PuzzledHeart

Smarie, I hesitated before responding to this thread. For a decade, my sister has been going out with a man who abuses pot. Frankly, I don't really care about him. What I do care about is the way that my sister's character disintegrated as their relationship progressed. The number of bald-faced lies that came out of her mouth was frankly astounding.

I do know that she asks other people if she should stay with him, and the answer is "no". She sacrificed her dignity, her marriage, her relationship with her kids, her relationship with my parents, her relationship with me, her relationship with her friends, her own financial security, and God knows what else to fuel that black hole of a relationship. I do wonder if she feels that she's brought so much shame upon herself that she might as well stay with him since nobody wants to talk to her anymore. It's too painful to see what she's become.

YOU are NOT at that place. You still talk to your parents and your siblings. You have a job. You have friends. But the longer you stay with him, you invite an insidious corrosion that will threaten the relationships that you hold most dear. You will not be able to say that you didn't know it was coming. You will not be able to say that you weren't warned.

I'm not exactly Miss Goody Two Shoes. I had that two relationships that humiliated me. I tolerated things that I thought I would never tolerate, including infidelity. Looking back at it now, I think it was my own self-inflicted punishment for not being capable of having a successful relationship. All my friends were getting married - so I attached myself to men that guaranteed an outcome - even if that outcome was something undesired. Why put myself through the disappointment of falling in love with somebody and risk my heart being shattered in a million pieces? If I dated someone sketchy, at least I knew what I was getting in for, and I wouldn't have to deal with the disappointment of a dream that didn't come true.

I didn't come up with this revelation until YEARS later. If you're hoping to find a similar explanation for your actions with the expectation that THAT will spur you to a breakup, you could be waiting for a very long time. All you know is that he doesn't bring out your best. He encourages you to increase the distance between you and the people closest to you. You don't have to know why you wanted to stay with him. All you have to do at this moment is just end it. It will hurt. BUT, you may ALSO feel a sense of elation when you do the thing you most fear. I know I did with Bad Relationship #2. He physically threatened my friends, and that's when I finally snapped.

Hugs to you, and courage!

FireSprite

Honestly, it sounds to me like you're projecting. None of what you shared about your sister translates to what you wrote in the quoted section above - but I wonder, do YOU feel that way & presume that others do too? If so, that's YOUR internal judgment externalizing itself - blameshifting in a way. You've shared that this relationship has turned you into a liar & degraded every other relationship of value in your life, etc - that CANNOT feel good! I know that one of the biggest hurdles I had in early recovery was accepting that I did not like myself any longer - that my own behavior & moral code had eroded in ways I was NOT ok with as a result of my codependent mindset & in an effort to keep up the charade that had become my life.

Then remove the elephant. It doesn't sound like you're all tiptoeing around the beast though, it sounds like she's calling it for what it is & you don't care for her real-talk or boundaries.

I'm sorry to hear that you continue to struggle with this Smarie. From my perspective, you have SO MUCH MORE out there waiting for you whenever you're ready to let go of what is not serving you any longer (if it ever did).

Smarie78

Thank you all...Puzzled...I am going through that now. It's painful, but I can get through it.

Fire- you are 100% correct. I am projecting. My sister is angry and disappointed and frustrated, just the identical feelings I have toward Abf. But no, she doesn't hate me like I felt she did when I drafted that post. In the last couple of days, per another thread, I have had some developments in the relationship where I am choosing to leave. I'm scared, but I am doing it. My sister doesn't even know what is going on, and even then she is still treating me good. She always has, I will jst notice she will have moments of anger and frustration toward me. But it passes and she puts it aside and still treats me with love.

Tomorrow she invited me to the beach with her and the boys and it's going to be very hot where we live. She's so excited that I said yes and they are going to pick me up early from work. And she calls me still everyday just to laugh and chat eventhough we work together. I know she loves me and cares for me and just wants to see me free and happy.