GoodguyJoel

Hello,

I am in a terrible place. My life just turned upside down. I have been with my fiancé for 4 and half years, and we got engaged last November (2016) when I asked her to marry me. She and I were madly in love, and it was the most magical experience of my, and her life. She was always asking me when I will ask her to marry her, and we planned our future, a move, a new home, we got a puppy, and we were going to make a family (only the puppy happened since I'm finishing my PhD this December).

Up until around a year and a half ago her drinking was just a bit different than normal, she liked to drink and have a good time. Then she started to get worse. She had financial issues prior to me, and had a large change of career direction. It didn't matter to me since we would eventually work past it and build our lives. As she took on a new career in real estate, she had a tough time working under a boss(previously a model, so she worked as her own boss essentially). I started to notice bottles in her purse of small bottles of wine. And eventually right around when we got engaged, she suffered a major seizure, which I now realize was from alcohol withdrawal. She came back after hospitalization, and eventually drank again, but left the team with a boss to create her own team, and still drank. She then had another series of seizures and the drinking picked up so large that she was drunk in front of an executive at the company holding her real estate license and they revoked it.

Fast forward. I went through living hell standing by her side trying to pick her up and support her through numerous recovery attempts. We also had many great times even though this was going on. From going to the hospitalizations, to driving her everywhere when her drivers license was with held for 3 months after each seizure.

Finally this got so bad, her mother and I got her to enroll in a long duration stay place with therapy. A wonderful place and we both had high hopes. She has now been there almost a month when this happened:

She told me she had always previously focused on everything but our relationship in therapy because we were fine, and in love. She then started to slow down in talking to me while there, and asked me to come for a family therapy session. I was worried we weren't ok and she sent me cryptic messages. I go home from work early to take care of our pup and get cleaned up to look good for our meeting the day of. She is at our house packing up all of her items and tells me nothing. My world is upside down and destroyed. I go to the meeting and she tells me she has to call off the engagement and leave me for good and is leaving her mother, me, and all relationships to move to a different state and is no longer staying in the program. She gave me the ring back and was not willing to discuss a future.

I am so entirely confused because she says we would be unhappy if we stayed together and she made this understanding over the past two weeks since I visited her last in her therapy home when she last said she loved me and that we are totally fine. so in two weeks she said she better understood the past two years and that it wasn't right, but we got engaged last November where she was so incredibly happy. This is all so confusing and I can't make any sense of any of it. She is leaving me and our proto-child, the dog, and is being so cold and seems to be cherry picking details which will help her separate. Our love is real and beautiful but says she no longer loves me and wants to be with me 0%. She is moving on Monday when she gets out to somewhere out of state and says she will be "safe". There's no infidelity, but her therapist has been helping her prepare to do all of this. He expressed his concern of the rate at which she is making these decisions, and finds her thought processes/reasoning extremely difficult to follow and complex. He cannot of course stop her, and is there to promote what she wants in life.

Meanwhile leaving me like a bag of rocks. After almost 5 years! Of me by her side, and our deep beautiful love. A planned wedding, and me about to finish my doctorate and plan our move to somewhere new together. All of our future is gone and thrown out and I can't make any sense of it or get real answers. She has only been sober a month, and I don't know if she is thinking clearly, or is she for the first time in a long time? Seems like she is dealing with so many emotions and just wants to flee it instead of facing it. And also won't talk to me, just wants to collect the last of her things and go. I am so hurt, this was my future, and I can barely hold it together because she was my everything. I am well educated to codependency, but our love was real and I gave it my all as any good spouse should do. I don't know how to understand this and don't know what to do. She wants to come tomorrow to get her last things and leaves Monday. No one around us, her family, her friends, my family...we all don't understand this and are shocked. This choice also is separating with her mother and she just broke the whole plan to leave to her last night. We are all so hurt and lost for answers, and don't want her to go. But she is bold and being unforgiving and it just seems like she is avoiding her problems rather than facing them. Oddly it seems like the therapist is allowing/promoting this.

What is going on in my life? Any one else experience this? I'm so destroyed, my life just changed two days ago and I had no sign of this coming. Me, and others said our relationship was beautiful and always admired our passion for one another. Now this

I'm so destroyed, any thoughts or comments would help, please!

GoodguyJoel

I should add I was not the reason she drank. She never attributed it to me.

ScottFromWI

Very sorry to hear this Joel. Addiction can make people do rash things, but is also possible that her decision has nothing to do with recovery or alcohol either. And unfortunately it's not always possible to know the answer to "why" people do what they do, even when it hurts. I'm assuming you've dismissed it with her, there's noting wrong with doing that of course. She could just need some time to sort things out, recovery is a difficult thing to go through and it takes time.

Eauchiche

Dear Joel
She is right that you are not the reason she drinks. That is probably the most truthful thing she has ever said to you.

My young friend, you have SO much going for you. You are finishing a PhD this year. Fantastic!!!

Your ex has given you a great gift in leaving you. You will avoid MANY years of the pain associated in living with an addict. I know this sounds blunt and harsh. If you read the posts on these forums, you will see what your life COULD have been like if you had stayed together. You weren't married, and you didn't have any human children together. You have avoided extricating yourself from those entanglements.

You, my young friend, have a rare intelligence that will help you coast through the recovery process in some ways the rest of us had to learn from the "school of hard knocks." I have read that people with high IQ's often have better recovery rates in the 12 step programs, like AlAnon.

You must simply be willing to start your own recovery process. You might also, at some point, ask yourself why you chose an alcoholic. We are here to support you!

totfit

She is not ready to be married. It seems not uncommon for someone to get sober and then leave a relationship. The sad part is that she is more likely to come crawling back if she is sick than well. I feel for you, but the best thing to do might be to wish her well and start another chapter in your life. I know it is not that easy, but time will make things more clear in hindsight.

Maudcat

Hi, Goodguy, and welcome.
Glad you found us.
I don't have personal experience with rehab, so can't really speak to it.
I know from posters to this site that yours is not an uncommon situation.
Partner goes to rehab and decides to make some major life changes, leaving friends and loved ones behind.
I think that she has her path to walk, and you must let her do it, however hurtful that is right now.
As someone has said on this site, "just because addicts get sober doesn't automatically make them good relationship material."
Take care of yourself.
Al-Anon is an amazing fellowship of people who have been right where you are now and come out the other side. You might want to check out a meeting or two.
Peace and good thoughts.

dandylion

Goodguy.......I am so sorry for the pain that you are going through. I can understand the shock and confusion that you are feeling, right now, And, I know that you feel like your whole world has been turned upside down, because it seems that your whole world has been woven around your plans with her.
I had a similar thing happen to me, at one time....not with an addict, but the time invested and the plans for the future were similar. I was a hot mess for several months....so, I think I have a good idea of what this is like, for you.

The breakup came just before he moved to another city to begin a surgical residency. We had been together as a couple (not living together, though) for the 4 years of his medical school....I had children from a previous marriage, but, could not have any more. Through sobbing tears, he informed me that he loved me profoundly, but, realized that he could not face a future without the possibility of having his own biologic children, in addition to mine. He had always talked about us getting married after he finished his schooling (he was 30yrs. old, at that time).
I felt like the rug had been pulled from under me. I thought that I would never be able to love again. I was so hurt, and disillusioned and grieving-full tilt. The water table dropped from the amount of tears that I shed. Up to that point, it seemed that we were soo perfect together.

***I had no way of understanding, at that time, that his moving so completely, and, so soon (2 weeks), was actually very fortuitous , for ME...even though I felt like a discarded candy wrapper, cast onto the side of the road.
If he has stayed close, I know that it would have been very drawn out....and, I would never have been able to fully grieve and accept it....but the distance and inability to see each other or rarely even talk was merciful, in the long run.
I had no other choice...no other option. I had to face it and the hard, cold reality.

Little did I know, lost in my grief, that, near the end of that pivotal year...I would meet the man that would become my sweet and wonderful husband. My husband made him look shallow and small, by comparison...lol.....

I am sharing this with you, as a way of telling you , that you are not alone and that it happens to the best of us.
Your future is unwritten, but, I want you to know that you will survive, no matter how it works out...not just survive...but, be able to thrive.....

Bekindalways

Welcome to the Forum Joel and so very very sorry for what brings you here.

Unfortunately many relationships don't survive recovery. The rule of thumb is to give folks a year of sobriety before even thinking about the relationship.

This is so so painful. It has been decades since I went through this pain and I still cringed in empathy when I read your post. Please circle every wagon of support you have. Going through this is no joke!!

NYCDoglvr

Reading your post made my heart hurt. When something this awful happens and we don't even know why, it is devastating. You must mourn and somehow go on. It's certainly not uncommon for people to exit rehab and break off relationships, but that doesn't help. A big hug.

FeelingGreat

hi Joel, no she probably isn't thinking clearly after one month but she is still doing you a big favour by being brutally honest with you.

You have a starry-eyed belief in how wonderful your life would be together, but the reality of living with an A is very far removed from that (read some of the threads) and becoming sober is often a complicated and drawn out process which never rules out the possibility of relapse.

Think about your future. Do you want children? What sort of home would you like to raise them in? As wonderful as your fiancee is, there is always the danger of her relapsing. There are wonderful people out there for you to meet.

KiKi0615

This.

Nola0250

And THIS.

You are clearly a very caring person and you deserve someone who sees who you are and appreciates it. Don't forget that. She did do you a huge service, even if it hurts like crazy right now.

velma929

He expressed his concern of the rate at which she is making these decisions, and finds her thought processes/reasoning extremely difficult to follow and complex.
She can be mentally ill, and an alcoholic.

CRRHCC

"she said she better understood the past two years and that it wasn't right,..."

So sorry for your pain. Perhaps, in retrospect she realizes that she was using you or perhaps she knows she needs to get out of town to clear her head.

Take a deep breath and be patient, not for her but for time to heal.
I know this sounds trite but it sounds like this may be better for both of you. Let her know you care and are available to talk. Then continue with your purpose in life.

Nola0250

Another thing I just remembered that has helped me get away from people that were damaging to me in the past: I had a particular relationship with a very sweet person who kept telling me he was not a nice man. When someone tells you straight up who they are (when they admit things about themselves which are not good), believe them.

atalose

I am sorry you are having to grieve the loss of this relationship and the life you imagined you would have with her in the future.

I think in time more will be revealed to you about yourself and about her.

Who knows why she is doing what she’s doing I don’t even think she knows. It’s the extremes with addiction, the all or nothing thinking. Its best not to try and figure her out right now but to figure yourself out.

What we don’t fix we repeat.

AnvilheadII

sadly, it is likely that the "wonderful" relationship you thought you were having is not what was really going on......it's virtually impossible to do so when one partner is steeped in addiction. we get moments between their highs and lows and cling to those.

she is pulling a geographical.........pulling up stakes and moving far away in hopes that a change of scenery and personnel will make it all better. however as the saying goes......wherever we go, there we are. her sudden change is upsetting and confusing for you. as it would be for anyone.

however you can't stop her. you can only accept that she has made this choice. you will, in time, come to realize that a true partner would not just bolt without a word or backwards glance.

GoodguyJoel

You are all so wonderful for your kind words of encouragement and understanding. I want to be clear, not just starry eyed:

I found out she is going to a sober living home. As anyone would say, be cautious going forward, take care of yourself, and don't expect miracles. I see this as her taking recovery serious this time and was guided to do a full separation, hence the help finding sober living housing.

I will not be holding my breath, and I do know my self worth, but it isn't absurd to think that some people have made full recoveries and some people have come back if the love is real. I know mine is. I know hers is. It's just a question of time will tell.

I am giving her her space and I am focusing on finishing my doctorate and finding a job. The loving person I am who has seen recovery in my own family who stuck it out, I understand why she might have to do this, however cruel it seems (mother stopped drinking long ago, never this severe). Blind hope is foolish, but educated knowledge is different and I will keep my prospects as there is a potential for return. But not hold out for too long. If the communication fully stops, so will I. I love her and I hope you all understand this. And I'm sure you are saying I am foolish and young, but as jaded as some can become, I am positive and optimistic in life. Everyone wants to judge, everyone thinks their clean. She is going to do whatever she is going to do, but I'm still here making the plans we had come true(finding a job in the location we both agreed we wanted to start a life, because it was also my dream).

Maybe she has given me a different gift, a gift of time and eventual clarity, and self care.

I do respect all your opinions, so please let me know what you think. I feel a breath of calm knowing she is going to sober living. Now I get to focus on me. If we talk again, I think I will be cautious, but let's see what happens. I will keep coming here and keep the conversation alive, I need it, and am of course still in mourning.

I love her, and want whatever it takes for her to get sober. But I love her, so I also can keep the dream alive. Before she left, she took a beautiful picture of the location of where I asked her to marry me, and posted it on Facebook. It is her profile pic too now, and hasn't removed the status of engaged to me.

dandylion

Goodguy...I hope that she embraces recovery........
And, .....glad that you are feeling some better....

Bekindalways

Joel, I'm so glad to hear she is going to a soberliving house. I thought she was just moving cold to a new area.

Again please take good care of yourself. Big hug!