trailmix

hi jenous13 and welcome to SR, glad you have posted but sorry to hear about your situation, of course.

Hope you will stick around and start a new thread as well.

There is also a lot of information here at SR that you might find helpful, many helpful threads can be found here if you are interested:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...c-reading.html (Classic Reading)

velma929

Set aside the alcohol.
He has cheated on you. He has ignored you for days at a time. Now think, "Does it matter *why* he did this?"

I I had the benefit of 50-year old me whispering in my 28-year-old ear,"He won't outgrow this. This is as good as it gets, and it will get worse." I hope I'd have headed for the hills. I'll be really honest: I didn't date a lot. I had an okay job and friends but I thought I'd never get another chance to get married. It seemed like all my friends were in relationships and I didn't want to die alone.

I would have gotten another chance, they weren't all in happy relationships, and dying... well that's something we all must face one day, on our own terms, whether or not people are around us.

I prepared to leave a couple times, but never did. My husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness the day I decided to separate. He died soon after.

Looking for a life partner at 50 or 60 is way more complicated than in your twenties. If your desired partner is a man, demographics are against you. There just aren't as many. The ones that remain are aware it's a buyer's market. Dating sites were full of men who didn't want a relationship with a woman past her forties.. Even setting aside that: you have a career, you likely have a settled home, and friends, and hobbies and a life and so does everyone else your age. The idea of picking up and moving and starting over isn't awfully realistic. It just isn't.

Your consort hasn't tried AA and doesn't think rehab will help. Doing nothing isn't working , is it?

Leelee168

The good times were very good, but when I look back, there were not that many of them. Would I leave again? Yes, absolutely, and sooner than I actually did.

His behavior is showing you how much respect he has/had for you. I'm sorry if that is harsh. If you want years of pain and humiliation, then by all means stay. If not, get out now. It's not worth the price you will pay for your sanity and for the damage to your soul.

FallenAngelina

Just want to offer an alternative experience for anyone who is setting out again later in life. This is my age cohort and there are many men who are looking for age comparable partners. The world has changed and gone are the days when all couples slog it out til one drops off the earth. Many more couples than ever are choosing divorce when the children leave the nest because now we have many more healthy years ahead of us than any humans in history. Lots of good men are looking for long term partners their age with whom to enjoy a long and fulfilling "third act." I see this all around me in my peers and I see it on dating apps, now that I've ventured forward to explore them.

"All the good ones are taken (or dead!)" is a mind set, not a fact. One can have this limiting belief at 30 just as one can have it at 60, but believing this only serves one purpose: to limit. The truth is that our world is full of many wonderful, eligible older men who want us. The question is - are we open to what these wonderful, healthy, untroubled men have to offer?

biminiblue

I agree, FallenAngelina! I have seen many women in their sixties and seventies get married. In just the last five years, three of my condo neighbor ladies have gotten married. One is 75, one is 70 and the other is 67.

Age is only a limit if you decide it is.

honeypig

I'd just like to say that for me, NOT being married or in some kind of serious relationship is working out very well. I would never have believed this when XAH and I first split; I'd ALWAYS been with someone since the age of 15 or so, and I was 55 when we split.

I was terrified of being alone, really scared. And while it does have its inconveniences (only one set of hands to clean the house, grocery shop, take dogs out, mow the lawn--no delegating of duties!), it has turned out to be so very, very worth it in terms of peace and freedom.

Of course, YMMV. This is just me. But I know there is a certain subset of us here on SR who are in the same situation, so I'm not alone in my feelings. Some of us find this not only an acceptable, but an enjoyable, way to live. I remember someone here, quite some time ago, saying "I'm able to take care of myself quite adequately, so if anyone is going to be a part of my life, they better be bringing added value!" So true, from where I sit now.

BellaBlue

I so wish I had had the wisdom to end our marriage when the drinking started causing problems, which truthfully, was from the very beginning. We separated several times over his drinking in the early years of our marriage, before we had children. I was young and knew nothing about alcoholism. In my codependent mindset, I believed he would settle down when we had children. Which, of course, he did not. It took 14 years of hell to finally pull the plug. The writing was always on the wall - I chose not to read it and we all paid a very high price.

XAH is long gone, having passed away from an alcohol/drug overdose, but the effects on me and my children continue. They are adults now - several have had issues with alcohol, one very, very seriously.

I wish I had never met that man. I wish I knew about alcoholism. I wish I had the strength to leave when I knew he was not a good husband or father. My life is still filled with regrets.

So run, while you can. Things will only get worse. He has proven who he is.

pdm22

Last year, I broke it off with him after a moment of realisation that he would forever be breaking his promises, lying and acting like a child until he hit rock bottom. After a couple of months I saw a major change and he seemed more of the man I believed he was. He calmed down the drinking, moved countries, loved his job, started earning a salary that made him proud and spoke of more insightful/meanful things with me.(Although, our conversations are always excellent, he became more self aware).


I think your instincts/ good senses were trying to help you out here, and the continued contact with him gave him the opportunity to present a better “self” to you. I agree with others, there’s so much secrecy involved around active addiction, usually even if the person is local to your area, what is actually shared and what you observe with your own 2 eyes ends up being just the tip of the iceberg. With distance, it becomes even harder to know what is really going on.

At any rate, I don’t know if it’s so much about the person hitting “bottom”, that is such an arbitrary concept anyways, and varies from person to person. He might go on like this indefinitely. I think it’s going to be more about what will be your “bottom”, and at what point will you decide you’ve had enough?

I did have 2 boyfriends like this in my 20s and I did break it off. One ended up sleeping with someone else, and the other one put his hands on me. Both struggled with alcoholism/ addiction. At the time I had some exposure to therapy, but I didn’t have a lot of therapeutic- type vocabulary yet. I didn’t know at the time that what I was doing was adhering to my own boundaries, I didn’t really even know that “boundaries” were a thing, I just knew those were things I couldn’t put up with. I didn’t like the substance abuse either, and at the time didn’t have thoughts of them changing; didn’t really think that way, but I knew that was another thing that was getting old and I didn’t want in my life. Both ended up getting worse, didn’t find recovery, and eventually died in their early 40s.

I don’t know, just from other people I have know, addiction can process slowly or quickly depending on the person and drug of choice. The 90% good, %10 not so good can easily flip, and before you know it, the addiction becomes this cloud of doom that permiates everything, and you’re holding on by a thread.

I saw it with a family member’s heroin addiction, that happened very fast. Within a year she wasn’t recognizable. She did go to rehab and got off the drugs, but she’ll be the first to admit the heroin addict guy she was with was her “real” addiction (obviously the drugs were an addiction too- and like with order of operations in math- that had to be dealt with first), and once she got off the drugs in rehab and couldn’t find him afterwards, she was able to move on. Didn’t stick with any kind of recovery or therapy or 12 step, didn’t work on her issues stuff, lots of med seeking type stuff now that doctors help fuel, and it just creates more chaos; the it’s-okay-if-I-drink-wine stuff, which I think is also a slippery slope after you’ve already had other addictions to other substances.. Basically, there’s still a lot of drama and issues and personality type stuff, but I’ll take how she is now over the heroin addicted version of her any day. But it’s still a lot of drama and issues and personality type stuff, you know? That part didn’t change.

I guess bottom line, you have a good chuck of info on him and how he is, and at this point it’s a matter deciding how much more time and effort you want to put into this?

velma929

Well, not ALL the good ones!

The facts are, where I live, there are 85 men for every 100 women, and that does not take into account different age brackets. The disparity in that ratio goes up as the population ages. It is a fact that women outlive men.

One of the things I had to do is to say to myself that it's up to me to make my life fulfilling, and that is my responsibility, whether I have a partner or not, whether I look for one or not. (Plenty of widows make a conscious decision not to re-couple, for various reasons).

It's also true that once I achieved that mindset (which would have been oh-so-helpful in my 20s before I married an alcoholic) my attitude improved, and so did what I wrote on dating sites, and how I presented myself. I have found someone- and he's a blessing in many ways. In all ways.

Sasha1972

FWIW - I've had both experiences. I dated and met someone in my late 40s, and because he lives an hour away, I've also been living effectively as a middle-aged single woman with a kid (it's nice, in some ways - I have the benefits of living on my own without the pressure to "find someone", because I already did). I have found that living single is great - I enjoy it much more than I would have imagined when I was in my 20s and 30s and thought that marriage was the best that I could get.

It took a few years after getting out of marriage to the alcoholic for me to be in any kind of shape to even think about dating - but once I did, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found it not nearly as depressing as I thought it would be (although I have the advantage of living somewhere with a resource-extraction-based economy, which means the male-female ratio is more favorable than it would be in a lot of other places).

NYCDoglvr

Talk is cheap especially with alcoholics. With hindsight what I'd do is say call when you have a year of sobriety. It is a progressive disease he's shown no sign of actually stopping drinking and getting a plan.

mylifeismine

That " 10%"
will keep you
from ever having
a real and deepening intimacy
or safety
in your relationship.

PerSe

Smarie78

I echo all of what the above posters have said. I broke it off with my XABF over a year ago, and finally just went no contact over the last month. If I could turn back the clock I would have left sooner. He did the same things to me as you mention. Cheated on me repeatedly, went on binges where I couldn't locate him for weeks at a time and during that time I was a worried sick mess. He ruined furniture of mine, borrowed money he never paid back, abused me and I kept going back for more. I hate to break it to you, but he will not change, not with you around.
My X is still the same angry person he was before me and after me. The only good that came out of me leaving is that his binges decreased dramatically. Now it could be because he hit a pretty severe bottom, but more than likely because he was free to keep abusing me knowing I would always take him back. He lives with his mom now and knows he can't pull that stuff on her. So I do believe that has kept his drinking at bay.

Again, I'd only have left sooner because I spent 4 years in a really bad situation that stole a lot from me including strained relationships with family and more importantly, precious time. I am 41 now ad not getting any younger. Don't waste your "good years" sweetie.

Lunchbox1

hearthealth

Something happened last week. I realize if I ask the question "Is he a trusted partner, someone I can rely on?" If the answer is no, run. H has stopped drinking since I joined SR but his personality will always be what it is. If I look hard at my needs, it doesnt align with my needs.
H is acting like last week didn't happen. It did and I'm finally at a point that this circumstance can't make me unsee what I have seen.

NYCDoglvr

Yes, ask yourself if you trust and respect him. If the answer is no the relationship is already over and you should leave. One of my favorite Alanon sayings: "let go or be dragged"

sheepherder

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'd like to turn back the clock, but there's no app for that yet lol!!

The bigger question for me is why I've continued to stay. I'm still trying to figure that one out. That's why I'm here, to learn. The illusion of hope i suppose. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." Yikes.

I wish you well.

RollTide

YES! YES! and YES!

There is no way I could have known what it is like to live with an alcoholic. I thought insanity was just a word. I learned that it is a way of life.

I absolutely wish I had gotten out sooner. AND I am thankful each and every day that I did get out while I had at least one ounce of sanity left.

I would hold my head high and march straight into hell before I would spend one more day married to an alcoholic.

LifeChangeNYC

"I would hold my head high and march straight into hell before I would spend one more day married to an alcoholic."

Certainly sums up the devastation & insanity of addiction in one sentence, RollTide. Sad, but very true.