Left me for the last time.
 

Hi. I’ve never posted here before. My alcoholic partner of 5 years just broke up with me last week. It wasn’t the first time; it will be the last. It goes like this: everything seems to be fine. We have a nice day. Then he ambushes me and says a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense about how he can’t love me enough and wants a ‘transcendent love’ and lists some made up flaws I have and tells me he loves me more than he has ever loved anyone and can easily imagine spending his life with me but he doesn’t want to be with me.

In the past, the next stage is my devastation and obsessive thinking and trying and trying to force things and fix things, and his ‘confusion’ and hedging and withdrawal and perhaps ‘meeting someone else’ with whom he may find ‘transcendent love,’ and then return and passionate transcendent relief and re-commitment and then…sooner or later, it happens again.

It’s been three years since it happened last. I told him the last time that if he ever said he didn’t want to be with me again, that would be it. And for three years he has not said it (though I can see now, even with the perspective of a week, that it was still there in that silence; it was always waiting for me if I rocked the boat or challenged his drinking or asked him for care that was unpleasant or difficult for him).

The good thing about the three years is that I think somehow intuitively I’ve managed to do a lot of the work I needed to, getting myself to a place where I don’t dissolve into the chaos and desperation again when this happened again—cause I knew it would happen, even if I was denying it to myself—and I have divested myself of a lot of my expectations for him already, and shifted the emotional center of my life away from him in lots of ways. So I’m…ok. And that feels really empowering. I was so scared for so long of spinning out into that void again. But I’m not spinning.

I am trying to be grateful for the things I get back rather than grieving so much for the things I’ve lost. All the energy I have spent worrying about him or pretending and trying so hard not to worry, the energy I still am spending actively, laboriously detaching. All the energy spent reminding myself that I am lovable despite the ways he makes me feel I am not. All the space in my mind that THINKING about his illness and illogic and confusion and smokescreens has taken up, all that space I have devoted to trying to make sense of it and find a way out of it for him and for us. All the big future I can have in the absence of this relationship that would never be true and safe and mutually kind and compassionate, that would just continue to eat me up until inevitably this happened again or until I hated him and myself.

I am trying to tell myself that I love myself and am deserving of love, of being seen truly. This person could never see me because his mind and emotional system were too compromised. He could never love me consistently, decently; could never take care of me, and I deserve that.

All this is harder some days than it is others. But I know this isn’t the end of me. I can survive this.

I guess I just wanted to say these words. I have a lot of great friends, some of whom have addict family members, who have been so wise and patient with me, so I’m not lacking in that respect, but I also don’t want to put all this processing on them all the time, and I’m finding I need to repeat these things a lot as part of that processing. So, here I am.

I have a question, I guess: I am preparing myself to have a conversation with this person to tell him how his alcoholism has hurt me and how I see it hurt him and other people in his life, fully and truly and without trying to dissemble about it. Not so that I can get him back or make him get help (he is very much in a sort of denial where he will willingly admit he is an alcoholic but ‘he doesn’t trust AA [insert contorted intellectual reasoning here] and doesn’t believe therapy will work on him and maybe he wants to be like his alcoholic friend X who is so free and the world is so f-ed up anyway what does it matter if he is an alcoholic or not, gather ye whiskey while ye may sort of vibes, etc. etc.), but because I would feel both untrue to myself and like I was continuing to enable him if I do NOT say these things to him. Though I don’t think he will get help or change one way or the other right now, maybe he can add that conversation, truly felt and totally followed through on in terms of actually ending the relationship, to the ever-growing bank of those conversations he’s had with other people about this and those other relationships he’s lost, and maybe it will help to sow some doubt about the validity of the choices he makes daily to continue to hurt himself and those around him with his addiction? I don’t know, am I fooling myself, am I in fact attempting to justify a behavior that will enable me to backslide into this relationship? (1); and (2), if this seems to be an OK thing to do, does anyone have any suggestions about how to fortify myself or speak this to this person without either reengaging or becoming totally hurt by how he is likely to respond?

Sorry about length; I am still sort of running on the fumes of the compulsion to be with him and care for him and stuff… that translates for me into TONS of words…

And lastly, THANK YOU to everyone who's been posting on this forum; I've been reading a bit every day and it's a big comfort. Love to all.

Hello "Spring"! I am glad you were able to put into words all that you are thinking and feeling... sometimes that is the more difficult part of the process. I completely understand where you are coming from, but I cannot advise you about your future conversation with your partner (what to say or what not to say). What I wanted to interject here is that whatever you choose to say needs to come from you, about you and your feelings, from your own perspective. I have learned that this type of conversation needs to be brought forth not to create a reaction, not to receive any revelations, but to simply put it out there for YOU. I spend an inordinate amount of time not communicating with my alcoholic partner because I am truly not heard, because there is never a good time, because, because, because...

I hope you are able to express yourself for you so that his response is his alone to bear. Please keep coming back and know that you are supported.

MGG

You sound very grounded and calm about it all. I’m impressed, although very sorry that you’ve been treated so badly for so long. Sometimes it’s almost a relief to have the waiting over with, just so you can get on with your life, rather than waiting around for the ugly you know will come.

As for the The One Last Talk...sometimes when I don’t know what decision to make I give myself 48 hours to just sit with it. Often it becomes clearer or at least I realize that doing nothing might be the best road to take. If you do decide to talk to him, make it in public and set a timer so you don’t get caught in endless loops about who’s to blame, because he’s likely to go very defensive or very charming or very sullen or all of the above. Who needs to hang around for that?

Some suggest writing a letter but never sending it. That’s an option. Or you can send it, but it may provoke a response you don’t want (see defensive/charming/sullen above) or give him an opening to try to weasel back into the relationship. Or if he doesn’t respond, the temptation to keep prodding him for a reaction or continually imagining what his reaction was may just set your recovery back.

You know yourself. Trust your own mind, yes? I must confess that when I read that he wants a “transcendent love” I snorted just a tidge. Life isn’t a Disney movie. I have a very good (second) marriage and I am extremely lucky but there’s nothing transcendent about any actual reality-based relationship over the years, because life. It’s what’s for dinner and oil changes and who cleans up after the dog and why is the hand towel always in the sink after he’s washed his hands. You know, reality.

I hope you’ll keep posting. Your ability to express yourself so articulately and the example you’ve set will no doubt help many people here.

:grouphug:

It sounds like both he and you are Done.

I say, let it be done. I wouldn't torture myself by trying, "One Last Time," to get him to see your perspective. What's the point? I'm guessing you've given this speech a time or two hundred in the past. There's nothing left to say. Just move on and keep what's left of your dignity. It's over. Let it be over.

If you are having doubts about your own motives ("enabling yourself to backslide into the relationship again"), then let it go.

He will not hear you. And he already knows.

All this talk will do is build an expectation within you that will rapidly become a resentment. Let him go, afford both of you the dignity to figure your own stuff out on your own.

Sorry to read of what is going on in your life.

I can understand you wanting to tell him how you feel. Sadly he won't hear you. His denial system will not allow it.

Re: trusting myself—one thing that this relationship has taught me is that I am someone who needs to be pretty vigilant about taking stock of my motivations and thinking around emotionality. I am operating at kind of a deficiency where that pertains. My mom is pretty traumatized by having been raised in an alcoholic household and while she doesn’t drink herself, the patterns are still there, if that makes sense? Like, the love I grew up with was shaped by alcoholism and the scars it left. The panicky feeling of needing to immediately storm into battle with my flag raised and do something to renew or maintain connection—even if the something is toxic or manipulative or self-harming—is a learned strategy that I have seen myself do in this relationship in the past and that terrifies me. And then also the way my partner managed or failed to manage our emotional affairs has left me deeply mistrusting about my own ability to know…anything, really, about what is going on, which is terrifying to me too. I doubt myself about everything about this relationship (how can I be bopping along having a great time with this person, frolicking in the park or whatever, when the whole time he’s like fabricating absurd justifications for why I’m the source of all his problems and waiting for the opportune moment to dump me? Am I delusional??? Is he a sociopath??? How could I let someone do this to me??? Or, is he right, is it just this relationship that is wrong and not his alcoholism and attendant emotional problems? Are the justifications really absurd or is there a way to think about them that makes them rational that I am refusing to see? --these are some of the circles). ...The mom stuff meant, though, that I did develop some pretty acute strategies for disengaging and shutting off my feelings that I have not ever been able to bring to bear on this relationship: I was always the super panicky one charging ahead. These are not very healthy either, and I worry they’re what I’m using now to deal with this. But maybe I need to use them for now at least and I should just count my blessings for having them to fall back on, if the alternative is the chaos.

Realistically I know this conversation will feel like banging my fists bloody on a brick wall if I wantanything back from it; that is how it has felt before all the other times I have said it. He goes sullen and speaks in basically never-ending circles of gibberish and lashes out with subtly mean things and when I call him on it he gaslights and deflects and pretends he never said them or I misheard or misunderstood.

But there’s no chance of just having him disappear from my life. We live together in an apartment we got together. He arranged things so he could slink away to his hometown immediately after the break up so I’ve had a week of not having to see him, but he’s coming back tonight. We don’t have a long-term plan for how to manage the living situation, aside from the fact that he got a temporary position in Europe for the fall—he’s pretty high functioning in outward-facing areas—so he’ll be gone then. The summer is a big worry though. I live in a very expensive city and our apartment is miraculously affordable so leaving it to him would be a big sacrifice. He will not want to go either, I’m pretty sure; he’s already been acting weird about staying elsewhere this coming week and wants to come back and sleep here tonight. But watching him drink himself to distraction all summer and holding my tongue on all this stuff while also attempting to heal myself sounds like utter misery.

And, we met through a whole network of interconnected friends and family, so I’m going to see him ‘around’ unless I jettison all these other relationships which I don’t want to do. I do want to be honest with them and not lie for him anymore. But it feels unfair and deceptive to be going around telling the people he knows that my experience of him—this fun, kind, smart, exciting friend of theirs—is as an addict whose addiction destroys intimate relationships from the inside out, not just a 'someone who drinks too much but is very high functioning', while not explaining to HIM that that’s how I see this final fall out One Last Time. Cuz when it happened this last time I just said "OK," and walked out of the room. :/

And, I love him. How can I just say ‘ok, yes, you want transcendent love, makes sense, bye’? That feels so unfair and untruthful to us both, whether or not he can accept or receive the truth.

Ariesagain, you're right--everything doesn’t have to happen at once, I can wait a week or two weeks or longer and see how I feel then about having the talk if I still feel it’s important. Maybe these pieces will shift, maybe I'll let go of the desire to or he’ll suddenly find his ‘transcendent love’ (and yes it’s hard not to roll one’s eyes) elsewhere, and disappear to someone else’s apartment and I can just take a deep breath and get on with my life. There’s no urgency. (Deep breath.)

Thanks for everyone's comments. I appreciate it. Just to get the words on the page and feel them received somewhere :)

Hi ohwell, glad you found SR. You know, you do know yourself pretty well and why you do what you do and that's a good thing. I relate to your shutting off your feelings (I grew up in a house with an alcoholic Father) and I have decided that in certain situations, it's a handy tool.

I wonder if this distancing of feelings when it comes to this relationship doesn't apply because somewhere deep down you hope at some point he will become an upright guy. You probably see his potential when he isn't wandering off to find that transcendent love (not going to happen).

Thing is, he may well have potential, he can obviously be a nice guy or you wouldn't have gotten involved with him. Now the grass roots stuff - you don't want to be in love with his potential - true? He is who he is, which includes being an alcoholic and all that encompasses. Not two people nice guy and "bad" guy - just one guy. We can separate the two - oh if he would only quit drinking and just be that nice guy all the time! Well that's not going to happen. Even if he quit drinking today, alcohol has affected him and his thinking, even if that's temporary (ie: he seeks true recovery) it could take years for him to really get on any kind of even plain. Are you willing to invest those years in a relationship with him? And that is best case scenario, he sure doesn't sound like someone who has any plan to stop and he won't a moment before he wants to.

I'm glad you have been reading around the forum, learn as much as you can about alcoholism, not for him, for you.

Since you are stuck in the same accommodation (and I would very much advise getting out of that any way you can if possible), he will be hard to avoid, but it is probably a good idea, little to no contact. Can you set yourself up in a room with what you need, tv etc so you can have very little contact. Time is going to be your friend, time to really see him for who he is, not his potential or how you wish he was.

He's not a nice guy and I have to say, you deserve more than this. Looking ahead a little, what if you had a partner that was kind, caring, loving and made you feel safe. Someone reliable? It's worth thinking about.

Yes, you know maybe he does, maybe that is his thought pattern and really when you get right down to it, that is his choice to make. He is a grown adult man. Sometimes people make choices we don't like but we need to respect them anyway?

This is just my opinion but I wouldn't bother with "the talk" about what he has done right now. He won't hear you. He can justify being an alcoholic and talks about transcendent love, can reason with him? That's just not going to happen. Alcohol does actually change the brain and he is not thinking rationally, probably, at the best of times, even when he doesn't have a drink in his hand.

You will probably just end up with more hurt when his reaction is lackluster.

Every day here on SR I find a new post that I connect with! And yes, there is a LOT I relate to here, the childishness rather than abusivenes when using, the weird loops of “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life but I just have to go my own way now,” and the feeling that no matter how honest and direct and well-thought out my communications, his response will just be avoidance or denial, etc.

My therapist recommended I write a letter of what I want to say first. All of it. Then reread it and decide which points I actually feel are important to me that I feel heard, and decide how best to share those points. So I wrote a long, oversharing letter (I tend to use a lot of words to process!), and now I’m taking a break and will go back to edit it when I’m ready.

Yeah. I do know this, in a far deeper way than I’ve known it before. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the question of acceptance. I do not go to al anon but I’m familiar with some of the 12 step principles, and I feel like now I am taking a step to change what I can, and I have the wisdom to tell the difference between that and what I cannot (e.g. I can’t change him or his alcoholism, I deeply get that), but actually enacting the acceptance part in the middle is really hard. Like how do I accept this. What do I do with my body and mind to accept it. And why don’t I get to fight it. I fight for the people I love and this feels like a fight for someone I love. Not only for me and my dignity and sense of truth but for him—if I love someone and I am seeing them live their life in opposition to their values in a way that causes so much damage and danger, I will typically not keep silent. I will help them try to make it right. I value that about myself. So the struggle to let go of that is very real right now. And the continuous struggle to make sense of the "two people" you refer to, trailmix. It makes me want to scream.

To imagining a stable, good relationship: yes, I am trying to do that a little bit--dip my toe in at least. It's still very hard to imagine and the idea of trying to trust someone again is really frightening. But I've been saying to myself that even if that doesn't happen, which maybe it will and maybe it won't, I don't know, I can always still just go live a stable, good life by myself--become a nun or something (lol), and being good by myself feels far superior, when I'm honest, to being with this person anymore, even on a good day.

I am going to at least wait to have the conversation, and see how I feel in a bit. The carefully contained, written statement feels like a good idea. Even the process of thinking through what exactly it is I feel I need to say might be clarifying.

And, edoering, I read your post too and related so much. The confusion and shock and feeling of your partner taking these steps into his addiction, the willingness to make you and your life together a casualty of that, and the way that no amount of logic or language or love can make sense of it. It’s terrible. I’m so sorry.

Anyway. This is not only an end but also a beginning right? It’s so hard and brutal but there will be good, exciting things too. The world is big and open and if you zoom out a bit so the frame is larger and the person is smaller there’s so much possibility. And the person who goes through this and learns from it and comes out into that possibility will be ready for it, in a way that perhaps they weren’t before. I hope.

That being said, jeez sorry everybody for so much yesterday. This really gets me frantic.

But, still ok. The tulips are blooming where I am, I have books to read and a cat and I can go outside and sit in the sun. :)

So much of what you write is familiar to me.

What I had to do to accept was to not do anything and let time do its thing. I had to surrender.

The thing about fighting for him is...it's not your fight. Your love for him does not give you that privilege. Believing otherwise is an ego-driven illusion. Believing that your worth derives from what you do for others is part of codependence, not self-esteem. You are enough just taking care of and respecting yourself.

Which is not to say that there is never a time to stand up for others. But when we do it for people who are capable of standing up for themselves, we rob them of the opportunity to fight their own battle. On top of that, we cannot win that battle for them, or even prevent them from losing it. We just get in their way.

You don't ever need to apologize for being "too much", especially not here. You're not, for one thing, and anyone who thinks otherwise has issues of their own to work out.

ohwell.......sorry to hear that you are running this tough gauntlet, once again. I know,so well, how this kind of breaking of the bonds can cut to the bottom of the heart and soul. It is a major llife event, and the loss is great. Especially, when one has invested of themselves and built a life--even a fantasy of a life---around this other person. Ironically, even if it was bad--the pain of the loss is still just as great.

Have you given any thought about the fact that, like all other persons who have lost something significant, you will (and are probably, right now) going to have to go through a grieving period?
Grieving has many stages, you know. And, they aren't all neatly organized and linear. They are more like a kaleidoscope. One doesn't get everything all done and dusted in a fortnight. It takes it's own time.
In the old days, in this country, it was customary---when one lost a mate, for the grieving one to wear black for a full year. This was to give the grieving one permission for the healing process and to signal to the rest of society of the consideration they must give to the grieving one.

The underlined were the hardest and most important lessons about addiction I ever had to learn.
And I have had to learn them the hard way, over and over.
I still do at times.
It is a work in progress. . .

Ohwell, would it help you to put into words what you are specifically trying to accept? For instance, are you trying to accept an outcome, or a situation, or a change in your process/choices, or another person as they are, etc?

In my first Nar-anon meeting, it was a Sunday evening speaker meeting, and the speaker spoke about boundaries being for herself, and not for her loved one. It didn’t matter if she had no boundaries or a ton of boundaries, just so long as it was truthfully what was good for her. If fighting is what feels good for you, then you get to make that choice! But if it’s causing you stress and pain and grief, then maybe it’s not the choice that is best to keep you safe and happy.

Being an ally for your LO in the battle against addiction is something I know a lot of people do. However, putting pressure on ourselves that if we can just “be good enough” at fighting for them, that we can help save them/change the outcome of what’s happening is waaaaay too much pressure to put on anyone. Also, it’s just not how it works. We’re like rocks in the ocean (if the ocean is life)—we can make a tiny ripple of change, but ultimately, the ocean is going to do what it’s going to do and we don’t have any control over that. Life on life’s terms, as they say!

And likewise to what the above people have offered, my brother is also in recovery and told me “the last thing your husband needs right now is your pity. Trying to save him/fix him is pitying him.” Even if you COULD save him, what relationship would be on the other side if he knew you didn’t respect him enough to save himself? Could you trust him with your future if he didn’t take responsibility for himself and save himself? My therapist reminded me to stop thinking about what my husband needed to be able to one day possibly reconcile with me, and focus on what I needed to ever trust him again, if that’s what I want (which may never happen, depending on his choices and mine). And I need him to take responsibility for his actions, communicate about the hard things honestly, and show he wants to be a healthy, happy human. If he asks, I would be glad to help, but until then my attempts to control things aren’t helping.

TL;DR: As scary as the word “powerless” is, we are truthfully powerless to control Life. But we are completely empowered to care for ourselves and make our choices.

When reading your post just now, it came to me that you sound like you are in that "in between" place, which reminded me of this post in the stickies section:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...een-place.html

It's from the book The language of letting go - also written by Melody Beattie.

You might find a lot of the threads in the stickies section at the top resonate with you too. Classic reading has a lot of good information contained in the threads, it can be found under About Recovery/Classic Reading

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...c-reading.html

I totally understand where you are coming from...
 

my boyfriend of 3 years basically pulled this same thing on me...our relationship wasn’t “deep” enough and was surface level (news to me) followed by a laundry list of my petty infractions that he’d obviously been noting down over time for such an occasion. Evidence that I was the problem in the relationship and not his relapses back into full blown alcoholism. He actually listed me “walking too fast in front of him” as evidence that we just were not right right for each other, as well as my pressure on him to be “perfect” (laughable in that he was so very far from perfect and I put up with so much that I should not have). I am close to my whole family and have a large and great group of friends and he is down to barely having a relationship with his parents (only really driven by them) and maybe one friend who he actually speaks to on occasion, so I think it’s apparent who has issues forming close and “deep” bonds.

I loved him a lot but after that I decided to cut my losses - there is no point in trying to have a real conversation with someone so deep into delusions and denial. I was unable to articulate my feelings due to him blindsiding me with the breakup in person, so a few days later I simply wrote him a long text and said everything I wanted to say to get some closure for myself (worded in such a way that required no response and was a goodbye). Anyway, it’s hard and I’m sorry you are also going through this. I have no great advice but wanted you to know you are not alone and this behavior seems to be pretty typical, unfortunately.

Yeah, sounds very familiar, abandoned. Among my many flaws are that I do not like riding bikes as much as he does, that I have a cat (that he adores, but he is politically opposed to the keeping of pets), that I snore (this keeps him up; the obvious pattern of his being more able to sleep the more alcohol he has in his system has nothing to do with it), that I am too short (I am on the small side of average), and that due to cohabitation I hear it when he burps (!).

It’s amusing trying to imagine his perfect woman according to these rubrics: 6’5”, hates animals, bikes everywhere, does not breath when she sleeps, cannot hear burping. She’d be very impressive!

edoering, that’s super clarifying and grounding. It made me realize that the worrying and hyper-awareness and overthinking (if I do x what will he do and how will that affect what he is thinking and will it be productive or enabling or will he interpret it as me being x y or z, etc) is sort of part of the same toxic system. I know that at this point in the cycle part of what happens is he does things to try to ignite some sort of emotional response in me, I guess to feel that the door is still open; he has already been doing that and my worrying so much about how my response will impact him is also a function of that same system even if I don’t make it overtly known to him: will it drive him away, will it make him go get drunk, will it make him see the error of his ways and feel poignant regret (lol), what will he tell our friends. I do not want to engage with that. It runs me ragged and I have other things I’d rather be thinking about. I can just like, be clear about my own boundaries for myself and stay in my lane, right? Withdraw not “support” as such but the energy and compulsion I put towards figuring out the meaning of things and trying to control the outcome so that I can maybe get my mind healthy. Ask not what something will do to him but what it will do to me. I'm sure this is a learning process/easier said than done but also, phew!

And, yes, thank you all for the reminders about grief and time and patience. And the concept of the in-between. I do so much tend to want to just rush things like this, because they’re painful and I don’t like feeling compromised or vulnerable, and this is especially true in this case because I feel so stupid for how many times I’ve gone back and how small I let myself be made in this relationship (and I’m trying to give myself grace here—I know from years of therapy WHY I am disposed to this sort of thing). But it’s no less real than a broken bone; healing takes time, I know this.

I'm going to take some time to think about the question of acceptance, what it might mean in this context...

I’m so grateful to you all for offering such thoughtful and compassionate responses. It’s pretty incredible. Xo.

Wow. Just wow. Honey, he’s pretentious, self-absorbed, and insulting. Buy him a 6-foot blowup girlfriend he can duct-tape to his bike rack as a goodbye present and move along as fast as you can.You’d be doing both yourself and the rest of womanhood a favor.

Seriously, at some point you might want to talk to a therapist about why you’d be with someone who picks you apart like that over non-issues. He’s “politically opposed” to owning cats? It’s your fault you’re not deaf? SMDH.

I promise, some day you will look back on this and be so very, very glad you got away from this situation. Yikes.

Ariesagain--Ugh I know!! I am telling that to my rational mind. And it's sinking in more than it has in the past.

Why I put up with it? Rationalizations have been that he'd apologized for it and been deeply regretful and embarrassed about it the last time, that it only happens in the break up moments so he must not really mean it, that we'd worked it out and he'd learned and grown past it (though I see now that it was just dormant), that he is a self-proclaimed feminist and ally who would never outside of the break up moment say such absurd and hurtful things...it really is like word salad that comes out because some trigger in him goes off, e.g. I've been challenging his drinking too much...

But have talked with therapist about it at length, though I'm not in therapy now. Deeper reasons would take a book. But I do have some clarity on it. <3

*and love the image of the giant blowup bike-bling girlfriend, that's perfect for him :)