain. love allows us to let the other go if they so choose. love empowers, enhances....without need or dependence. love honors the other, but does not possess. love does not confuse.

you have children to love and care for. to raise in a strange uncertain world. they need ALL you have. they are your commitment, your dream, your purpose. give them that. go all in.

gertie5474

I left him. But I think he was pushing me to go. Maybe not, but he hadn't paid the mortgage for 3 months, and was using his sex appeal to obtain the pills from very undesirable women. We couldn't stay.

My love for him is all-consuming and unhealthy. It creates longing and hurt in my heart. I need to figure out how to fix that.

He is mad at me because I haven’t let our toddler son (18 mo) spend time at his house (that he is in the process of losing) because he moved his drug dealing friend in back in Oct. He has gone to being an involved, hands-on parent to visiting a couple times a month, since we left. He blames me for that.

He came to my house for a xmas visitation with our son. I made food, bought him and his other kids presents, made it special. He kept nodding out.  Denied he was on pills, said he smoked some fake-0 (?) This reinforced my stance on not letting our son go with him. He still blames me.

He is taking a date to our work Christmas party tomorrow. (we work for the same company) My heart is breaking again!!!!

hopeful4

Your love is all consuming and very very unhealthy. I doubt it is even for him, more the idea of him.

He is a drug user, living with undesireable women for pills and God only knows what else.

You have to put your child first. It's a good thing you don't let your child go to a drug den. Don't bend on that..ever. Who really cares who he blames???

An addict is not going to take responsibility for their own behavior. It is part of what they do. They have to find someone else to blame it all on...or they would then have to face what they are doing. They cannot do that.

You need therapy to help you sort all of this out. I am sorry you are going through this, I hope you get face to face help and continue to protect your child from his mess of a life.

I wish you a weekend of peace.

gertie5474

Thank you! I am going to do my best this weekend. Tomorrow night will be rough, knowing he is at the party with a date. I will be spending a lot of time crying, and I know that is a normal response to loss. It is symbolic of him moving on, this date of his. It is easy for me to stay strong when he is mad and not talking to me. But not so easy when he comes around again. And I know he will. I want to be kind, and not mean. But I don't want to give him the opportunity to hurt me again.

hopeful4

No contact.....

gertie5474

I can't do no contact because we have a son, however I can do low-contact. I have been doing that off and on for the last 9 months, the longest stretch being the last few weeks. I don't want to make him angry, and I reply to his texts not regarding our son in a non-committal way. Ugh. I miss him. I am pathetic.

hopeful4

O I meant no contact for anything non necessary reg son. It is like grief. For some it takes a few months, for others quite a long time. Give yourself a break and allow yourself to address these feelings so you can move on to acceptance.

HumbleNumb

Excuse me for stating the obvious.. but you're considering actually GOING to a party where your husband will be attending with another woman?

I'm sorry.. work or not... you surely have the choice to opt out of that commitment... Not to be rude, but I would think that if you have the knowledge that he's going to be with someone else, then let the chips fall where they may... while you're far, far away from the situation.

gertie5474

No I am not attending! Getting a lot of flack from my co-worker friends about it, but I don't care. I do not have to put myself in that heart wrenching position! I will be at home, crying at the loss of my dream.

SeasonlessWorld

Cry as much as you need to gertie! No shame in being heartbroken! Don't forget to be patient with yourself! Hugs

hopeful4

Gertie...why don't you plan on doing something nice for you during that time instead of knowing you will be home crying. Girlfriend support can go a long ways to having your own fun. Have you heard of a self fulfilling prophecy? You have already decided you will be home, crying, and miserable. Make that change. Go to dinner with friends. Go to the movies. Watch funny movies that make you laugh. If you know in advance you will be home bawling it will surely happen.

Hugs.

Vale

Don't love someone who is incapable of loving you back.
Don't double-down, it will only quadruple your loss.

>>>>>>and was using his sex appeal to obtain the pills from very undesirable women.<<<

...Sooooooooooo.....he hurts vulnerable people to get what he wants.........

What else do you need to know?

We KNOW it's not easy to disengage.........but it IS worth it!

AnvilheadII

gertie, twice now you have already PREDICTED that you WILL be crying tomorrow. you are already setting that up. you seem very driven by the romanticized notions of love lost here...some times we need a good dose of the FACTS to help us get back down to earth.

FACT - he's a drug addict and hooks up with other women to get drugs
FACT - he left you, well dumped you and the kids out on your ass, for somebody else
FACT - you went IN to this thing thinking you could FIX him, cure him, rescue him.
FACT - he didn't want to be rescued.
FACT - you and the kids are out now, have your own place and you CAN make a real effort to move on.

as long as you keep repeating how PATHETIC you are, you will feel it AND believe it. there is no talk that can be more hurtful and soul destroying than negative self talk.

HumbleNumb

some of the times when I've been at my lowest points, I've fantasized about letting my AH take up his issues on some other woman... and what that would look like. It's painful for me to even picture him with anyone else, but at the same time, I won't play second fiddle... Lord knows that his addiction has put me in that position more than enough because its kindred to an affair of sorts if you think about it...
I'm so sorry you are feeling the pain of loss... and the process of grief that will be necessary to compute all this in your heart and mind. I hope you won't decide to live based solely on your feelings... Mine have led me down some dark and twisted paths before... today (just today) I try to focus on my own faith, and on facts... and let my feelings come in last place... I can't always trust them to help me do what's right...

gertie5474

Well I feel pathetic. For loving someone that clearly doesn't want it.

Not that it matters, I left him, and his roommate is male.

I have plans to go to a big family celebration of my grandparents 60th anniversary tomorrow. I will avoid going past the place where the company party is, but when I am home, I will cry. I need to get it out. All the old hurts. It will make me feel better. I just need to stop creating the new hurts.

gothbarbie

I cry at times too. It's healthy to cry, yes you NEED to get it all out. It's like a nasty cold you need to purge from your mind & soul.