Cleo1234

Hi All.... Ive been reading here for years and would love to get continued support and support others when i can..

in a nut shell(kinda) ... I dated my 45 year old bf for 18 months. He lived with my 11 yr old son and i for the last 9 months. I knew he had just gotten out of rehab when we started dating, but i thought he had a grip on his addiction. He really doesn't have much.. he was living in a sober living house and had no job and no family. He does have 2 girls that live with with his ex wife but he tries to see them as much as possible.

He only had 1 relaspe (that i knew of) before he moved in. It was great for a while after he moved in.. then 1 relapse, then another, then another etc... he was a binge drinker. As usual after every relaspe was the cry of "this is the last time" .. "i don't want to lose you".. "you're the best thing i have" blah blah. I was always so scared that he was gonna relapse. I think i began to try to control him and monitor his actions. I hated having to do this or feeling like i needed to.

During our relationship he could never find work until the last month before we broke up... i was so relieved he finally found work, but always still fearful that he would get fired.. I helped him financially with everything.. even things with his 2 girls. I thought if i showed him a great family life and helped take some stress away he would be able to focus on his sobriety. It never really helped.. it was one fight after the other every time he relapsed. We would fight and he would break anything in his way and get verbally abusive cursing at me.. i think he broke about 3 iPhones during our relationship. The last straw was the final 2 months when i saw that he was talking to an ex via text and i became paranoid and started sneaking on his phone and emails to see who he was talking to. I became a person that i hated. After i came across another email of him trying to make plans with his ex, i kicked him out. It was a huge fight that final day. He left in the morning to "get boxes" and came back drunk!

Since the breakup, we have had a few discussions via text rehashing the relationship... he never tried to get back together with me. He actually told me that he had demons and he would never be able to make me happy and that he couldn't live within the parameters that i needed.

We have been broken up now for 3 months, and i just found out that he has moved in with a new girl recently. I also found out he has recently got fired as well. Maybe he moved in with her because he got fired and has nothing once again... but my heart aches knowing he's with someone new while I'm alone and still struggling to heal from this relationship. Im reading co dependent no more and trying to get strong, but nothing is taking the pain away or the thoughts of him and his new life. I feel like a loser to even say that i miss him. Im a independant 41 year old woman and have a fairly comfortable life. Im happy that i now longer have to be subjected to his chaos or allow my son to witness this... So why do i care that he's with a new woman. I now am feeling like i was used during this whole relationship. If he truly loved me, he would of at least attempeted to get back with me, but instead he moved on pretty quickly. I can't get out of my depression and i hate having my son see me like this. Thank you for listening.

ladyscribbler

Sounds like he has a pattern. I too did everything possible to "show my ex a great family life and take his stress away."' He still drank and was abusive, no matter how much I worked to accommodate him. As soon as I left he turned to his parents to support and enable him. When they got fed up he moved in with his uncle's widow and her daughters. Apparently they are married now and he claims his first cousins as his stepdaughters.
It stings a bit, but in my heart of hearts I know that his auntwife didn't win a prize. He is still the same drunk, abusive, entitled King Baby that he was with me. He just found a new babysitter/timekeeper/chauffeur/enabler because he has no intention of getting sober or living like the rest of the adult world.
Alanon meetings have helped me to deal with these emotions, especially since he and I have a son together, so some contact is necessary. Sounds like you and he have no need to keep in touch. Start taking care of you, figure out why this relationship seemed like a good idea. You are very smart and insightful. You deserve much better than what he had to offer.

LexieCat

Sounds to me like you dodged a bullet. I'm not dismissing your pain--that's real enough--but seriously, you deserve much better.

One of the things that is going on, I suspect, is the reluctance to face the fact that you were used. I get it--I've been used, and I'm a smart, competent, professional lady. Sucks to face it. But the sooner you can start processing this and healing from it, the sooner you can move on to a happier future.

Do you go to Al-Anon? If not, that might be a good place to start.

Hugs,

Cleo1234

I have not gone to any AlAnon meetings yet... i didn't think it was something i needed to do since i wasn't in the relationship any longer.

Cleo1234

double post

LexieCat

Well, there are people who go to Al-Anon who are still dealing with the effects of growing up in an alcoholic home. Alcoholic parents might be dead, but they are still suffering the EFFECTS. Many, many people continue to go long after their "qualifier" is out of their lives. The effects linger.

It sounds as if you are still affected, too. Al-Anon can help you sort that stuff out so you can be free.

Cleo1234

I am! I didn't think a 18 month relationship would have put me back so much.. but i put so much into the relationship in such a short time. I'm so mad that i enabled him for so long.... and now he has another girl doing it. When will he have to do it on his own. Makes me so angry!!!

LexieCat

He'll have to "do it on his own" when he is darned good and ready, and not one second sooner.

What he does or doesn't do is irrelevant to you. If you want to get better, YOU have be ready to make changes in your own life. You don't want to be stuck here a year from now, two years from now, still stewing over this guy who hurt you. There are a lot of nice men out there, and I, personally, am so pleased with my life as a single woman that I can't imagine how wonderful someone would have to be to disrupt my comfortable life.

There is happiness out there to be had. What are you waiting for?

Cleo1234

Thank you... I'm trying!

Cleo1234

My xabf just texted me tonight and said "please don't hate me.."

What do i say??

charis78

My god I've gotten the exactsame text before. In my case it was bs. He pulled me in and then basically started talking about how I'm the problem again. What do you want to say? Do you want to respond? You have to make this decision.

Personally I don't think he deserves a response. You could just say I don't hate you. What are u feeling?

charis78

Alcoholics have so much shame. Its really sad

Cleo1234

Now that we are broken up and can see clearly at all he did, i DO hate him!!!

2 months before we broke up he stole a check of mine and wrote it for $250.. i only found out because the bank called me.

The day i kicked him out he left to get boxes and came back drunk... we fought and he keyed my car on his way out. I saw it later that night.

I had to pay $600 to cancel his phone contract (in my name) because he must of sold the phone when he moved out. He said he would pay it back, but he never did.

I paid his car payment of $300 a month for 18 months and every other lithe thing we did together.

God,, I'm so angry... 5 months into the relationship i even took him and his 2 daughters to hawaii with my son and i. He was suppose to pay for half of it..... but the closer it got, he still didn't get a job and by then i felt awful to cancel the trip when all the kids were so excited.

Damn.... i did SOOOO much and i got **** on! All i did was worry and had anxiety the whole relationship. I tried so hard and invested so much into "us"

Then to top it off, he started to talk to an ex of his and make plans with her.

He would tell me that when he feels controlled that he rebels against it.


... and now just 3 months after our breakup, he's living with another girl.

I feel so broken and exhausted. I don't want to think about him anymore, but i can't stop... my mind just won't turn OFF!!

Cleo1234

.

charis78

He doesn't deserve a reply. What a (insert explecitive here, all appropraie)

I hope not replying empowers you. I kind of wish I had the opportunity to ignore his text. But he's finished with me

53500

I agree he does not deserve a reply. He deserves a bill for the money you spent on him. I guess most of it could be considered a gift while you were together but the $250 stolen check and the damage from vandalizing your car - those are crimes. You could tell him you're filing a police report, if you want to go that route.

Probably the best response is none at all. I've gotten into text fights and regretted it every time. There is something inane, to me anyway, about text fights.

The more time that goes by without contact, the easier it will be to move on with your life and not think of him.

Cleo1234

I actually did tell him i was going to file a police report. 2 months ago i wrote him a email about what he owed me for the check/phone/car ... he agreed to pay every 2 weeks. I never saw any money and contacted him again about it and he told me he got fired but still intended to pay.
I told him, if he didn't send me any money soon that i would file a police report for a fraud check and this is when we got into a brief text argument.

A few days later he texted me and said he sent me a check in the mail and i would get it in a few days.... WELL... he lied.. he never sent it. After that i had decide (for my own sanity) that i was going to let it go and go into NO Contact with him!! Since then i have ignored his texts. I refuse to let him keep messing with my mind.

Last week he sent me a text asking if i can take him to small claims court instead.... but i never replied. Then last night is when i got the text of "please don't hate me" and again i don't plan to respond!

I know i should file charges to teach him a lesson, but i feel like it would drag out my own recovery with the whole process.

53500

Then not worth it. Geez what an a-hole he is! Keying your car! For some reason, out of all the awful things he did that really burns me. For one thing it was deliberate. For another I've had my car keyed. Not by someone I knew but it's still a terrible thing to go out and see.

It's good you're ignoring his texts!

hopeful4

This is the sign. A relationship with an addict who is on this path is destruction waiting to happen. I am so sorry this happened to you.

NotSoSmart

wow... with a few exceptions you just described my last relationship - when we got together she had no car, job or ambition... just an addiction. I paid for everything and went into lots of debt. I gave her my used car rather than selling it. I paid her way on vacations, racking up credit cards thinking she'd pay me back when she got a job. When she got one she didn't keep it and I never saw a dime of any paychecks. I thought it would be better when she finally got sober. It never got better - those behaviors are still there without the drink.
She too broke up with me and I did have that "WTF" feeling... that this person who did all this crap broke up with ME?? But that is not productive thinking.. I choose to think of it as God doing for me what I could not do for myself. I needed out of that toxicity but there was no way I was ready to do it.

What I needed to ask myself was why was I hanging on to a relationship that made me so unhappy? What I figured out is that for years I've been trying to fix something - before and early Al Anon I was trying to fix the A, get her sober/keep her sober. Once she got sober I spent energy trying to fix the relationship. When the relationship ended I was left with nothing left to fix - except myself. That was a project I'd been avoiding for years. Once I accepted that I need to focus on myself it got easier. But that took time.

Right now I do not have any A's in my life, however I will continue with Al Anon b/c I am affected by the disease. It is in my family, my last 2 relationships were A's. I do not want to hook up with another one and if I don't do my program, chances are I'll get right back on the merry go round to avoid feeling sad and lonely.