posiesperson

DMKK,

When my exA and I took that 1 month break it was totally like withdrawal for me. Going to bed w/o the usual nighttime phone call, or being together, or e-mailing, or SOMETHING felt like I just might die. It felt like complete and total deprivation.

Know what? I didn't die. I didn't even suffer that long. By the 3rd week I still couldn't say "it's over for me" but I was thinking it. I found out I was enjoying the lack of total emotional exhaustion, the manipulations, etc. It's very tiring to feel like I'm always on high-alert for behaviors, for lies, for inconsistencies.

One of the best things I did for myself was to write up a list I titled "Memory Lane: Things I will NOT miss about _____________." I typed fast and in about 2 minutes I had a full page--single-spaced--list of memories of thoughtlessness, inconsistencies, disrespect and outright lies. When I wanted to call or TM or e-mail my ex I read through the list and whammo! that urge to contact disappeared like a mirage in the desert. Then, fueled with the reminders that I all-too-conveniently tried to forget when I was feeling the hurt in my broken heart, I found energy to do something that I wanted to do. My house is cleaner, I'm more connected to my kids, I've gone to community theatre, taken long walks, done some dogsitting, made plans with friends with no consideration for anyone's opinions but MINE (and my kids).

In fact, my kids were away visiting relatives during the Spring Break and I can't believe how effortlessly my social time came together after I broke up with exA last week...I had a really, really hard time for about a day and a half, and then had a truly fabulous weekend filled with gratitude for the people and support that emerged in my life without my even trying to make it happen. I can't explain it, but I strongly urge you to attend Alanon meetings, work the steps, get a sponsor and get some really healthy friends, if you haven't done those things already. I will tell you what I was told, and admittedly wasn't overly sure at the time since I was hurting so much: you will feel so much better, and be SO glad that you made the journey through this pain to have a different kind of life. You just might soon be grateful for this incredibly intense pain because you will have begun to live a whole and happy life in a completely different way.

As for that contact from your ex, I can't count the number of times that I heard non-specific apologies. "I'm sorry for everything that hurt you"; "I'm sorry for anything I've done"; "I'm sorry for my anger". Okay, true enough, that was SOMETHING, but so is "spitting in the ocean", as a recovery friend analogized recently. I'm a big fan of "progress not perfection" but there's no way my ex is ready to take the steps I'm ready to take. That apology from your ex may be a beginning for her, but my guess is, if you're anything like me, you'd need a whole lot more from her that there's no way she can provide. The well, as they say, is still empty...at least, that's my personal experience talking.

Hugs, DMKK. You can do this. Remember, I'm only 5 days out of this myself, and am truly, truly grateful to be free of the drama.
posie

DMKK

Thanks, really great post. I'm not having as tough a time with the NC as I thought, there are moments, sure, but overall keeping busy has helped. Friends and family too. I have a good support system who have listened and supported unconditionally and that's something that is key to surviving a break like this, I think.

Basically this text was a setback in a way because it broke the NC but that's ok. I mean honestly I do miss her too and that's not a lie but it doesn't change anything regarding us unfortunately...And as you said, it could be a BEGINNING but it's an empty well, just a very vague apology and nothing concrete or an indication that there's anything solid to work from. And she definitely has a lot of work to do for herself.

I haven't gone to making the list yet but I imagine it would be similar...There were some great memories and some bad memories for sure. Like you I am adjusting to the fact that I'm my own boss now and that's nice, however with my ex I didn't run into a lot of those type of issues anyway.

I can't really imagine her future anymore because it is her life to live, not mine. I am happy to be free of the burden of the drinking issues, and the drama as you say, as well, though I still do miss her and question if all this was a worthy trade-off. I know it will get easier in time of course.

Thanks a lot for your post, it helped put her text into perspective for me, in that it was a potential beginning, perhaps, but a non-specific apology that you just can't take too much stock in.

It was nice to hear from you, hope you are doing well.

tpen

DMKK - thank you for posting and I am proud of you. Smile, God loves you and lots of people on here do to!

Carol Star

My situation was similar. I wrote down the bad stuff my XAH did to me and when I missed him I would pull out the list. It helped me go from "sad to mad".......I missed the potential of who he could have been.....not who he was. I still have that list somewhere. Six months from now you will see more reality of the situation. You will eventually be in gratitude....that you didn't marry her and then have her cheat, that you didn't have kids with her that would have been affected by the alcoholism(mentally and physically). You will be grateful for the lessons /boundaries you learned. Some poet said "life is a thousand beautiful mistakes. " The best revenge is to go live a happy life. " Let go or be dragged"- I heard on here and those words really helped me. Her disease is progressive. It can only be arrested- never cured. She doesn't see she has a problem. She may never. She will eventually face consequences for her drinking; DUI, friendships, job loss, she will lose her looks, her health, $, family.......drunks are jerks. They are selfish. People get tired of it. On the tv show Sober House.....the councelor Will says ....."addicts treat their loved ones like a cat treats a cockroach." That wasn't fun. You will be fine. And you are not alone....we are all one.

posiesperson

Wow Carol, THANK YOU. I needed all of those words today. Wow wow wow...cats and cockroaches. "Let go or be dragged." Definitely what I needed today, it validates exactly what I know but in my moments of pain, when I want to forget the pain and focus on the "good stuff" only, those images will help me.

DMKK, you're doing great. Hang in there.

posie

DMKK

Carol and Posie, thank you so much for the posts. Tpen too, it was good to hear from you. Hope you are all well.

I realize this thread has sort of veered away from the drinking aspects only because I am now free of it. She has been out of the house 100% for a week now, but physically gone even longer.

Since last Wednesday, just minimal contact, the one text I got Sunday night with the apology and that she will miss me. Okay, that was tough to read, it was unexpected and I couldn't help but try and translate it. If anything WAS going on with OM it might have ended that night.

Yesterday I think I inadvertently got my answer. And it's okay news. I am not ready to date yet, breakup is still too fresh, but I was checking a dating site just to see what was out there, and suddenly, there she was. She was not there a few days ago. So if she was attempting a relationship with OM that is no longer happening. In fact she had always been trying to convince me that there wasn't anything like that happening but all signs pointed otherwise. So I guess I not only never got the evidence of how far it had gone, but now I can see that it's over, and she's single, and this also tells me she is not living with OM.

Okay, so all good news for me. But I am not sure where to go from here other than stay in NC. This is good for her. Time on her own (I hope she's not out dating immediately again but who knows, some people are not really good at being alone, and her profile title was "fresh start")...So if she wants to date, she's allowed to do that. I am glad she is not living with or dating OM at least. And I was happy for the apology.

She shows no signs of wanting to attempt a reconciliation or to work on her issues, if she did I assume she would try to let me know. But since I have only been in true NC for less than a week now (even less if you count the text) it's all still fresh in my mind.

I will say in all honestly I do miss her company and her as a person, but I do not miss the drinking aspect at all. It is good to be free of that, but it's unfortunately not good to be free of the rest of her, which I did love.

All for now.

tpen

DMKK - thanks for you replies to my other post today.

After reading this post, wow, our situations are mirroring each other. I sure hope we aren't talking the same one? LOL. Mine is in the Midwest if that helps. Your XAGF is lost without you and needs another person to make her feel good about herself. Even I have to admit, it would be nice to have someone just like that hear to be with me. However, I fight those feeling because I know they are satans. She isn't with a HP and is allowing Satan to control her every move. Keep your distance, but I would keep watching. I know others on here would strongly oppose that. In time, I believe watching will become boring but provide wisdom should she try to get back with you.

She has a right to date other men, you have the right to date woman. Look at what your doing though? You are on here posting and wanting to make the right decisions and being patient. You are in God's hands.

I pray for you to be patient and wise. I also pray for your XAGF to seek God's will in her battle with A. I hope that's ok to pray for her.......as she is lost.

DMKK

Thanks tpen. At some moments I am very strong, at others very weak. For example today I am craving that contact again, even a small sliver of it, it's truly like an addiction in and of itself. In a weird way it helps you to understand the addiction they have to alcohol and wow, that REALLY puts it into perspective. I realize it but it doesn't make it any easier to let go of it. Willpower is key here, for sure, and I can certainly see how some folks have trouble maintaining a strict NC situation.

But think about it that way, for those of us who went into NO CONTACT, it's a similar discipline to someone trying to quit the bottle, I imagine. We are in many cases just as addicted to our exes as they are to the drink.

With time it will get easier to be out of contact, still inside the 1 month mark of everything exploding I have to remember it's all pretty fresh.

Thank you for the prayers, my intentions today are to remain distant, the dating profile discovery was an accident and other than that no contact from me. It hurts but I feel I am on the path that I need to be on right now.

tpen

DMKK - have not heard from you and praying you are strong and ok. Keep us updated please.

DMKK

Tpen, thanks for checking on me. I'll visit your new thread in a minute.

I have had some ups and downs still, but they are less severe as time goes on. I did have a final reach-out type interaction via e-mail last week, asking if she would get together to talk about all that happened and led up to the cheating/lying and all else. She basically was very kind in her e-mail back and remorseful but said she was starting a "new life" (basically to run from the guilt and everything I think and to be able to continue drinking without guilt on that too) and said that if she saw me, she would break down, as leaving was so hard. So I respected that and left it go.

Knowing I opened the door to peek out one last time was okay, probably not the strongest thing I could have done, they say in that situation the best thing you can do is a total stonewall thing with strict NC, but I wanted to at least try when I discovered she was no longer with the guy I thought she had left for, and was on her own. I think she will be hitting the "reset" button and starting with new guys/dating until the cycle can start again.

She may improve, or may not, or maybe just find the right person who can live with her personality, the regular drinking, the binge/blackout/angry drinking, and it could work for her. She might just need the RIGHT type of person who can handle that level of alcohol abuse. It just wasn't me. It wore on me too much.

So anyway, all that said, I am feeling pretty good lately, starting to get my stride back and catch up on life, feeling confident and better, enjoying the freedom from the stress of it all. And I hope you can eventually do the same.

Thoughts and prayers with you as well.

Learn2Live

DMKK,

Your "Here are some of the things she did" list and the rest of what you described is almost entirely ME, when I drank. I am an alcoholic. The woman you were associated with sounds like an alcoholic to me. What you CALL it is completely beside the point.

Did you overreact? No. People who have sex with other people when they are supposed to be in a relationship are not healthy people to be in a relationship with.

Have you explored why you were with this person to begin with? Have you tried Al-Anon? I recommend you give Al-Anon a try. You were with this woman for four years and she cheated on you and left. Do you feel any emotional pain from this? If not, you might want to explore why not. If you do, do these feelings provide you with the impetus to look inward and perhaps avoid these feelings in the future?

You are not her reason for becoming that way. She is who she is, with or without you. A different man will not make her different. Neither can a person complete another person's life. THAT is the job of each of our Higher Power.

Hope something here is useful to you.

DMKK

Learn2Live,

Thank you so much for taking a moment to stop in my thread. Very kind of you. To hear that you can relate to a lot of my ex's actions is both saddening and reassuring in a weird way. I do hope, for her own sake, that she can reach the point of clarity you have at some point in her life. She is now about to turn 29, and has been this way a long time, much before she even met me.

What gave me hope in staying with her was that prior to knowing me, she had also been into heavy drug use as well as cigarettes. She had successfully kicked both of those habits. But the drinking was rather regular. At times, she seemed able to control it, have just a couple and be happy, or even none at all, but at other times, it seemed uncontrollable, usually when she was experiencing sadness or great stress. At that point, the beer/wine/champagne became her medicine.

What brought me here was that I wasn't sure if she had a problem with drinking or not, or if I was just overreacting. In the end, the last 2 months before she cheated and left (her quick exit ramp to get away from the relationship, I have figured), she kept telling me I was being too controlling and should stop telling her what she could and could not do, and that she "wasn't doing anything wrong". And in a way that was true, she basically said that most nights, she would just drink, get a little tipsy, maybe pass out, or maybe become slightly annoying and drunk with me, sometimes get sexual, sometimes not...But then some nights, especially when I wasn't around or when she was out in a social situation, she would get blackout drunk, party-like, then suddenly turn angry when just with me. Those nights she would always apologize for the next day, and not remember, and I would always be shell shocked for a few days after seeing that side of her.

In the end I don't think asking her to cut back or stop was wrong. Though there were other components of the relationship I could have done better in, the fact she was unwilling to control the drinking (or even try) says a lot about her dedication.

All that said I am doing okay. I was in a lot of emotional pain for the first couple weeks but I have been getting stronger every day. Since she is now gone, living with new roommates, starting a "new life" for herself, and I have ceased all contact or involvement in her life. Since we were not yet married, this wasn't too tough. Watching her move out was hard, saying goodbye was hard, watching her cry was hard...But with time, I have started to feel better.

I also need to look at myself and see why I allowed it to continue so long and be a part of my life, you are totally right there.

Thank you for your words of encouragement. In a way I am sad for her that she will always live with these demons no matter what man comes into her life, and I also believe now it was the reason that her previous R's before me likely failed, in time.

This was very useful, thank you -- And I am so happy to hear that you are in recovery after living a life like hers, it does give me hope that perhaps one day she can be free of the demons as well.

Learn2Live

Those of us who choose to associate closely with people with the more obvious addictions, such as those to alcohol and drugs, often are more empathetic toward OTHERS than we are to our own selves. It is obvious to us what THEY need to do to fix THEIR lives; less obvious to us that WE need to fix OUR lives. I applaud your courage to share, and your efforts to reach out for help and again suggest giving Al-Anon a try. Take care.