theuncertainty

JKSGRL, you're not pathetic. Please know that. You're _not_.

You had mentioned emotional, verbal and a few instances of physical abuse, so you might find the following blog post helpful:

https://avalancheofthesoul.wordpress...rauma-bonding/

(The only part I didn't find particularly helpful was towards the end of the post about being able to leave at any time. I think it was an over-simplified statement, which in some cases is not immediately true. ) In any case, it might help as you work through the why's.

maia1234

JKS- You are as addicted to him as he is to his addiction.

"Trying to talk with someone who is in love with an alcoholic, is often like trying to talk with the alcoholic, himself. They just aren't ready to listen."

Hugs my friend, and I am sorry!!

redatlanta

He would always tell me, once I moved there, married him and had a baby with him that he would have real purpose and life would be good, he would no longer struggle with his addiction. I can’t believe I actually believed that once upon a time.

Bahahahahaa. Ok this ^^^. What this is is a life sentence of being tied to him. There is nothing about this person that remotely reflects marriage material, and certainly NOT parent material. I imagine he is about as interested in really being married, or having a baby as I am in a mastectomy. His motives are very transparent. He is simply looking for a meal ticket dear.

Its very hard when someone is a total loser and WE love them, to be burned by them. You sound like you have a good life, yet you have hinged your value on the "love" of an immoral human being. WE don't lift people to our level (an all powerful codie jedi mind fallacy), THEY drag us down to theirs. That is what your association with him will always be, and it will never change.

Move along.

JKSGRL

Thomas45 you are SO RIGHT! Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even give a guy like him the time of day. Still crazy to me that he always felt he was such a catch and would tell me he could have any woman he wanted. I believed the hype and the list I made doesn't even scratch the surface of what a loser he really is (boy do I hate to admit that). My girlfriends always tell me it was a fluke that a woman like me even gave him a chance. Yes everyone in my life was disgusted by the situation which somehow only drew me closer to him. I was convinced they just didn't know him like I knew him and he had all the potential in the world to be something great. I think it made me work harder trying to get him to be better so I didn't feel so foolish. I had put so much time, money and energy into this guy, I just couldn't let it go down like that.

In January things started to change for me, I started working on myself. He had relapsed just before I was supposed to move out there, the deal was, stay sober and have a job for 3 months and I'll come out there. Well that happened but wouldn't you know he choose to relapse a week before my arrival saying he was stressed out that I was moving fast enough and I was putting too much pressure on him to be someone he wasn’t. Hell I just wanted him to be a productive part of society, pull his own weight and work on his sobriety because it was literally killing him! Aren’t these things any normal person should WANY anyways? Since then he has become progressively worse. I finally started laying down more boundaries and conditions to protect myself, hoping in the meanwhile I would either learn to move on or he would finally get his **** together.

And here I am....moving on....just still struggling with the fact that someone I really loved and believed in, was just in fact using me in all the worst ways. That’s hard to swallow even though I know by now it was likely I was just in love with the idea of him. You know alcoholics have a way of making things very passionate and intense and I think I mistook that for “true love”.

JKSGRL

You're very right but I am ready to listen, that's for sure.

JKSGRL

Thank you again theuncertainty, you have been extremely helpful and supportive! That really means a lot!

JKSGRL

WOW, hard to read but very eye opening! It's true, very true. I am healing that's for sure, I have no desire to ever hear from him or about him, that's a HUGE relief but now I am left with the after math and trying to clean up the mess. But you are right, I do have a good life, a really, really good life and this experience has taught me to finally appreciate that!

Most days, most moments I feel FREE. Even when I thought I was being strong and laying down boundaries, cutting him off here and there, I was still so consumed by HIM, I still didn’t want to completely let go, now I am ready. NC is the ONLY way to truly heal and see things for what they really are. I ALWAYS caved because I just had to know and I needed to hear, “I do love you and I am sorry” but they were just words.

I am still shocked that I went through all that I did and saw it as LOVE, but being away from it, even in just 2 weeks I see right through what he was doing and how he was REALLY feeling. Here I was on one end believing we had this passionate, romantic love story. I really truly stopped living my life and I was obsessed with everything he was and was doing or not doing and here all along I was just the girl that gave him ego boosts and paid his cell phone bill. YUCK! I want to bitch slap myself and at the same time give myself a big hug and say “it’s ok that you got it wrong, it’s OVER and you did the best you could.” I could NEVER go back to being that person and allowing someone like him in my life, NEVER. I am so relieved I feel that way, that I no longer feel I NEED him in my life or need his love to make me feel “special”, looking back now, he really only ever made me feel like a bad person, like a loser myself and that is NOT the case, I am not sure why I tried so hard to prove that to him.

LexieCat

Of course, you also have only his word that he was sober up until the "relapse" just before you were to move out. I had 2-3 months away from my first husband around the time that we got married, and in retrospect I think he was drinking that whole time. I wanted things to work out, so badly, that I ignored the fact that they were likely to work out so badly. What a difference a comma makes.

JKSGRL

Oh my, you're right Lexie, I couldn't really tell if he was sober that whole time! Looking back he was pretty distant but he told me it was because he was so focused on work and his sobriety, yeah that was most likely ANOTHER lie.

Thank god he called me up smashed and blaming me for relapsing, because as lame as that was, I got this feeling in my gut of, no, DON'T DO THIS. He still continued to blame me over the last 9 months for the vicious cycle, for his alcholism getting worse. It was about be not moving there or allowing him to move in here with me. Even his best friend got on my case and blamed me for the exA spirling out of control.

And every damn time I planned a trip to see each other face to face to see if he was really serious about things, he screwed it up somehow. I told him that if he stayed sober (hell towards the end I just wanted him to have the drinking in control) I would come see him and we would try to work this out, I would take him to a rehab etc etc, but he would run off and go on binges with his "friends". Somehow he always turned it around on me and told me that if I really loved him unconditionally I would come see him and be with him regardless, that I was the one making excuses not to come see him.....yeah....it was never that I was protecting myself and just trying to get him to take me seriously....ugh.....

Well Lexie I guess you can confirm to me that moving there and marrying him wouldn't have made it any better!

Wisconsin

My AH's mother has flip flopped over the years in terms of her "allegiance." He lived with her for awhile during his 20s when he was active in his alcoholism, so she has seem first hand how awful he can be. He also worked very hard to make amends with her while he was in recovery during his early 30s. When he first relapsed, she was just sick about it, and called me regularly to check in on me and see how I was coping (especially after my own mother died).

Then, at some point, she decided that the only reason my AH was drinking was because he had to be on the road for work so much, and because for awhile there, he had to take a factory job in order to stay home. She became convinced that all he needed was a chance to work in his trade in our new/adopted city, and everything would be fine. It was the STRESS of working out of town, and the STRESS of working a factory job, that caused the relapse. *snort*

Well, shocker...he has been working in his trade in our new/adopted city for over a year now, and he has continued to get worse.

An A will always have people in his/her life who are willing to make excuse after excuse for his/her behavior, and willing to opine endlessly about how "if the circumstances were just right," the A would get sober.

JKSGRL

It's funny that I had to remind myself that today would have been the day I was supposed to fly out to see him.....I am relieved that I'm no longer crying my eyes out about that crap, but I am still in disbelief that, that is how he left things. Almost 4 years together, another wasted chance at seeing each other and I wasn't even worth a word.....so strange that, that's how this whole thing ends. Guess that's just a harsh reminder of what this really meant to him, what I really meant to him.

JKSGRL

Thank you for sharing that Wisconsin! While I loathe that you have to be going through that on a day to day basis, that really helped me realize my choice is still a wise one. Being so far away from him and not having any ties to him should make me move on as fast as I can but it can still be hard, your story helped me! Good luck to you!