Intervention for the Codependent: Love Addiction
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Definitely, and the scary part is that there is often no warning. It just happens. You just don't know the internal demons other people are trying to control - I think that's the scary part. Another drunk person could just as easily expend the same energy being silly & goofy & harmless.
She left with the clothes on their backs that day - that was it. The cops told her not to return to the home for 7 days (or something like that) because although they were arresting him & advising him to leave the home, but she'd also need to get protective orders in place. By the time she got back into the house he'd destroyed every single thing they owned. Clothing, toys, furniture.
She STILL hesitated when it came time to do the paperwork while I stood there astonished that she would even question the necessity of it. How could she NOT see the abuse? (I knew SO little about all of this, how her way of measuring "normal" had slowly disintegrated while dealing with the increase of abuse.) How could she even consider giving him a pass?
It took her a very long time but she went back to school while working nights & bought her first home a few years ago. She has become a totally different person over these years & my niece is only JUST starting to separate herself from all of that BS that happened so long ago. She still has a long way to go & is in NO way recovered or recovering but she has come a long, long way.
She left with the clothes on their backs that day - that was it. The cops told her not to return to the home for 7 days (or something like that) because although they were arresting him & advising him to leave the home, but she'd also need to get protective orders in place. By the time she got back into the house he'd destroyed every single thing they owned. Clothing, toys, furniture.
She STILL hesitated when it came time to do the paperwork while I stood there astonished that she would even question the necessity of it. How could she NOT see the abuse? (I knew SO little about all of this, how her way of measuring "normal" had slowly disintegrated while dealing with the increase of abuse.) How could she even consider giving him a pass?
It took her a very long time but she went back to school while working nights & bought her first home a few years ago. She has become a totally different person over these years & my niece is only JUST starting to separate herself from all of that BS that happened so long ago. She still has a long way to go & is in NO way recovered or recovering but she has come a long, long way.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
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She tried, despite my objections.
At first he took her for visitation & I would pace the floors all night wondering where she was, if she was warm/cold/fed. If he was off doing drugs or doing them right there in the room with her.
See - sis went back to school while working & I became niece's primary. She stayed with us 4-5 days per week even after they moved out. It was awful to be in charge of this child & have ZERO say in how anything was handled.
Then, on her 8th birthday he just didn't show up for her party. He moved out of state with his druggie girlfriend (who had also had him arrested for DV but dropped the charges before running away with him).
Over the years he's claimed to be dying from cancer (multiple times), suffering from a broken back & afflicted by I-don't-even-know how many diseases that were killing him slowly in his 20's & 30's.
They had 3 kids & moved back to FL a couple of years ago, probably 6-7 years after she'd last seen him - then the wife left him AND the kids. (3 girls, ages 6 months-5 years.)
My sister only heard from him when he called asking her to reduce his Child Support - which made her laugh.. WHAT CS? Turned out he'd finally had to get a real job when he ended up with the 3 kids & they had been hitting him with back child support for months but hadn't informed my sister.
She immediately gave in- calling it being the bigger person, etc. I. Lost. My. Mind. & my side of that phone conversation is still a story around the office....... I let loose about here she was AGAIN doing for him. She tried to turn on me - so I think it's OK to take food out of those other 3 kids' mouths even though she's been supporting her daughter just fine without him?
No you (censored) - I'm saying it's up to HIM to call CS & reapply for the reduction - the process is the same no matter who calls so why do YOU have to do this FOR him????? smh...
Then he disappeared even though he kept pressing hard to try to reestablish a relationship with DN.....of course, I was right, he only cared until the CS situation was resolved & then he disappeared AGAIN only now she feels not only abandoned but abandoned for his other 3 daughters as well. In her mind she KNOWS, but her heart hurts in ways I can't fix.
She has contacted him through my sister asking him to sign off on letting her change her last name but he refuses to respond. Looks like she'll just have to wait another year until she turns 18 & do it herself.
At first he took her for visitation & I would pace the floors all night wondering where she was, if she was warm/cold/fed. If he was off doing drugs or doing them right there in the room with her.
See - sis went back to school while working & I became niece's primary. She stayed with us 4-5 days per week even after they moved out. It was awful to be in charge of this child & have ZERO say in how anything was handled.
Then, on her 8th birthday he just didn't show up for her party. He moved out of state with his druggie girlfriend (who had also had him arrested for DV but dropped the charges before running away with him).
Over the years he's claimed to be dying from cancer (multiple times), suffering from a broken back & afflicted by I-don't-even-know how many diseases that were killing him slowly in his 20's & 30's.
They had 3 kids & moved back to FL a couple of years ago, probably 6-7 years after she'd last seen him - then the wife left him AND the kids. (3 girls, ages 6 months-5 years.)
My sister only heard from him when he called asking her to reduce his Child Support - which made her laugh.. WHAT CS? Turned out he'd finally had to get a real job when he ended up with the 3 kids & they had been hitting him with back child support for months but hadn't informed my sister.
She immediately gave in- calling it being the bigger person, etc. I. Lost. My. Mind. & my side of that phone conversation is still a story around the office....... I let loose about here she was AGAIN doing for him. She tried to turn on me - so I think it's OK to take food out of those other 3 kids' mouths even though she's been supporting her daughter just fine without him?
No you (censored) - I'm saying it's up to HIM to call CS & reapply for the reduction - the process is the same no matter who calls so why do YOU have to do this FOR him????? smh...
Then he disappeared even though he kept pressing hard to try to reestablish a relationship with DN.....of course, I was right, he only cared until the CS situation was resolved & then he disappeared AGAIN only now she feels not only abandoned but abandoned for his other 3 daughters as well. In her mind she KNOWS, but her heart hurts in ways I can't fix.
She has contacted him through my sister asking him to sign off on letting her change her last name but he refuses to respond. Looks like she'll just have to wait another year until she turns 18 & do it herself.
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Join Date: Jun 2006
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My exab was never physically violent towards me. He certainly had anger issues and I certainly would hear his rants and raves about who angered him, I was never in that equation. So I used to hold onto that fact as a sort of insurance policy that he would never get violent with me. Towards the end I really could say he was totally out of his mind, the amount of prescription drugs he was taking I could honestly say I didn’t know this person anymore, I didn’t trust this person anymore and I needed to calmly and quickly get myself out and away from him.
We just don’t know how or when someone might snap so it’s best to always err on the side of caution
We just don’t know how or when someone might snap so it’s best to always err on the side of caution
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
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Well, this is not at all the memory lane I expected to be tripping down today. I admit - it's gotten me pretty emotional, I haven't thought about a lot of this stuff in years.
I wish I knew then what I know now, but truth is that I made a lot of mistakes.
My sister stayed in this relationship "for the baby" - she'd already planned on leaving him when she found out she was pregnant, but they got married instead.
I know this is a big reason why one of my personal triggers is hearing someone say that they are staying "for the kids"....... it never, ever works out for the kid's benefit because even if they are lucky enough to have a semi-decent relationship with the addict-parent for a while, children do not have the ability to separate their parent from the addiction. The don't know the fine art of detachment.
So later you wonder, what was real? Who was that person, really? How did we all have to change in relation to that in order to make it tolerable & who would I *really* be if I wasn't so affected by all of this & if we'd all just addressed the elephant in the room? How many of my traits are inherent qualities that are *mine* & how many are defense mechanisms I've developed in reaction to my home life?
It's a crazy kind of identity crisis - you question everything about how you're built from very deep inside.
I wish I knew then what I know now, but truth is that I made a lot of mistakes.
My sister stayed in this relationship "for the baby" - she'd already planned on leaving him when she found out she was pregnant, but they got married instead.
I know this is a big reason why one of my personal triggers is hearing someone say that they are staying "for the kids"....... it never, ever works out for the kid's benefit because even if they are lucky enough to have a semi-decent relationship with the addict-parent for a while, children do not have the ability to separate their parent from the addiction. The don't know the fine art of detachment.
So later you wonder, what was real? Who was that person, really? How did we all have to change in relation to that in order to make it tolerable & who would I *really* be if I wasn't so affected by all of this & if we'd all just addressed the elephant in the room? How many of my traits are inherent qualities that are *mine* & how many are defense mechanisms I've developed in reaction to my home life?
It's a crazy kind of identity crisis - you question everything about how you're built from very deep inside.
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 6,262
What Alanon taught me is what I called "love" was really need. And if I don't think it's an addiction, then look at the traumatic withdrawal from a situation that was painful and self-destructive. Thanks for posting this.
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Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Midwest
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"If only I could figure out how to solve the puzzle of our relationship, make the reality match the fantasy in my mind—but I failed every time I tried."
Man oh man that article really touched me. Thank you for sharing. It's been a hard day for me.
Man oh man that article really touched me. Thank you for sharing. It's been a hard day for me.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
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My personal derailing of this thread aside, after re-reading the original article linked in the OP I can't help but bump this for newbies that might not have found it in the sticky section just yet.
We often discuss how we are just "as sick" on our side of things & this article really highlights how those feelings of "terminal uniqueness" don't just apply to those addicted to substances.
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