edoering

I just needed to post because I’m having an awful day. My husband (we’ve been living separately for 6 months now, but haven’t actually officially filed anything) has pretty much cut me out of his life entirely after months of saying he wanted us to stay best friends and he still loved me but “he had to do this” (“this” being running away from his whole life). But while cutting me out, he also will consistently do something every few weeks to remind me he exists. Today it was a short, curt email.

And it just wrecked me, today. I’m trying to let myself let go naturally, at my own pace, but it seems like I can’t stop loving him no matter what I do. Or at least, the him that I know, and have been with for the past 7 years. I know I’m supposed to understand that this is also him, but my brain is still struggling to believe it. It seems impossible for this guy—the guy who’s disappeared to a different state and (perhaps to hide his choices) is hiding his whole life from me and others—to be the same guy as the one I was with and always knew what he was thinking/feeling. It feels like the man I know died, but I never got to see the body, so it still doesn’t compute in my head and heart that he’s gone.

A friend who doesn’t have a lot of experience with addiction asked if maybe he’d been falling out of love/mourning the relationship while we were still together. And that I’m only doing that now. And it kind of set me off in a panic, because I didn’t see that at all and now I’m scared that I missed this incredibly gigantic thing. Because I saw the love in his eyes and his behavior everyday, even on the infamous day itself he said he wanted to “go his own way.” 🙄 I did see him slowly fall out of love with himself, and start to battle old demons and start to hate himself, and start with weed and then alcohol and then others. But I didn’t see him fall out of love with me. But what if I’m wrong? What if it’s not the substances at all but it was just not loving me?

I’m just struggling with this feeling like I never got to say goodbye to my husband, this other person took his place before I knew what was happening, and I kept thinking MY husband would rise again and it didn’t matter that I didn’t get to say goodbye, I’d see him again. The addiction wouldn’t win. He got himself clean before he met me, he can do it again.

But since I can’t see anything about his life, I begin to worry “maybe he’s totally clean and sober, maybe I was the problem in his life, maybe he’s happier without me, maybe maybe maybe…” and it just hurts so much.

trailmix

Maybe he did have all this in his mind before jetting off in the van, but that doesn't mean he was mourning the relationship in advance. I get what your friend said and of course that's a possibility in a normal relationship I suppose, where communication has broken down.

We are talking about an alcoholic here and I'm going to guess the thought process goes more like - "If I can get away from all this responsibility I can just sit in my van and drink" than any other deep emotional thought. Just a guess there. You did know him and yes, you probably would have seen it so I wouldn't second guess yourself.

It's painful. I don't know if you read Saveher's thread the other day about closure: https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...t-closure.html (How Can I Get Closure?)

Your post brought it to mind. Closure is really about acceptance. It happened, it's history and it happened, history can't be changed.

Now as Saveher mentions, as long as you hold on to the pain, you can allow yourself to be in a holding pattern. You haven't completely given up. Now I'm not saying (at all) that you should or shouldn't do that, it just is (and it hurts!). These things take as much time as they take to process, you feel the way you feel.

I once broke up with someone and my Sister encouraged me to stop talking to him. This was really hard for me, for a couple of years we had talked every day. I have to say I wasn't enjoying it all that much at the time, he was showing more and more what an ass he really was - but still, hard to let go. She said to me, go no contact for a bit, just tell him. He isn't dying he is still right where you will leave him, you can always contact him of you want to.

That actually helped me a lot. He hadn't "disappeared", I could in fact talk to him if I wanted to. I told him I didn't think we should speak for a while. It was really hard at first, ok don't text for 15 minutes, see how you feel and in every case, I no longer had the urge to and could go longer. It wasn't that long before hours went by and I didn't even think about it, then days then weeks, now I could care less lol.

But it was hard. I had to accept that he really was the ******* that he finally showed himself to be. That I didn't want to be around him, that I didn't want to talk to him. He started out ok, but that didn't last, acceptance. That "nice" guy was loooooong gone.

So yes, it makes for crappy days and crappy nights. He's not living life in some resort, he is probably still in his van with his drinks. If you were the "problem" in his life that had him drinking up large, why did he continue to drink after he left?

edoering

Interestingly I had read over this post before but it didn’t sink in—today it’s hitting like a ton of bricks.

I’ve been doing a lot of healing with my relationship with my higher power, but I’m realizing one of (several) reasons I am struggling to actually let it all go is because I’m not sure I can forgive myself for choosing him.

I was nervous about his history, and I’m generally a fairly cautious, reasonably independent person. And I chose to trust him, and I chose him, and I tried to be so careful, and smart, and take the whole process to get there so seriously—that old misguided idea that we can keep ourselves safe from life by being “good enough, smart enough, in control enough,” just plain ol’ enough! So I’m very scared to think that I “chose wrong” because I don’t know if I could forgive myself for that. So I am kind of stuck until that knot untangles.

And I know people say that “oh, maybe he was the right choice at the time, but that can change”—because he did bring so much good into my life for a what was a full quarter of how long I’ve been alive. And I loved how I grew as a person because of him. But that still feels so hollow when we promised and trusted each other with forever.

trailmix

First of all, sorry I referred to the van, got mixed up in Kaya's story!

The "maybe he was the right choice at the time" thing. I tend to look at that from my own perspective. Not so much what the other person brought to me but what I needed. What you need today or when you are 20 or 40 is different. In many good relationships, people accept each other and the changes and carry on (which is great). But when you have someone with an addiction, those changes might be HUGE, a complete personality change, who can deal with that?

The tyrant I mentioned above, I'm none too pleased with myself for choosing him either. There were a few red flags, I chose to ignore them, he was just in the right place at the right time. I knew fairly early on that this wasn't really going to go much of anywhere anytime soon, but I stuck around because it had its moments. If he had been an alcoholic as well as all his other umm quirks - I couldn't have stuck around at all.

Perhaps marriage vows should be - as long as we both can - instead of the traditional vows. That might sound cynical, but it's life. You could no more predict his downfall than anyone could. What if it had gone the other way, what if he had stayed clean and was successful and you two remained very happy.

Impossible to control, impossible to predict. I hope you will try to be a little easier on yourself. As for forgiving yourself, perhaps this is a little more about control than it is about holding yourself to a particular standard when making choices?

PeacefulWater12

Sorry you are hurting. This is just an alcoholic doing what they do, I'm afraid. Is about him not you. I hope you feel better soon.

Glad you are writing out your feelings, it really does help.

Take care

sage1969

In relationships that don't involve chemical or other addictions, it's "normal" for things to change. Life is always change, either things evolve or break apart. For codependents, we tend to not understand this part of relationships and try to hold on so tight! Wedding vows that include the "til death do us part" bit only confirms for codies to hold on tight. Between society and what codies haven't learnt about relationships, we don't realise that sometimes is best to let go when things don't work out.

Every single one of my relationships involving a partner with addictions could have been avoided if I'd acknowledged the red flags at the beginning and let go of a person that wouldn't really be a good partner for me. (I'm especially having to learn that what I process internally may not be the same feelings and experiences a partner might process; though it might be my reality, it isn't a shared reality between both of us). This is something I've had to learn, what are my boundaries and how to let go of friends and potential partners if my personal boundaries are not being respected by them or by *me.*

The whopper with an addict or alcoholic for a partner is that codies already have those relationship / boundary challenges internally, then there is everything you described on top of that. Alcoholics either change, and not for the better, or their personalities become more focused as they go deeper into their addiction. It is heartbreaking, attempting to find a way to say goodbye to the person we thought they once were. Perhaps you can be kind to your heart by seeing there are more dimensions to this -- it is not him rejecting you. It is the addiction rejecting everything except more alcohol.

Cookie314

I'm sorry you're having such a hard day. I can really empathize with how you're feeling, even if I was the one who filed for divorce in my case. The feeling of that loss is very sharp. It's very surreal to think about being together for nearly a decade, and coming to such an abrupt end. It's difficult to go from speaking with someone daily to not communicating at all for a couple weeks now. The mixed feelings are a killer in particular, since it's both painful and more peaceful.

I don't know the best way to heal from this hurt besides time and self care. I can say that those thoughts of him being clean, sober, and better off without you are unfair to yourself and unproductive. First off, even if he were clean right now, that wouldn't change the damage that his addiction has done to you or your relationship.

Second, you are still healing from your hurts, and it's normal to look into someone else's life from the outside and think "they must be doing great." You know that's not generally true. Everyone has different struggles at times, and it's easy to project peace and happiness to others to cover those struggles up. Even if he is improving his recovery or there, you are free to care for yourself here now. Loving someone who has hurt you doesn't make you a bad person or bad at decisions. You can't control his actions or choices, and there's no way of really knowing what the h*ll an addict is thinking anyways.

You are worthy of love, both from yourself and from others. Don't beat yourself up for not being able to follow or decipher an addict's feelings and actions.

dandylion

edoering......in some ways your post reminds me of a kind of weird reaction, within my self that happened as I was emerging from the grieving over my ended relationship and the first parts of my relationship with the man that would become my wonderful husband.
Maybe, it was just a part of what we call, around here, "the in the hallway stage"...but, it felt very unsettling at the time.
Here is the jist of it----in the prior relationship, there was so much involvements with our lives, together---with our careers and families and shared activities. There was a history of memories of holidays, etc.
With this new guy---at every holiday, and major event----my thoughts would drift to the last Easter, or birthday, or Christmas, Thanksgiving dinner---etc. And, I would feel an odd empty space----even though my heart was NOT for the last guy---and, definitely with the "new" guy.
I shared this feeling with the "new guy"----I kept saying that we don;t have enough History-----but the old history is making me soooo nostalgic. Thankfully, the new guy was not threatened and he was so sweet and understanding.
Here is the thing----as the years went on, the new guy (became my husband) and we shared so many of life's ups and downs----it became a joke---he would ask me----"Do we have enough history yet?".
I am thinking that it just takes Time to develop the new normal of a new relationship (or way of living).
Grieving takes time...time...time.....

edoering

THANK YOU everyone for bringing me so much peace when I was feeling most torn up!

Yes, I think fear (which is control adjacent, haha) is a big part of my pain. I “intellectually” embraced that people changed in relationships, but I thought I found someone I could change with (again, who can actually predict that? But I’m one of those nerds who relies sooooo much on her intellect I think I thought I could!). And I thought if we grew apart I would see it, because I’m normally a pretty damn good judge of character and perceptive when it comes to people. (My job as an actor helps, I read people’s emotions for a living!)

And it absolutely terrifies me that I believed in us, our love and our partnership with every fiber of my being. If I had at least had doubts I ignored, I could still say “see? I was right I just didn’t listen to myself.” But I DID listen to that deep down inner voice that I trust as deeply as I trust my higher power, and this still happened.

Piece by piece, I get better at thinking that these two things can both be true at the same time: 1) everything that is supposed to happen is happening, 2) I/my inner voice WAS right, even if it hasn’t turned out how I thought it would. I didn’t “fail” myself, and I am allowed to trust myself moving forward, my path may just include some tough lessons and growing pains. And I’m trying to remember those lessons are not a punishment!

(can you tell I also got some good sleep after crying myself out yesterday? Sleep is amazing, and helps so much!)

GoldenDog

I am a realist hoping to become an optimist, I try to find ways to see the good in things. For now, I have 2 great kids, I was able to travel and see parts of the world I might not have been able to see. In time I may be able to see my AH's good qualities again but for now I try to concentrate on the good things that did happen rather than dwell on a waste of many years. In my line of work I see elderly people and I observe their emotional health and the people that have the best emotional health are the ones that see the good in things, they may be poor with awful circumstances but they still manage to be positive. Most have religion and/or purpose in their daily lives. Just a little tidbit I picked up, it seems like you are headed in that direction but I find punishment to be a harsh way to look at things, I agree things happen for a reason and it's how we respond to those things that's important. I wish you continued good nights of sleep and peace.

dbyrer

I would like to advise that you don't blame yourself for choosing poorly. (Tried to find a less preachy word than advise, but that's what I came up with!) Relationships start with the heart and emotions, and they are not logical. So it is no surprise that choices driven by the heart and emotions are often not very good ones from a logical standpoint. Please, give yourself a break on that front. It's trite but true than when you know better you do better. I finally realized that just about anyone who gave me "the feelings" was bad for me. Until I got myself more healthy emotionally.