Confused2020

This was incredibly insightful and helpful to read. There isn’t anything that I can do, if he’s not ready to get help. Maybe the only thing to do is try somehow not to take his bs actions personally and move on.

Confused2020

I just wanted to thank everyone for their replies. They’ve helped me a lot.

He hasn’t contacted me yet...hadn’t asked about the pregnancy confirmation or anything. I noticed today that he was looking at my stories on IG, but that’s about it. Not sure now one can do that but completely ignore real life happening in front of him.

trailmix

Don't be surprised if he does contact you though, wouldn't surprise me at all. He obviously has some moments of clarity occasionally. Please hang on to your wariness with him though, for your own sake (and sanity). What he has done lately is not an aberration in behaviour, well I mean it is, based on how he was with you originally, but it is also a pattern.

This wasn't some move out of fear of responsibility or any other way he might try to explain it away if he does reappear. This shows a complete lack of empathy, responsibility and integrity. He may show up or call with all kinds of excuses asking for your forgiveness, please be wary, remember how you felt when he disappeared because if you choose a life with him, you will no doubt have more of the same.

Even if he decided to straighten up and get sober tomorrow, that's just putting down the drink. It takes a long time to recover from alcoholism and it is never cured (which is why alcoholics that choose recovery can never drink again). The addiction will never go away. Recovery can be achieved by a dedication to it and getting support. He obviously has underlying issues as well that would have to be dealt with and truthfully, you don't really know him as a sober person at all.

Stay strong, you are doing really well.

Confused2020

Thank you. It means a lot hearing words of encouragement. I haven’t told my friends and family what’s been going on and they definitely don’t know that he’s an alcoholic. I don’t think they would even suspect it.

If he does reach out, I hope I’m strong enough to shut it down and move on. He told me that he wasn’t into the relationship anymore. It was hurtful to hear that. Now that may have been fear taking or maybe he really isn’t into it a week after he disappeared and messed up, but I do know I deserve someone who is sure about me. Our relationship aside, I’m still pregnant with his child and for him not to say anything ...check up...speaks volumes. He wouldn’t be a present father, despite what he says.

FallenAngelina

This bears repeating.




Yes, you do.

Remember that an active alcoholic can't be sure about much of anything except drinking. My experience of active alcoholics is that the effects of the drug (not only being drunk, but being hungover and living in the grip of negative thinking patterns) render clear thinking impossible. Almost all active alcoholics have tremendous mixed thinking about emotional intimacy, so you will see things like breaking up, but checking social media or checking back in - back and forth. It's normal for an active alcoholic to be unstable in their emotional behavior and thinking. So he really cannot be sure about you or about anyone else who rattles his emotional intimacy cage. An active alcoholic is someone who is seriously debilitated and unstable in their thinking. This isn't about whether he's sure about you or not, this is about the near impossibility for him to be sure about anyone.

Confused2020

As much as I keep reading this and understand that it’s the truth, I have a hard time accepting it. I know that I have to. I had a scare this morning, started bleeding. As awful as it may sound, I was hoping it was a miscarriage so that I don’t have to deal with this reality. I went to the doctor and all is fine. No one knows I’m pregnant except him. So I called, no answer and texted, no answer.

While I understand that I can’t expect much, this behaviour breaks my heart. This is not the person I fell in love with. How do you lack the decency to just text or call back and acknowledge what’s happened? He’s at work and I’m sure on social media, so this avoidance on purpose, especially when it’s about a baby is insane to me.

SparkleKitty

That acceptance is crucial. It's difficult, of course, but it is the key to moving past this. He doesn't have the capacity you want him to have. I'm so sorry. I know it is heartbreaking.

dandylion

Confused-----you are thinking about how YOU would handle a similar situation, if you were in His shoes. He is an entirely different and separate person from you. He has an different brain than you do and a separate reality of his world than you do.
So often, we do not recognize the separateness of the other person. We just assume that they view the relationship the same as we do---and, that they have the identical feelings that we have about the same things.
This can be a huge tripping point in romantic relationships, especially. Many love songs and books and poems emphasize this point, down through the millennia--lol.

FallenAngelina

Well, yeah, actually it is. If he was drinking alcoholically at the time, he is the same person.

I was with my very active alcoholic BF for over 4 years and he only this summer started showing abuse toward me - anger and vicious criticism. I'm an AlAnon county board member. I know and practice the AlAnon program thoroughly. I attend several meetings a week. I am solid in many of the principles of recovery. Still, my BF finally - after four years - revealed his deep well of anger to me and that was my hard limit. Maybe I wasn't ready to see it clearly until now, but I definitely saw it come out this summer. I left. No contact. If someone is an active alcoholic, that person is enslaved to the power of alcohol. It doesn't matter if that person is loving, charming, sweet, working, a great cook, etc. etc. etc. That person is enslaved to alcohol ingestion. That person you fell in love with had and has an allegiance to alcohol above all else, whether you saw it or not.

We, on this side, have rock bottoms, just like alcoholics. Points at which we decide that we've had enough, can see what we did not see before. We, just like alcoholics, have hards limits regarding how low life can get before we choose to change. Is this yours?

trailmix

I completely understand what you mean. I think Dandylion's point about expecting him to think the way you would think is so very important here. You two were together for quite some time, probably had many deep and meaningful conversations, perhaps you even felt you were on the same page about many things.

In fact, 2 years ago if you had described this scenario to him, he might have been in complete agreement with you (say this had happened to a friend of yours).

Generally, people who are together for a great deal of time get a good feeling about the other person and their beliefs and generally they understand yours, that's pretty normal, you may disagree on some things, maybe even big things, but you know that too.

Now throw a drug in to the mix. One that alters the brain of the person. How can you expect someone who uses a drug that alters their brain, to behave in a rational manner? Alcoholism is progressive. He has no intention of quitting, he doesn't have a problem with his drinking and drugging, you do.

I think in terms of him perhaps contacting you, playing the tape forward is a good idea. Let's say you let him back in to your life, what would that look like? Can you rely on him? Will he be trustworthy, can you even trust him now? FFwd a year and you are sitting there with a new baby. Is he home watching Netflix with you or out at the bar with his buddies. Did he come home last night or crash on someone's sofa, does he still have a job or did he drink his way out of it?

These are all things to consider. When you are hurt and sitting there, I'm sure you are looking back on many of the "good times". It's so important not to forget the bad. Writing a list, an actual hard copy list of all the awful things and keeping that with you to refer to is helpful with this. Refer to it 20 times a day if needed. You need to keep your guard up to protect yourself, he certainly isn't going to be protecting your feelings.

Confused2020

Update #3 (I lost track)

It’s been a very hard couple of days. I’m having serious doubts about terminating the pregnancy...I have booked my first ultrasound appointment and an abortion. That’s how conflicted I am.

I haven’t heard from him since we last saw each other on Sunday and continued to talk on Sunday night...when he wanted out but then suddenly changed his mind and I called him out. I haven’t heard from him when I told him that I started bleeding and thought I was miscarrying. Silence. Complete silence. I know he’s an alcoholic but I can’t wrap my head around this behaviour. This seems more like a pos than an alcoholic move. How can you not call or at the very least text back to see how I’m doing. He’s the one who kept saying that he wasn’t going to allow another man to raise his kid. Um, you’ve completely checked out but somehow I’m supposed to believe you. Like I said, it’s been a hard couple of days. I texted him again to let him know about the two appointments I made...of course not a word.

dandylion

Confused-----please scroll back to my post that I made to you on 10/8/2020. Maybe the question that you are asking is just rhetoric (making a statement more than asking a real question).

As one woman to another----please, please look at the reality of the situation. You cannot expect sensitivity or caring or help and support from this man. He has demonstrated that this is not in the cards and not what he is capable or willing to give. I know that this must sting and is the opposite of what you have wanted.
Honestly---you will need to face the future without him in the picture to help shoulder any of the responsibility. If you are expecting it of him, I fear that you will be setting yourself up for disappointment and further heartbreak. Alcoholics as well as lots of non-alcoholics say a lot of things that they don't/can't/won't live up to. Lots of pillow talk vanishes as fast as dew in the morning sum. Another way of saying it is---"talk is cheap".
I think that a better way of thinking about your decisions is this----"What do I want and what decisions am I going to make" Not---"What are WE going to do". I seriously doubt that there is any "we" in the future as a supportive and dependable partner"
I know tht there are millions and millions of other women who would say this very thing to you----in loving compassion, to spare you the same hurt that they have experienced.

Confused2020

Thank you. I’ve reread everyone’s replies. They all make sense. I guess I’m just having an incredibly hard time accepting that he would just disappear after finding out that I was expecting. He still looks at my social media which I don’t understand. When I texted him earlier, I asked for my keys. I am done with him, I’m just having a hard time with with what he’s shown me in the past two weeks. It’d pretty unreal.

dandylion

Confused-----I really do get it----how much it must hurt. You were expecting different--- It is normal, at this juncture, to have a lot of kinds of emotions, Anger---sadness---fears---self doubts---ruminating over the whole thing. It is a whole emotional process that you are going to go through. Not to speak of the effect of the hormones! The hormones make everything more emotional.

Confused2020

I guess I’m just trying to figure out if this is alcoholic behaviour or pos behaviour. I’m realizing that it’s more pos, immature behaviour than him being addicted to alcohol. Unless he suddenly doesn’t feel any emotion. It’s bs.

SparkleKitty

As long as he continues to drink and do drugs, it really doesn't matter where the behavior stems from. This is who he is right, and he's shown you what you can expect.

Confused2020

You are 1000% correct. I still find the behaviour odd. To avoid me and not know what I’ve decided...so in a few months is he gonna think that he has a kid somewhere and just doesn’t care...or that I’ve terminated the pregnancy. Anyway, it paints a picture of a person who isn’t accountable or dependable, and I would never want my kid to be around a revolving door of a father.

dandylion

confused----you find the his behavior "odd" because you are not like him. You are a different person than him---in many, many, different ways. He lives inside of his own brain---not yours. Also, he is male and you are female. The ones who bear and tend to the young are different, in many ways than those who plant the seed. It is a different kind of experience for them---physically, and emotionally.
Unless you crawl inside of his skin---you will never fully understand his particular reality. You only get to see how it is expressed in his actions.
The Him that you have known is only what he has shown you, thus far. That is only the tip of the iceberg---the part that you could see. For him, and other people, also----the majority is the part of the iceberg that is under the water.

I think that we all assume that we know people better than we really do. A lot of it is what we want to see in them, also. We also tend to place our fantasies and wishes onto them---especially, in romantic relationships.
I my experience, it takes a long time to get to know another person---at least, the part that is actually knowable. Even at that, we can still be married to a person for 50 years and still discover new and sometimes, surprising things about them.

FallenAngelina

I dunno if you care to at this point, but a good number of AA meetings are open to everyone and you might think about attending a few. Easy enough to do now that many meetings are on Zoom. It can be really helpful and incredibly illuminating to hear from recovering alcoholics who are reflecting on their past behavior and sharing their perspective on how life was for them while they were drinking.

LifeRecovery

Confused 2020

I don't have a lot of wisdom to offer except that I relate to part of your response to this scenario.

I was so shocked, hurt and confused, that I just kept focusing on my belief that if I could understand it and his behavior, I would feel better.

For me part of that was a pattern of trying to take on other people's stuff because it felt like I was more in control. For me it became almost an obsession....the "why."

I think like my alcoholic uses drinking to numb out I use this version of obsessive thinking to numb out so I don't have to feel the discomfort, hurt and pain. It also kept me from looking at his behavior.....but oddly believing everything but his behavior about him.

His behavior has shown you who he is right now, I know it is unbelievable, but when I started to believe behavior over words, I started to get better.