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New here and I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. I guess some background: I have been with my boyfriend for almost 6 years. He had been doing heroin since he was 15, had been doing acid at 12, and I just recently found out he'd been sneaking alcohol since he was 8. There is a LOT I don't know, such as why and how. When we met he had been in a methadone clinic for 2 years. He started staying overnight, and weaned himself off of the medicine. I realize now how truly ignorant I was/am about addiction, I was so impressed he had quit himself and thought he was all cured. Then there were a couple of stints of drinking, to deal with tooth pain as the heroin messed up his teeth; he would rather pull out his own teeth with pliars and use whiskey for pain. Not too long after we met he injured his back and when that flared up he was drinking again; he had also been doing acid, mushrooms, and let it slip recently that he was doing cocaine too... eventually at the end of 2021 we had yet another fight and I told him to leave but he came back after a couple hours with a lot of pretty words and I stupidly concluded the best thing to do was whatever I could to make him happy. Then I got pregnant. As far as I know he has been sober since and the baby is a few months old.
Now I am second guessing a lot of things he had said and done and is still doing. I asked about postpartum hormones on a pregnancy forum thinking that was what was causing my change of heart about this person, described the way he acts, and all the responses said get out, I'm being abused.
I came here because I want to understand why my boyfriend is the way he is. I now think that his quitting on his own was a mistake instead of the act of bravery I thought it was and he is not "cured".
I am on an online forum because I cannot just "walk out". Nobody knows how he acts. My family doesn't know how he treats me or about his addiction; his family knows about his heroin use but they are even more ignorant than me; they think he started doing drugs in college but he is now cured.
I dont want him to set a bad example for the baby. I want to learn about this but because he isn't actively using, and I don't think he's being overtly abusive, I don't know who to talk to.
Now I am second guessing a lot of things he had said and done and is still doing. I asked about postpartum hormones on a pregnancy forum thinking that was what was causing my change of heart about this person, described the way he acts, and all the responses said get out, I'm being abused.
I came here because I want to understand why my boyfriend is the way he is. I now think that his quitting on his own was a mistake instead of the act of bravery I thought it was and he is not "cured".
I am on an online forum because I cannot just "walk out". Nobody knows how he acts. My family doesn't know how he treats me or about his addiction; his family knows about his heroin use but they are even more ignorant than me; they think he started doing drugs in college but he is now cured.
I dont want him to set a bad example for the baby. I want to learn about this but because he isn't actively using, and I don't think he's being overtly abusive, I don't know who to talk to.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
So...you posted about this yesterday - did you lose your previous thread? It's here: https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ml#post7906557 (Long term effects of heroin?)
You're not going to find people on this forum who can sort him out for you. Of course he needs help, obviously. You cannot make that happen. The best thing you can do for all involved is to leave him alone to sort this out. On his own. You can't see how bad it is, and neither can he.
Your best bet is to call a domestic violence support phone number and get some help for you and the child. In fact, you CAN just walk out and I hope you do. They can help you find a safe place to go, even if you have no money.
The posts you did yesterday painted a bleak picture. You need to let people in - tell your family, tell your friends, call a hotline. You are in need of support and we can't fix him - neither can you.
You're not going to find people on this forum who can sort him out for you. Of course he needs help, obviously. You cannot make that happen. The best thing you can do for all involved is to leave him alone to sort this out. On his own. You can't see how bad it is, and neither can he.
Your best bet is to call a domestic violence support phone number and get some help for you and the child. In fact, you CAN just walk out and I hope you do. They can help you find a safe place to go, even if you have no money.
The posts you did yesterday painted a bleak picture. You need to let people in - tell your family, tell your friends, call a hotline. You are in need of support and we can't fix him - neither can you.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
Swedishchef, I know we are all saying, "Oh, this is bad," and this isn't what you want to hear. It IS abuse, what you posted yesterday. I'd guess that he has threatened you about taking your baby or other things like a car or your other belongings or he controls the money or the apartment lease - or he tries to keep you away from your family under the guise of, "They're crazy," or, "They hate me," or any number of other ways to keep the Secret.
I've been in two live-in abusive relationships and I've known a few women in real life who eventually left their abusers. These men have a mindset and you can't possibly change that - it's who they are. Like Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them [the first time]" It really doesn't matter if it's drugs (current or past) or if it's just that he's messed up in the head.
I left the first abusive one while he was away at work. I was 20 years old and I had no job or friends, but I had a car - so I just drove! I just packed everything up and left. I didn't stop until I was three hours away and I never went back. The second one, I left him when we were 3000 miles from home. I flew back and moved out before he arrived (he was driving.) In neither case did I have someone to call or somewhere to go, and I didn't have money. I made it. If it were to happen again I'd call a church in the area for guidance. All you need is someone in your corner who you can talk to...maybe call a local church or the YWCA, or the Salvation Army hotline. You do need to talk this out - it's confusing.
I've been in two live-in abusive relationships and I've known a few women in real life who eventually left their abusers. These men have a mindset and you can't possibly change that - it's who they are. Like Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them [the first time]" It really doesn't matter if it's drugs (current or past) or if it's just that he's messed up in the head.
I left the first abusive one while he was away at work. I was 20 years old and I had no job or friends, but I had a car - so I just drove! I just packed everything up and left. I didn't stop until I was three hours away and I never went back. The second one, I left him when we were 3000 miles from home. I flew back and moved out before he arrived (he was driving.) In neither case did I have someone to call or somewhere to go, and I didn't have money. I made it. If it were to happen again I'd call a church in the area for guidance. All you need is someone in your corner who you can talk to...maybe call a local church or the YWCA, or the Salvation Army hotline. You do need to talk this out - it's confusing.
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Join Date: Mar 2021
Posts: 336
Addiction is not something that ever gets cured. I have to think of it like my asthma—it can be “in remission” where the symptoms are not currently happening, but I will ALWAYS have to be aware that my lungs are different, and be cautious with how I treat my lungs and how I breathe. Some of it is because of genetics, some of it is because of damage that happened to them in my early asthma attacks—but it doesn’t matter now if I was born this way or became this way, it’s a part of who I am now. My mother’s cancer was like that too, it never went away, it was just in remission or active.
He has symptoms that tell me his addiction is active. And that is dangerous. For you and any children.
It is also hard to think about, but you can’t separate the person from their addiction. The nature of the beast is that addiction is not something you can isolate and just get rid of, while keeping the person.
You can love someone who is an addict, but that doesn’t mean you have to give them access to you, or the ability to hurt your sanity, your finances, or your body. I highly recommend getting away from any situations where his addiction can bring you down with him.
He has symptoms that tell me his addiction is active. And that is dangerous. For you and any children.
It is also hard to think about, but you can’t separate the person from their addiction. The nature of the beast is that addiction is not something you can isolate and just get rid of, while keeping the person.
You can love someone who is an addict, but that doesn’t mean you have to give them access to you, or the ability to hurt your sanity, your finances, or your body. I highly recommend getting away from any situations where his addiction can bring you down with him.
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Join Date: Mar 2023
Posts: 50
Well I was so shocked by the idea I might be in an abusive relationship I killed my account. After some time, everyone's replies, that seemed so hurtful, now look sensible. And you know what I killed my account too because I was worried my bf would somehow see it. And I realized that that was messed up.
I am beginning to believe the relationship is abusive or at anyrate bad. I believe that what I once percieved as a strong act, my bf weaning himself off methadone by himself, was foolhardy and an incomplete cure, and there is no cure for heroin addiction. And the toll it takes is evolving and ongoing.
I am learning a lot that I wish I'd never learned. How could I have been so ignorant for so long? I want to use this forum to help me suss out the situatuon. And vent. I have no one, not a single person, to confide in. I tried being open with bf about his behavior. All I got was deflection. He truly believes I am stupid and I deserve to be lied to--he has said as much!
I am beginning to believe the relationship is abusive or at anyrate bad. I believe that what I once percieved as a strong act, my bf weaning himself off methadone by himself, was foolhardy and an incomplete cure, and there is no cure for heroin addiction. And the toll it takes is evolving and ongoing.
I am learning a lot that I wish I'd never learned. How could I have been so ignorant for so long? I want to use this forum to help me suss out the situatuon. And vent. I have no one, not a single person, to confide in. I tried being open with bf about his behavior. All I got was deflection. He truly believes I am stupid and I deserve to be lied to--he has said as much!
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,649
I'm glad you came back swedechef.
Well you aren't stupid and you also don't "deserve" to be lied to. These are lies he tells himself to protect his warped world view, not something you need to hear and certainly nothing to believe. He can say the sky is purple, it's not.
One thing I have found helpful in this kind of situation, where a lot of what goes on is just plain BS, is to separate yourself from his made up reality. When he says you are stupid for instance, you can come back with (in your head) well I guess in <insert his name here> world that helps him sleep at night, or in <his name's> world, it's ok to punch holes in the wall.
See how that distances you from the insanity? You acknowledge/see the unacceptable behaviour but it's not part of your functioning reality - it is separate from you. You can't apply normal to a dysfunctional relationship, whether the person is an addict or just disordered in some other way, their thinking is not logical.
There is sobriety (putting down the drink or other drugs) and there is recovery, he is not sober or in recovery, he is in active addiction. Active addicts make horrible parents.
Maybe you are rethinking this relationship now because you want to protect your child from growing up in a household where addiction is present?
Well you aren't stupid and you also don't "deserve" to be lied to. These are lies he tells himself to protect his warped world view, not something you need to hear and certainly nothing to believe. He can say the sky is purple, it's not.
One thing I have found helpful in this kind of situation, where a lot of what goes on is just plain BS, is to separate yourself from his made up reality. When he says you are stupid for instance, you can come back with (in your head) well I guess in <insert his name here> world that helps him sleep at night, or in <his name's> world, it's ok to punch holes in the wall.
See how that distances you from the insanity? You acknowledge/see the unacceptable behaviour but it's not part of your functioning reality - it is separate from you. You can't apply normal to a dysfunctional relationship, whether the person is an addict or just disordered in some other way, their thinking is not logical.
There is sobriety (putting down the drink or other drugs) and there is recovery, he is not sober or in recovery, he is in active addiction. Active addicts make horrible parents.
Maybe you are rethinking this relationship now because you want to protect your child from growing up in a household where addiction is present?
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Join Date: Mar 2023
Posts: 50
[QUOTE=biminiblue;7906864]. These men have a mindset and you can't possibly change that - it's who they are. Like Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them [the first time]"
Right before he asked me out he spent all day telling me he was a terrible boyfriend, a liar, he liked to manipulate people...I guess I thought there's no way anyone would just say they were bad, he was just being hard on himself. And he immediately started incorporating aspects of his using life into mine, bringing in the "system" of sharing money he and his using roommates had had, convincing me I needed to keep cash on hand ( he now owes me over $4000), telling me I needed to smoke pot when we visited his friends or they'd think I was a narc, showing me how to pull the filters out of cigs for stuff, I'm just disgusted writing this. At the time I just thought, that's weird, but wrote it off as just quirky. His attitude was so funny and "you don't know this, you're naive, I'm here to teach you!" Always telling me I'm so good and innocent...until he starts saying naive, then ignorant...all the signs were there. How do we only put the pieces together in retrospretrospect? Very early on he would do weird stuff like, I'd be showing him my garden and telling him about which plants o love, and the next day he pulled them up and threw them away! Things like that so out of left field I had no idea how to respond. Or trying to stop me from ever showering. I literally scheduled my work so that I could beat him home and get a shower without arguing about it every day. Needless to say things have gotten wierder, more convoluted, so that by the time he was fooling with other drugs it was just more of me being ignorant, if I didn't know how to tell he was high I deserved to be lied to about it. Yes, he's told me who he is and doesn't even try to hide his disdain from me any more.
more.
Far as I know he's not even drinking right now but he's more and more aggressive and condescending. Everything is about him. A friend's pet died the other day, and he went on and on about how it was just one more thing happening to him, like it was just another wrench in his wheels. We took the baby for a check-up, and you know how they ask the mother if she's feeling any postpartum depression. He just went on and on about how what, they don't ask if he father gets depression, and he has PTSD and is bipolar and he needs medication but no, no one will help him. I can't say I'm tired from staying up with the baby, it turns into a long speech about everyone and everything getting in his way. He has stated he's "special" because he has od'd and not died. It's all to do with him being punished,, or being superhuman, for surviving. So strange.
Right before he asked me out he spent all day telling me he was a terrible boyfriend, a liar, he liked to manipulate people...I guess I thought there's no way anyone would just say they were bad, he was just being hard on himself. And he immediately started incorporating aspects of his using life into mine, bringing in the "system" of sharing money he and his using roommates had had, convincing me I needed to keep cash on hand ( he now owes me over $4000), telling me I needed to smoke pot when we visited his friends or they'd think I was a narc, showing me how to pull the filters out of cigs for stuff, I'm just disgusted writing this. At the time I just thought, that's weird, but wrote it off as just quirky. His attitude was so funny and "you don't know this, you're naive, I'm here to teach you!" Always telling me I'm so good and innocent...until he starts saying naive, then ignorant...all the signs were there. How do we only put the pieces together in retrospretrospect? Very early on he would do weird stuff like, I'd be showing him my garden and telling him about which plants o love, and the next day he pulled them up and threw them away! Things like that so out of left field I had no idea how to respond. Or trying to stop me from ever showering. I literally scheduled my work so that I could beat him home and get a shower without arguing about it every day. Needless to say things have gotten wierder, more convoluted, so that by the time he was fooling with other drugs it was just more of me being ignorant, if I didn't know how to tell he was high I deserved to be lied to about it. Yes, he's told me who he is and doesn't even try to hide his disdain from me any more.
more.
Far as I know he's not even drinking right now but he's more and more aggressive and condescending. Everything is about him. A friend's pet died the other day, and he went on and on about how it was just one more thing happening to him, like it was just another wrench in his wheels. We took the baby for a check-up, and you know how they ask the mother if she's feeling any postpartum depression. He just went on and on about how what, they don't ask if he father gets depression, and he has PTSD and is bipolar and he needs medication but no, no one will help him. I can't say I'm tired from staying up with the baby, it turns into a long speech about everyone and everything getting in his way. He has stated he's "special" because he has od'd and not died. It's all to do with him being punished,, or being superhuman, for surviving. So strange.
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,649
Well it is strange, if you're not an addict. I'm sure to him it seems quite normal.
If there is one thing about addiction that's true, it's that it is self centered. The love of his life is drugs, not you, not the baby, not his friends or other family, probably not even himself. The drugs.
By the very nature of addiction it becomes self centered, that's his world. Anything outside that drug can become a nuisance (yes you and the baby and everyone else mentioned).
You can't win this one, you can't change him.
You didn't Cause it, can't Control it and can't Cure it (the 3 c's).
If there is one thing about addiction that's true, it's that it is self centered. The love of his life is drugs, not you, not the baby, not his friends or other family, probably not even himself. The drugs.
By the very nature of addiction it becomes self centered, that's his world. Anything outside that drug can become a nuisance (yes you and the baby and everyone else mentioned).
You can't win this one, you can't change him.
You didn't Cause it, can't Control it and can't Cure it (the 3 c's).
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Join Date: Mar 2023
Posts: 50
Yesterday, he woke up angry, telling me he was using the baby monitor to spy on me because he couldn't trust me with the baby, telling me I was ********, lovely stuff like that. I asked him what reason he possibly had to distrust me, no answer to that. And I finally told him that my mistake was trusting him, that I kept deciding to trust him,but I did in fact know every time he lied and that I realized he got into a relationship with me knowing very well he could take advantage of my ignorance. That really took him aback. He said he now knew he could trust me and I wasn't stupid because I knew what he was doing, I saw real tears for the second time that I've met him. Not sure who they were for.
There was a lot said over other things that don't have to do with the addiction part but I have now gotten clear statements about what the relationship is to him. And it's not what I want, even if drugs were never part of it. To him, it really is all about me supporting him. He says he doesn't think having fun or even light conversation is part of a relationship. Respect is not part of a relationship. It truly is all about him, and this is his honest belief. And by the end of the day he's right back to being agressive and smashing about the house.
I told him the truth, he told me, I know where I stand if I stay in this. Not what I want for the baby. So tired of him taking up all the energy that should go to the baby.
There was a lot said over other things that don't have to do with the addiction part but I have now gotten clear statements about what the relationship is to him. And it's not what I want, even if drugs were never part of it. To him, it really is all about me supporting him. He says he doesn't think having fun or even light conversation is part of a relationship. Respect is not part of a relationship. It truly is all about him, and this is his honest belief. And by the end of the day he's right back to being agressive and smashing about the house.
I told him the truth, he told me, I know where I stand if I stay in this. Not what I want for the baby. So tired of him taking up all the energy that should go to the baby.
Last edited by Swedechef2; 03-29-2023 at 04:43 AM. Reason: Typo
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Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 291
Now you know what you don't want, think about how to change your situation.
Ask him to leave, or you leave if you have somewhere to go. Sorry, I don't know your housing situation.
Life will be so much better for you and your baby, without his chaos in it. He seems downright nasty, aside from the addiction.
Much Love
Bute x
Ask him to leave, or you leave if you have somewhere to go. Sorry, I don't know your housing situation.
Life will be so much better for you and your baby, without his chaos in it. He seems downright nasty, aside from the addiction.
Much Love
Bute x
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8,649
You mentioned:
Why is this? If it is because how he is has been kept a secret from friends and family - well it's not your secret to keep, you didn't ask for it, it's not about you.
You need the support of family (if they are the supportive kind). Is leaving something you can see yourself doing under those circumstances?
I am on an online forum because I cannot just "walk out"
You need the support of family (if they are the supportive kind). Is leaving something you can see yourself doing under those circumstances?
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