atalose

I don’t know anyone who’s made a full recovery from addiction as addiction is lifelong. I do know many people who have arrested their disease and continue to keep it arrested by faithfully committing sobriety to themselves every single day and attending AA or some other kind of outside help to remain that way.

I would say that most of the people here at SR loved their qualifiers and felt the qualifiers loved them back and that it was real but love does not cure or fix addiction, if it did none of us would be here today. There would be no need for rehabs or sober living or 12 step programs.

I am glad you are feeling better that she is going to sober living, another opportunity for her I hope she embraces it.

Letting go of obsessing over her issues frees up energy to focus on you.

GoodguyJoel

Hello again everyone. Thank you kindly for the responses.

I had to see her yesterday to grab her things, and she was with a guy that was also in the therapy rehab with her. She grabbed a few last things and then she was off. I wanted to be clear so I asked the guy (who struggles with work and sleeping pill addiction) if they were having a relationship. He said no. Then I asked if they plan to. He said no "but I will be completely honest with you it isn't like it hasn't crossed my mind." She is a beautiful model, so I hope I am just looking to deeply into this and he is being honest with me...like any single guy would say. He also said that what they are doing is separating from the potential triggers so that the situation doesn't go circular.

I am speaking with her therapist today that was at rehab, and am going to ask the simple question:

Something quite suprising happened today, and her family and best friends are continuously looking to me for answers. Is what she is doing part of the program (i.e. sober living)? Is she going to somewhere where she is going to an established system, with accountability? Were you aware she was going with ____NAME____ (I know his full name from having met him earlier when I was there)?


....I don't want details, I just want to know if this was part of the program to go with a "sober buddy," because now my head is spinning wondering the worst... rehab romance?

She goes between mean/cold to "yeah I remember how the nice things were with you" (i.e. Me: "you know the puppy misses you?" Her: "yeah because I am mom and always will be!" said nicely).

I have to say as a consensus from all involved, we are all (family/friends) thoroughly confused by her actions as she is brief, wont answer any questions, and EXTREMELY cold to some of us.

I am really doing no better than I was the other day, but I just don't know what to think. I don't know if this is truly over, or if she is not clearly thinking yet, and is attempting to find that. She left numerous things at my house, so I will have to eventually see her again. She posts that picture on her facebook background of where we got engaged but can quickly spout things like "sell the ring" all cold, all within two weeks! Then she unfriends me. What the hell am i dealing with here?

In my opinion it is a person putting up a wall who hasn't and can't yet deal with emotions or relationship ordeals. She may have some harsh feelings about things that may or may not have happened in our relationship, but is not ready to confront them, especially with me, so hence she just blocks it out.

On the other end of the spectrum...this may be it. This may truly be over. But I know she will likely think things through and see that what her problems with me were, were not enough to say "we aren't compatible (I mean come on, after 4 years and an engagement? sounds like shaky cold feet and instant wall being put up against closest ones, a la the words of Floyd P. Garret M.D.)." Recognize how things really went, and have to own up to what she has done to everyone. This is what is supposed to happen in these "detachment" programs...become accountable to self since no one else is there to blame.

I am still starry eyed because I do genuinely love her. She wasn't drunk the whole time we were together so I have to say I do know her real self...but after the addiction, there is a potential that she has changed.

I just need some words of encouragement. I need to know if this was something I did or not? I need to know I am not alone, that this has happened to others? What about successes? What about failures to return? Has anyone dealt with the recoveree becoming cold to you immediately after the first month of sobriety? Am I just crazy about why that guy was there to drive with her to sober living? She told her sister she will only be gone a month...but who knows at this point.

I miss her immensely and am going to try to go to an Al Anon meeting tonight. I hope they wont just say "screw her move on." I already accepted that as one of the options...but if she returns (and at some point she will, whether it be for the last remaining things or because she found her feelings about me), then I do not know how to handle it at this stage...

any more thoughts would be helpful...and thank you all again.

dandylion

Goodguy.....I am glad to hear that you are going to an alanon meeting, tonight. You need to be in a room with other humans that understand, beyond mere words. Don't worry...they are not going to say what you fear that they are...lol...
They will be familiar with the pain that you are feeling, if you didn't even say a word.....

I am glad that you read Floyd P. Garrett, also! Shows that you are really trying, hard......

I will make one comment, for your consideration....you can assume that the alcoholic process was going on before you began to notice her as "drunk". You would have to be inside her skin to know all that has been going on within her....
You won't know the real her (as much as we can know another person), until she has fully embraced recovery long enough for her to start living outside of the alcoholic bubble.....long enough for her to drop the defenses that she has built up to protect herself from the realities of life...
All you can do for her is to give her the space to work her recovery the way she is going to do it (or not).....

Meanwhile, you can't let Goodguy sit on a shelf, waiting to see how her life will unfold. You have to live life in 24hr. segments, too....Your life is just as important as hers. Your happiness is in your own hands, just like hers is in hers.
You have to be a fully functioning and actualized person, no matter what happens....if you want to ever be happy, in a solid, lasting way....
You need to be, if she ever returns...and, you need to be if she doesn't....
Whatever this world throws at you (and, we all get monkey poo thrown at us, sometimes), you are in charge of your own self and your own happiness....
So. you have a lot to keep you busy, while she is absent.....(one silver lining).....

LostinLB

I can't tell you how much I relate to what you are going through. I am in the exact same position. This is going to be kind of long.

I was with my fiance for 11 years. I met him when he was sober and working a good recovery program. When we met he was 4 years sober. He made it another 5. At 9 years sober and 5 years into our relationship is when it all started to fall apart. We were engaged by then and actively trying to figure out where to get married. Things started to get weird with him, he was angrier and moodier than normal and eventually I found out he was abusing pills. I was shocked but had no idea what I was in for in the coming years. Our relationship was very loving and supportive and seemed very healthy. My co-dependency was not triggered until he started using and it was a slow spiral to me being as out of control as he was ( I was in denial about this in the beginning of his using). It was easy to justify my behavior because of what he was doing and how he was acting. Anyway, he would get sober again for a little while and then start using again, but he never really found recovery again until just recently. Each relapse was worse than before, it truly is a progressive disease and my disease of co-dependency progressed with it. When he first relapsed I did everything I was supposed to do - I started therapy, I went to al-anon meetings, I moved out of our house. I did think that if he got sober it would go back to how it was. I held onto that for years. I would look at my engagement ring as a reminder that it had been so good and we could overcome this.

At an al-anon meeting after I shared about what I was going through a woman came up to me afterwards and said - I shouldn't be saying this to you, but my son recently died of his disease and his fiance who is around your age is suffering so much. She said run, leave, get on with your life, he will destroy you, I have watched it happen to her. I was like (to myself) woman you don't know me or my fiance, he isn't like that. I couldn't hear what she was saying, I was in complete denial of how bad it could and would get. Now 6 years later of toughing it out I wish I had listened to her. I have been destroyed by his actions and my own.

So how our story ends is that after all those years he found himself in some legal trouble. The charges against him would be dropped if he completed a year of treatment. A mix of inpatient, day treatment, out patient and sober living. About a month into treatment he was thanking me for staying by his side and that once he had some time under his belt we should start a family. We both wanted that and I thought thank god we finally are going to make it through this, he was so thankful and dedicated to his recovery. He believes that the next relapse he will not survive and he will do anything to keep that from happening. Then 1 month later he told me he didn't want to continue the relationship any longer and he wanted to date someone he met at rehab.

He has literally walked out of my life, he turned his back on me and our dogs and will not communicate with me in any way at this time. That was 2 months ago. 11 years and he will not even return an email and has my number blocked on his phone. I personally think he can't face all the damage that was done to our relationship and it is easier to just walk away. We were communicating at first and trying to have some kind of friendship between us, but then he started to date another girl (like 2 weeks later) and he was like stop contacting me I am moving on with my life and being in contact with you is affecting my new relationship - a relationship which is very important to me. !!!!!! Even just writing that is like a knife in my heart.

I think I saw it on here that codependents grieve and addicts replace. It is so true. I still cry every single day over this. I feel better at times, but some days it knocks me on my ass.

I have come to realize that he (or God) is doing what I couldn't do for myself - leave. It doesn't make it hurt any less and it might even make it worse. I think I would feel better about myself if I had been the one to walk away, but I didn't and I am taking this time to really experience the feelings and work through them and do a lot of self-care.

I am posting all of this just to say I am right there with you. I know exactly what you are going through and I hope that you don't have to endure all the pain I had to. I hope you get answers one day, just as I hope I do. I keep hearing if it is meant to be it will be and to let go and let god. I am trying to embrace that. I hope we both find the healing we need to move forward and one day we can look back on this time and understand it.

xoxo

redatlanta

Hi joel - I am responding to this thread after reading your other one which was locked. I hope that you will continue to post here.

Its human nature to alleviate pain. What has happened to you has happened to others, and the natural process (usually) would be to seek ending the pain by hoping, and/or wanting the person back in our lives that caused us the pain, to end the pain.

The people who hurt us wont heal us, they usually will just cause further hurt. The alleviation of pain in a circumstance like this where its beyond normal, hurtful things that we all do, is worthy for you to thing about in a different way.

One of the things that I did in my relationship was to excuse often abominable behavior blaming the addiction, rather than where it should have been placed - on the person. Not all addicts are unfaithful, not all are abusers, not all are thiefs. Many are good people.

Alcoholics have behaviors and personalities, and moral compasses that have nothing to do with their addictions. Its just who they are. Take away the alcohol and you still have issues - obviously your fiance was sober in rehab yet she cheated on you subsequently leaving you in a very horrible and callous way. I urge you to focus on the actions here. Lets say she wasn't an addict, people do this that aren't addicts , would you be wanting her to return to you? Would you trust her? Do you think you could overcome her being unfaithful, and leaving you for someone else?

I do understand very much the process of hope, and wanting that pain to end. Keeping the door open a little, or a lot, for the dream of what should have been. Loving the person and wanting them to be healthy and safe, worrying about what could happen to them. Wanting a return on investment, its a lot of time spent to end up not having it work out.

I encourage you to hold your Ex responsible and accountable in every way for what she did, you owe yourself that. Time is what's needed to get perspective, certainly for such a serious relationship its not all going to be solved emotionally for you a month out. Most of us have been where you are in some way and no one comes here and snap figures it all out quickly. Most of us stay, try try again, and get back on the merry go round many times. Wishing you the best in healing and moving forward whatever moving forward entails. Be sure to keep you and your happiness and what you want in a partner (realistically, not dreaming of what you wish someone would be as opposed to who they really are) in the forefront.

Clover71

You mentioned you don't think anyone else understands you. It sounds to me like it was you and her against the world type situation and that perhaps you have been pretty isolated. I became very isolated - it happened over time. Some of it was circumstantial (moving, etc) and some of it was do to that me and him against the world stuff. He has isolated himself, and I felt like I had to keep him company. I didn't realize how isolated I had become until I stepped out and connected with others. I Started to do this when we were apart due to work circumstances. The only advice I have is to allow others in and allow yourself to step out. I don't even mean with what you have going on. Not everyone needs to know your story or understand you or this "situation". I hope that makes sense