ExhaustedA

I dated my bf for 1.5 years long distance. Then he asked me to move there and in with him, so the last two years I did. It was hell. He's always had a problem with drinking, but decided after I moved in to quit his normal job and sell coke. No, I'm not ok with it. He made promises he broke. Less than a year selling, I find out he's heavy into his own drug, losing money, losing coke, handing it out because he is also wasted, every night out at the bars. We fight constantly. I felt helpless and had with no where to go. My credit wouldn't allow me my own place, and I had two cats and a dog. So renting even a room was difficult. I turned crazy, yelled, screamed, physically abusive, verbally abusive. He just kept getting worse!! He became mean and violent back. I couldn't stand having sex or even sleeping in the same bed anymore. He threatened to cheat on me if I didn't have sex, and when we did it was awful. I hated him, resented him for being so incredibly selfish and dragging me down with him. By last fall, he found himself a real winner. A 19 year old girl, who looked gutter, and sure acted it. She didn't care who I was, he lied to her, and she accepted it and challenged me. They slept together and he denied it. It's June now. He kicked me out the end of Feb, I found a friend to help me out. They continued seeing each other. She calls him her bf, he tells me she's not his gf. He has her over, they video chat, he calls her MY nickname!!! She lives a half hour away, with her mom who is my age, she doesn't have a car. How convenient for him right? Ever since I moved out, he calls and texts everyday. We saw each other every week. He buys me stuff. Says he is sorry, but needs to be alone and does not answer to anyone. He asked to keep my cats while I moved away, temporarily, for the summer. So he has them. I text the girl from his phone the night before I left, she flipped out that I was with him. She thought I was there because they broke up the day before. Stupid girl. He's a really great liar. She still believes him, even after all the proof that he's been still with me and talking to others. Why did he get to win? I did everything for him while he destroyed me with himself, he got to move on so quickly, and why does he need to have my cats? Once I get them when I find a permanent place to live, I will cut him out completely. By him having them, doing me such a favor I feel stuck still, but I have no where for my cats to go right now. We are on a no contact agreement for the week. He's already been wasted twice since last Thursday. He's not going to change. I'm so angry. I'm the one that had moved up there, and now moved away. He is so selfish, I hate him. Why am I so sad to have an addict break up with me when clearly I no longer was happy with him? Why can't I just be grateful and move on? He's damaged me in so many ways, let the child get what she deserves for entering into our crappy relationship and taking what wasn't hers. I hope he falls flat on his face. I am sober and active, attractive, loving, giving, and this is what I get???

iGirl66

Hi, sorry all of this is happening. Whoa. That is a plate full for sure. The up shot of it all is that you're gone. Now, you must stay gone. This is obviously a super toxic man. That said, no offense dear one, but you're not very healthy either. Your life is not going to improve one bit by understanding what he's done. He is a junk yard fire. Fires burn and consume anything that they come in contact with. It is the nature of the element.

The only way for you to heal and not repeat this is to work on you. Be mad at him all that you want, but if you don't figure out why you changed your life for this scum bag and stuck around while he went loco, you will repeat the pattern. I don't know how old you are, but if you are the same age as the 19 year-olds mom, you're a grown woman. You should pity this kid , not wish her ill, seek to compete with her or challenge her. She's a child and not a very healthy one at that. He probably picked her due to her lack of life experience. They damage us, but let's tell the truth. We weren't exactly paragons of emotional stability when we met our addicts. Normal women wouldn't get past "hello, my name is train wreck" before they were running for the exit. I suspect you're more angry at yourself. The only way to get past that is to begin your own program of healing. Al a non or rational recovery AVRT might work for you. It will take time, but you are worth it. I love animals, but cats be dammed. This is a dangerous situation for your mental health. You need to have no connection to this man. Hope it works out. (((Hugs)))

ExhaustedA

Does anyone deal with what I call rage fits? I will do fine one day, then Ill be consumed by thoughts of the ex doing me so wrong, all of his lies, the cheating, her, and will get wildly filled with anger. If I can't control it, I will text him many horrible angry things, I will call repeatedly,screaming, crying, threatening, belittling, you name it. In those rage filled moments I have no regrets, I bash him for everything he has done. Sometimes he argues back, other times he ignores me, sometimes calms me with a quiet voice of apology, or says this is why he decided to leave because I've become crazy and he can't deal with my anger anymore. Now I wasn't this way until a year ago when he began openly disrespecting me, and he watched me fall apart and never once was sorry or tried fixing our relationship. He just emotionally walked out when he did all of his damage and left me at my worst to pick up all the pieces. In the two years with him, I've pulled him out of a drug house so far out of his mind, took care of him when he came home one morning with his face bashed from falling down and passing out drunk, picked him up when he was drunk and stranded across town, nursed his health when he was sick, you name it!!! But he wasn't there for me once! My life went to sh*t in two years of living with him. And now I deal with rage. I broke that house, I showed up at that girls job(thank god she wasn't there)(she took off in my jeep one night cuz he gave her my keys when he was drunk)the girl was asking for an a$$ kicking, I've punched, kicked, slapped him all in the rage I found taking over. I had my first black out with my rage, two days later sought therapy. It's not enough. Antidepressants aren't enough. Church is not enough. What else can I do to relieve this monster that's been created inside of me???

Sober'sBest

A question please miss. Are you also angry at yourself?

Best wishes dear

noinsanity2423

Wow, what a powerful story. My ex almost completely wrecked my life but, luckily, I chose to get out before it got really, really bad. She was heading in the same direction as yours. I honestly have a lot of anger at her, too, and some anger at myself for letting her walk all over me. If you want to read mine, I posted it in "I Left the Chaos."

I really hope you find a way to let go of the anger. I know it's hard to let go, but it honestly does get better over time. Four things that really helped me:

1) Talking to a counselor about my feelings.
2) Meeting with recovery groups here and in person as many times per week as I can.
3) COMPLETELY cutting contact with my ex, her family, her friends. The more I keep trying to reach out to her or find out what she's doing, the more I stay sick. It's better to cut off your leg than let gangrene spread to your heart and kill you.
4) Writing a letter that I gave to her mom detailing everything that she did to me. Then, writing a letter with ALL of my rage and anger at her, with all that she did to me, which I burned.

That's what I did to help myself, so those are just some suggestions. I'm really sorry to hear about the chaos that he put you through. Don't worry, it honestly gets better.

Two things:
1) This, too, shall pass.
2) You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.

maybear

I think you really need to think about why you created a prison for yourself with this man.

The door was open the whole time for you to leave but you didn't. What are you afraid of? Why did you think you deserve the crumbs he had been giving you? Thinking about your fears and self esteem issues will probably help you understand this.

I know it's hard to accept what has happened, who he is, and to let go of all you thought it would be. But you must find a way to disentangle yourself from him. And accept that you can't change him. Your anger is not changing or hurting him, only yourself.

I suspect you are also very angry at yourself like another poster mentioned. Anger for staying and tolerating the behaviour. We often teach people how to treat us and when you've sold yourself short, allowed all your boundaries to be violated you would naturally be very angry with yourself. But it's ok, we all make mistakes. You can offer yourself forgiveness and compassion and set some boundaries for relationships in the future.

You are just the same as the other girl if you allow him to come and go in your life as he pleases.

I'm sorry about your cats. Maybe you could put an ad in your local classifieds asking if someone is kind enough to take them for you temporarily? You never know.

Hugs to you.

iGirl66

Like many of us, you have become someone you don't even recognize. You gave your best, you gave your all and it was thrown back in your face. Here's a painful truth that I still find uncomfortable. My ex was who he was. Is who he is. He did nothing that was not in his personality to do. I had the choice to stay or go. I chose to stay. Through the madness, through the pain, through the arguments and him getting wasted and trolling for skanks online, through the insults. I chose to form in my mind the idea that I could have a normal relationship with an abnormal person. We can't. You have been used, abused and traumatized. I totally get the rage thing. I have been known to chuck expensive suits out of second floor windows. They drive you crazy, then leave because you're crazy. No, nothing is going to help until you want it to.

He is addicted to drugs. In a way, you are addicted to him. You must DECIDE to put the pain down. Put the anger down. You must make the conscious decision even when your emotions say otherwise. It is a beast that wants to be fed. It feeds on your memories. You have to starve it out. Look up Eckart Tolle on "the pain body" My favorite scripture is "be transformed by the renewing of your mind". This takes time and effort. We hold on to our pain because we feel justified in our anger and maybe we are, but as a wise man once said, anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies You have become accustomed to focusing on him and avoiding, or maybe to avoid, your own issues. You had these issues waaaaaay before you ever met this guy. He watched you fall apart and you stayed. He disrespected, you stayed. You raged, he ignored, you stayed. This little girl you mention has her own pain and more coming if she stays with this guy. SHE DID NOT BETRAY YOU HE DID! And what if you did find this girl and open a can of whoop ass on her? He's going to find another and then another and still more after that. Are you going to beat up every teenage girl in the tri state area? Addicts can't "be there" for themselves, why do we think that they can be there for us? The guy who bashes his own head because he's water has no emotional stock pile of empathy and strength to give to anyone else. The only way to salvage any bit of yourself is to start concentrating on yourself. You gave him about three years. Don't give him anymore because believe me, he isn't giving you not one more second.

LexieCat

You're headed for a protective order and/or criminal charges against you unless you stop this behavior. There are ways you can work through the anger, but first things first. I understand the FEELING that you want to do the things you've been doing, but your actions are unacceptable no matter how hurt and angry you feel.

So take a chill pill, and we can help you so you aren't imprisoned by this rage.

theuncertainty

Hi, ExhaustedA. ((((hugs))))

Anger isn't a bad emotion. It sounds like a very valid response to the situation.

It's how we deal with it that can hurt us. Finding a safe outlet that lets you work through it all is so important. I don't know what that is for you. I'd go out to an area near the airport on stormy days and screamed into the wind. I filled my art journal with PAGES and pages of dark charcoal drawings that were little more than smears of rage. I wrote letters to him telling him exactly what I thought of him, that I never sent, and instead burned. I took scissors to my wedding dress and SHREDDED it. I made use of my brother-in-law's punching bag. There are also other less-than-helpful coping mechanisms that I used, but the more I drew and wrote, the less I fell back on them. I also had started to see a counselor as I tried to untangle myself from AXH.

I hope that helps you as you start looking for healthier outlets. Deep breath, ExhaustedA. You're going to be OK.

ExhaustedA

I worked out, got into muay thai, bootcamps, and realized exercise was a great escape but it also fueled me physically to be a much stronger beast. I walked around READY for a fight. I waited for the enemy to challenge me. That's not who I am! I love people, I'm super out going and social. I've always said I rather make friends than enemies, but the past year I turned into the hulk, a raging mad woman, and I'm very disappointed in myself. Yes I'm very angry AT MYSELF. I allowed someone I loved to walk all over me, cross boundaries, disrespect me on so many levels. Why did I stay, well I never thought he would get this bad, because when I lived long distance we had our problems, but I didn't truly see what was really going on until I moved in, second I started working but never made enough to get my own place, didn't have good credit, didn't have anyone who could cosign, third I had no where to go, I got stuck! My friend was a blessing to let me move in, but she said only until school semester ended, which was 2.5 months. So I had to put up with him til the end of Feb. And now I'm gone from there and that town. I feel empty. I feel defeated. I feel defective. I feel ashamed. I'm 36 years old. My so called happily ever after turned into a complete nightmare. I feel too old to have put up with this from a man. I'm usually a strong person, but I look and feel weak. I just started getting back into the gym after losing 15 lbs I really didn't have to lose. I lost interest in everything I used to love. I went to therapy to find out I'm codependent and realized that's why it's so hard for me to focus on myself, because I put ALL my focus on him. Fri I attend my first al anon. I just want to listen. I'm always about learning and understanding. I've never dated an alcoholic so it's very new to me, but I grew up with my mom dating alcoholics my whole life and refused to ever date one...and here I did! NowI have to start all over again! I'm trying to stay hopeful.

AnvilheadII

first thing to do is cut off ALL CONTACT. not one more call, text, driveby. and that goes for HIM and his new GF. you MUST shut that door completely, or you will never heal.

double up on therapy appointments. understand and own that striking out at others in rage is NOT acceptable. that is abuse, plain and simple. and that it is important that you find ways to deal with this constructively without causing harm to anyone. that goes for verbal, emotional and physical harm. your therapist should be able to offer guidance in ways to get out your feelings and get underneath them so you can find relief.

maybear

I know the thought of starting again is incredibly disappointing and scary.

But the alternative (remaining entangled with him) is much worse and will chip away at you bit by bit.

I suggest the first thing you do is accept and then tackle your fears. I imagine being alone at 36 is a big one. There are plenty of men and women who are in similar circumstances. You are not destined to be alone. It's a lot more probable (with all the people in this world) that you will meet someone else one day. But the work you are doing now is so important so you make wiser relationship choices in the future.

ExhaustedA

I have obsessive thoughts of him and that child having sex in the most random places. He started sleeping with her in November and I didn't move out until end of Feb. On my birthday in January he went away for a couple days for "business" and he took her with him. He denied it over and over, reason I found out, she posted a picture of the hotel he was staying at the same day he was there. Imagine your bf LYING straight to your face, with proof she was there, that he claims wasn't. His friend wouldn't tell me either when I asked him (he met him there). She told me, finally, when I caught them in bed together two months later when I lent him my jeep and went over to our old apartment! He was wasted then. He's always wasted. So my mind couldn't shut off the images of him and this girl, who truly looks like she's from the gutter, who is completely the opposite of me in every way possible. So add that she stole my jeep and he made me wait until the next morning to get it, he wouldn't tell me where she parked it(at her apartment with her mom) add I found them in bed together, add he had her staying there only days after I moved out, add the little brat did NOT care from the VERY beginning about me as a person and decided with him to destroy my health. I asked her to walk away several times and she said ok, but she never did. I have gone INSANE with rage and hatred for them both!!!! As I went to school full time, sober, paid all the bills, ran all his errands, was his f*cking rock!!!!!!! He had the audacity to cheat this much with someone 18 years younger, to give HER the affection, attention, priority he NEVER once gave me! I am pissed! He replaced me like I never even mattered. With a child who lives at home, has no car and makes sandwiches for a living. A girl who doesn't care about anyone else but him and his lies. She had the nerve to text me two weeks ago that he effed her all over our apartment when we were still together, that she used my shower, got into my clothes...
Walk away right. The hatred I have for this gutter chick, for this absolute disgusting loser I called my boyfriend MAKES ME SICK.

theuncertainty

Exhausted, sex isn't affection. Not always. You don't know he's giving her affection. He might be, he might not. And she's so much younger than him, that no matter what it is, she might believe its love. Her belief doesn't make it so either. You're torturing yourself and you don't have to.

He's a POS. She's a piece of work. And that's all being _incredibly_ polite. You have every every right to be hurt and angry. I'd agree on all those points. But your anger isn't hurting either of them. It's hurting you.

An exercise my therapist gave me to help with negative self talk might help you with the obsessive thoughts. The first step was to become aware of the thoughts. Once you're aware that you're stuck, tell yourself, "Stop." Then make a conscious decision to think of something else. Anything else. If you notice your thoughts going back, tell yourself "Stop," again and redirect.

If you think your workout isn't helping you work through your anger, try something else.

ExhaustedA

He told me he is a liar, that he just tells her what she wants to hear, that obviously she's not the only one he's talking to if I found other females in his phone a couple of weeks ago, that he knows he is messed up and really wants to get clean and out of drug dealing but doesn't know how, he said that it's so hard for him to go a day with out speaking with me, that he knows how bad he treated me and is sorry, says he's not a good person right now, he says that he misses me so much (but he never asks to see me), he says that he elk always help me out in any way he can, the list goes on and on and on. I know I'm amongst many others suffering here, but I still feel alone because I haven't read anyone else's thread about drinking, drugs, and cheating. I feel like I got the worst kind of person you could ever be in a relationship with. I don't have an addicts mind, so I can't understand how he thinks. He lies, he steals, he cheats, he manipulates. He puts on a good show, everybody who meets him thinks he is a really nice and likable guy. He's very attractive. He's just not smart. Not to put him down, he didn't finish highschool and had a baby at 15. He's a blue collar guy trying to live a white collar dream, but he doesn't have the smarts. He's a street hustler, and he's not even good at that as he gets wasted, hands his drugs out, loses them, snorts them, loses money in his pockets, he is just a mess!!!! His family keeps their distance. They worry. His son moved in when I moved out, now his son is exposed to his father's messy life style. He just doesn't care. He doesn't even hide it anymore. The life, the trashy girl. Makes me sick.

guava

This...

Every time you connect with him you are ripping the scab off your wound. I hate that you are going through this. Please consider going no contact so you can start to heal. Lots of (((hugs))).

shil2587

Sounds like he's being pretty honest with you. He's not a good person right now. Whatever he feels towards you, he's not a good person. But you already knew that.

I think you have every reason in the world to be mad, betrayed and hurt. But he's shown you exactly who he is. Believe him. Next!

ExhaustedA

Yeah the only thing he is actually honest about...admitting he's not a good person. He never made me important, I was never a priority. He promised me that when I moved up there it would be so great, we would do do many things. But he chose the bars and his friends over me. I wasn't allowed to go with him, since all his friends were single guys and no girls were around....just the ones they hit on. Holidays were nothing special, my presents were last minute and never wrapped, he sabotaged every birthday by getting wasted, this past one was the worst!! He never participated in anything fun, we could never leave town because he was so worried about losing money from his coke clients. It started as him leaving for the night, then it became the day, then it became the morning. Clients run his life. If I were to speak to him right now, our conversation would be about money he is making, money he is losing, how he has been clean for a couple of days and feels great, and then he would slip up by tonight or tomorrow. SAME OLD SH*T every single week.
When I tell him I don't want to talk anymore he would say that's not good for either of us, that it's hard for him to go each day without speaking to me, but when we do usually it's me angry at him, yelling, cursing, crying. He says he comes to me because nobody else can calm him, that I give him relief. He says we have a connection he has never had with anyone else, that I'm the smartest girl he's ever been with and he loves our talks, when we aren't fighting. But I can't believe him when he says this, I don't trust him. He probably says the same thing to all girls. He is so messed up on so many levels. He has shown his son how to grow and sell weed, has his son measure and put coke baggys outside for his clients when he isn't home to do it. His son just goes along. He says his son is the most important person in his life, but he risks his freedom, risks him getting hurt by a druggy every day he deals. I tell him this, he still doesn't change!!! I've never witnessed this much in my life, so I'm really still shocked that drinking, drugs, dealing can have such a strong hold on a person. I just don't get it. I just know my life has been a nightmare, truly, and nobody would ever know just looking at me what I've been through. I wake up each morning anxious, upset, depressed, worried, and even hopeful that he is one day closer to truly landing on his face so he MUST change. All of his friends are losers, all have major problems with their gfs and wives, all of them are drunks and druggies, ex convicts. But they don't see the problem, they cover it up. Each one of them. In the last two years, most of them have really fallen apart in their personal lives, professional lives, relationships with siblings, relatives, girls, their health, dui's, but still they continue their destruction.

theuncertainty

Words are so, so easy to say. But they're essentially meaningless when he keeps on doing everything he's been doing. He's admitted to telling her what she wants to hear. From this side of the screen, I get the feeling that's what he's doing with you _now_. "I'm so sorry, EA. I WANT to change..." It's easy to say, and if you believe his words, that may be all he needs to do in order to keep you waiting around for him. You know, in case the little GF gets too needy or boring, or exhausting, or momma gets concerned about her little girl messing with a guy her dad's age, or....

Him saying he wants to change means nothing unless he starts putting in the work to do so and keeps working on it when it gets hard to keep on.

You mentioned not reading any stories like yours with drinking, drugs, cheating and betrayal.... I hope you're able to read around a bit more, because there are so many here. They're not likely to be in the stickies at the top, but they're here. Posts of F&F members just as hurt, betrayed, bewildered and angry, wondering what went wrong, asking for help to understand.

Here's a cliff notes version of my history with AXH:

When I moved out the last time, it was so we could work on our issues separately and then start over: he'd get help with his addictions (and I thought it would take care of his cr-ppy behavior) and I'd get counseling to learn how to communicate better. (I had no problems communicating at work or with friends... just problems with HIM understanding.)

Instead of working on his problems, he couch surfed with friends. Then he found that 'special' girl. They met and the same month she let him move in with her and her two kids. He told her that he was divorced. He told me she was a landlord and renting him a room. She didn't believe he was an alcoholic or addict, because she'd been a bartender and well, he didn't fit her picture of an A, and because he didn't call himself that. So they went out and partied whenever her kids were with their dad (week on and week off). When I started to try to figure out who was this girl, whose house AXH might be bringing our son to, I checked her FB. It was filled with posts along the lines of "Kids are out for the week, time for gratuitous sex with my boyfriend!!!" Details about rooms to 'break in' and on. A pregnancy scare that turned out to be... shingles. (I'm not even sure how you can confuse those symptoms??) Stories of recovering from the many high-alcohol content beers they enjoyed at the bar the night before.

Still, AXH continued to tell me she was just renting him a room; she had a boyfriend. He still tried to make every time he came to see DS a date for he and I. He drove her car to come see us. With her, I was the vindictive ex whom he had divorced 'years' ago, when in fact, we were still married. Everything each girl wanted to hear. All lies.

If you caught it at the start of my story here, I wrote, "When I moved out the last time". Our relationship had 'ended' so many times throughout our time together. I never admitted to myself that there were problems (it was the drinking and whatever else he was doing) or I minimized them; I never let myself think about why I took him back. I just did. Because I loved him. I was sure he loved ME. (Not *this* girl who kept calling.) We're so passionate, that's why things get so volatile. "It was different *this* time." "He's more responsible (mature/grown up) *now*. He won't do it again." "He said he'll change. He won't drink as much. That was the problem before, so if he doesn't drink, it'll be better." He also told me repeatedly throughout our time together, that I'd be better off without him, that I deserved so much better. They were all hooks.

All of them. The last one just had me trying to prove to him, to myself, that he really _could_ be a great guy. The last one had me pumping up any little thing he did that was good and excusing or overlooking all the cr-p he pulled. And while it is true that I deserve so much better than what I got from him, from him the line was just another pile.

ExhaustedA, you deserve so much better than what you're describing.

maybear

You say that he says not talking is not good for either of you... It's not good ONLY for him. He is using you as a soft place to land and you are allowing him to.

Your words make it seem like you area victim,
Like you have no choice. You are not a puppet and you don't have to allow him to pull your strings. If you want to stop talking to him, then commit to stopping.

He may never fall hard enough on his face to produce change. The question is whether you want to waste your life waiting.