trailmix

It could return sure. It can also be part of depression, but it's guessing since we don't really know what other mental health challenges he has.

He is shut off from you, for whatever reason, it does happen to people and some people can just do it at will, so really it's impossible to know.

That's interesting about the anger. You know too much empathy isn't a good thing. I don't know if that rings true for you but if so, maybe that is something to bring up with the therapist. She should be able to give you tools to deal with that. You can learn to dial down empathy and even shut it down (situational) in many cases.

antionym

My other significant ex (in this convo I don't count a couple dates, or young flings) was VERY able and willing to shut himself down at will. Our last year together was a disaster, and he had his mean streak (not a big drinker). We were in his apartment which he knew I hated, and I discovered accidentally that he had gotten himself a new place, keys and everything, and planned to tell me and move out on the same day. Leaving me with the lease of the place that triggered 80% of our fights.

With Mr. Flanders I thought I had met the antidote. Broke my patterns. Found stability and a supportive partner. Maybe this is part of why I am so shell shocked. I tend to think he doesn't shut down at will, but there were a lot of things I thought about him a week ago and turned out to be totally wrong. I suspect though that the sudden shift at my house, and sullen facetime, were genuine.

Yeah I do need to work on the non-anger, it's a real issue. We just haven't made a done of breakthrough yet. It's like I'm missing something.

Airbear23

This sounds very familiar in many ways. My love was active in his addiction when I met him though, but had not been in a relationship in a very long time. He loved me like crazy and I him, but there was something in him that made him have to leave repeatedly. He would leave for day, weeks, always saying he couldn't change. I think he wanted to be in a relationship and there were kids involved too, so in the family situation, and when he got sober, I saw him truly happy, and it was beautiful. But, I don't think it was comfortable. He's so used to chaos and not having to answer to anyone, although he wanted this life and loves me, he couldn't do it, and the addictions came back in a big way. He relapsed and left, and ended our relationship.

​​​​​I'm just guessing, but a relapse may have happened. The dark bed scene brings back so many memories. And to spare you, and because it comes with so much self inflicted shame and disappointment, he bolted. You didn't do anything. When it comes to addiction, you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.

​​​​​And I can totally relate to the horrible gut wrenching, painful feeling that your sunshine has been taken from you. I'm still going through it. It hurts deeply. I made the mistake of contacting him, big mistake. I only got hurt more.
​​​​​​
​​​​​​I am so very sorry you're going through this. It's devastating, I know. I'm not holding out any hope that we'll reconcile. I've found out about lies and so much more that I was willingly blind to. I also know that the addiction, the constant fear of relapsing, the hell when he is drinking, and the gambling and lying are not something I want to have to endure for the rest of my life. I too thought I had all of my bases covered as to not be blindsided as I was in my marriage years ago. And, I was still blindsided in a big way. The only thing I can do now is try and figure out why I enter into these relationships and how to stop doing it.

I hope you're able to find peace.

antionym

Wow, @Airbear23, that really does sound incredibly familiar. How long did he go with no relationship before you? Exactly same, he was nuts about me. I was nuts about him. And I know it's not what I should want...but I just want him and us back. I'm so sorry you had kids in the middle - that sounds really difficult, on top of everything else. I'm the same. When he's happy he's so joyful and we're joyful and playful together. I feel my heart hurting as I'm writing this. I hadn't seen the chaos with him. I think I need to bring myself to believe it. I want this fixed so, so badly.

Exactly the same. The dark bed scene happened to you too? He did it more than once, was it a sign of things going downhill? I'd been second guessing my judgment about whether that dark bed scene was just in my head. I really want to believe that he's sparing me. But when he said he didn't feel the same anymore, it was like a knife to my heart. Two days ago he loved me and missed me. Today, he'll "always have love" for me. In the Christian sense. It broke my heart.

​​​​​ Same, same, same!! I am so sorry you're going through it too, it really is crushing and you don't deserve any of that. It's wrenching and I just can't see a future right now. I feel like all my hope for the future crumbled when he turned into stone.
​​​​​​
​​​​​ I almost wish I'd gone through that phase with him. So I can be thankful it's over. I'm so sorry you're going through this heartbreak. It's nothing like I've felt before.

needuall

Hi, sorry for what happened, so confusing I know, experienced it myself with my XH.
As I was reading your 3/1 message I immediately thought so was he talking pain meds for his knee problem for months maybe and of course never told you? Then finally that sudden switch happened- he just couldn't keep his mental condition hidden from you anymore. What if it had nothing to do with alcohol? Also, nothing to do with you. Just a thought since I saw this with my X. I wonder if he was pushing you away to spare you from his out to control problem. Remember your first priority is taking care of you- he is unpredictable.

antionym

Needuall, I think you're right on the money. I'm so sorry you've been through it too. It feels nightmarish even in my small doses.

Folks here talked about mental health, and then it finally hit me. Obvs I am not qualified in any way to diagnose him, but...life experiences, etc., put bipolar 2 or similar in my mind. It's the one thing that explains most of this chain of events. And exactly like you said - it happened in front of me.

He goes to bed fine, wakes up fine, then within the 2 hrs turns to stone. Sleeps for 3 days...dark facetime call....and then sudden breakup. Same stone affect. I didn't recognize him. And no visible trigger - we didn't have enough time to build resentments. He was religious about his sleep (I am too but he was far more than even me). After asking Dr. Google, I found out sleep loss can be a trigger. And then....the angry behaviors. Again zero trigger, it wasn't an emotional discussion or anything.

I really want to think exactly what you said. He's ashamed, embarrassed, and wants to spare me. Is this what happened with your X? It just hurts like crazy. I have obsessive qualities and I just can't let it go. It's always why, why, why in my mind.

needuall

Hi antonyms, I do think some are trying to spare us. I know you want answers but I think many times they don't even know why but they know they are not ok. Some situations are more obvious like the alcoholic that just wants to drink more than wants to stay sober. Other situations are more complex- like when someone truly needs a pain med but this can trigger their disease. My X truly had serious back pain, had procedures done but his condition will still progress.
I think you are trying to think thinking rationally when you are dealing with something this is too complex and many times just irrational. I know it is sad and heartbreaking but don't loose yourself to this.

antionym

I think you're right. I keep waiting for him to "wake up" from this bad dream, in treatment or after treatment. I 100% convinced myself it's some form of bipolar disorder (and googled the heck out of that one). And that it may be the first extreme mood swing - meaning maybe up until now he was only treated for anxiety or depression. And I feel bad for reacting so poorly. Neither of them, mental illness or alcoholism, is his fault.

I can totally see that with the back pain. That sounds wrenching, I'm so sorry. I think about the drinking maybe being triggered and I can't imagine how he's teaching. I just keep wishing that any day now he'll call with some excellent explanation. But you're right, nothing about this is rational. I wish it was.

trailmix

He may never call with some excellent explanation, as you know.

But let's just say he did call and said he is bi-polar and an alcoholic and the two really don't mix and he can control the drinking sometimes but this last binge scared him so he knows he can't be in a relationship. Which is why he was single for so long. It's safer for him.

That, I guess, would make sense, but would it help you?

antionym

Absolutely, rationally I know it likely won't happen. But I haven't been able to start moving on emotionally.

I've been thinking about this, why do I want to know so badly...I do think it would help (for me). I think I need to confirm for myself that this is truly for the best. My own traumas and anxieties are settled right around the spot that something horrible happened and I have no idea how I got there.

needuall

Is it OK to ask how old you are? Were you hoping for something long term and unlikely stable with him?

antionym

I'm 39 (I say 40 to get used to my new decade haha).

I was firmly single and comfortable with it for about 3 years when we met. I was still reluctant at first, but he won me over. He's younger - 34. Which isn't a big difference on paper, but later my therapist (and this forum) have all pointed out that emotional development can slow or halt with addiction.

Sadly for me, it was amazing up until it wasn't. I'd never been in such a supportive, caring, thoughtful, communicative relationship, where we are both equals and not in competition with each other. And we did (for the first time in my life) make long-term plans to be together, and dropped the word marriage every so often. Up until then I'd kept my skepticism even in longer-term relationships.

I stopped worrying as much. He didn't have much relationship experience, but I did. So in my mind ours was rare and precious and to be preserved. He would occasionally mention how grateful he was about being able to maintain his sobriety and his mental health. I believed it because he was going to meetings and meeting with his therapist and his psychiatrist. But...clearly it didn't entirely prevent this kind of crash.

trailmix

Well something horrible did happen to the relationship, but you mean to him?

Well it really did too, you mentioned he said:

Imagine having a mental illness that is quite serious, plus being an alcoholic. That's huge, that's a big burden. He managed to get sober, in to recovery and seemed to have a fairly even keel with his mental illness (if indeed you are correct about this).

Something triggered all of that again, doesn't really matter what it is. Imagine how scary that is for him. He went from being a fully functioning member of society to a guy in a dark room. So he dropped everything and went back to the way he was. Does that make sense? It does to me. Without his stability, he has no real life to speak of. Sounds like he has just gone back to what was working for him, focusing on himself. Perhaps he can't have a relationship (some people can't), maybe it's always been too much for him. You don't really know his history there or what his family dynamic was.

He's got support, hopefully he will be just fine.

antionym

That actually makes perfect sense, when you put it like that. My missing piece is where did the anger or spitefulness come from. He was being treated for something, I just don't know the big picture (I knew addiction and anxiety). So with the sudden demeanor change and the anger and push-away...I armchair-diagnosed the poor man with bipolar in my mind. Maybe just to help me cope with it, really.

Yes - horrible as to both. My recurring nightmares since childhood are I'm in prison/death row and nobody will tell me why. It's not his fault. But boy did this do a number on me.

I do think it's true that he's likely going back to basics, or intending to. I would imagine if I'm hurting about him, he's hurting about me. And I'm not ready to admit to myself that this is permanently over. I agree that 12 years single, a short stint, and back to single probably means that being single is best for him. I just so so so don't want it to be true.

trailmix

It did do a number on you, which is totally to be expected. Notice how when he stumbled in his mental health he immediately knew to focus on himself and take care of himself.

It's really important that you do that too, take care of yourself. Eat well, get regular sleep, try to entertain yourself, go for walks, whatever calms you.

One thing you may have noticed in other threads, where the alcoholic leaves, or destroys the relationship in some other way, is that many of them claim they love the person and want to be home with them etc etc.

The thing is, sometimes what a person wants and what they can reasonably manage are not the same thing. Your ex may have wanted a relationship, a nice home life, friends, happy stuff, but that doesn't mean he can cope with the time and energy that involves, something has to give.

- He gained weight (addictive tendency) - which had some health issues return
- His medications - he said he had "newly disruptive side effects"
- He never really discussed his mental health issues with you

All of these things were warning signs. It may have seemed overnight to you, but probably to him it was creeping up. He may not have known it would all come crashing down like it did though.

- He was starting a new career, primary school teaching - that's a big task
- Maintaining a relationship

Something had to give here, unfortunately that was your relationship. That is his tried and true method.

Who knows what he will do in the future but when he said - no more - he probably meant it. Perhaps that place he gets taken to is so dark he just can't risk it.

None of this means he didn't love you/loves you, it's not about you, it's really about him.

antionym

That's a great point. He knew to do that. And co-dependent me focused on him instead of myself. Of course his self-care gives me false hope re his healing and returning, when I should be letting it go. I didn't seek a relationship initially. But before the crash things were so good, that now I miss it and him. I wake up with my heart physically aching.

They absolutely were warning signs, yes. I saw them and raised to my therapist. It seemed like any one of these things weren't enough to sound the alarm bells. He would bring them up himself, and I resolved to listen but not to mother (successfully or not - who knows). I figured he defeated all of these challenges once, incredibly so, without me. So I trust him to do it again without a hovering gf. He said he was changing his diet, or calling his psych, or making changes at work. All of which I'd witnessed. So I filed it under "relationships require work and compassion."

I Also think it's well-said that being single is his tried and true harm reduction. His side effects were in TMI land. However assuming I'm right and his mental health is more severe than I or even he knew, upon further reflection, I think reached out to his psych not to address the TMI but to manage the sullen crash in a dark room. The TMI did frustrate him, so it may have been another item on this list of factors. But again - I felt he was handling it. I saw him take new pills, we googled solutions together, and so on.

trailmix

It sounds like you did everything you could do really. Couples can have a situation where one person has a mental health challenge and work with it, I don't think that's too uncommon, so I don't think alarm bells would have necessarily been ringing for you, but they might have been for him.

Whatever he has been through in the past, it kept him single for 12 years. Dateless for 12 years. That's a big deal too. He's obviously a nice guy, he obviously enjoyed your relationship, so it's not that he doesn't know how that can be.

Did he even have a sore throat or was that him just putting you off questioning him?

I guess what I'm saying is there was probably way more going on in his head than there was in yours - in terms of - whatever it is he goes through.

It would be really nice if you could get answers, it would be really nice if he would provide those answers, but I guess he's not going to. He's gone in to protective mode and it's probably much safer for him there.

antionym

I think that's right. It probably was an accumulation for him, though on my end I was running out of supportive things to say or do. He used to say I am what cheers him up. And now I am grieving that pretty hard.

That's here I'm stuck. He knows how it can be. So if I'm in his shoes, I don't smash it with a hammer. And I might even stay hopeful that I could have a relationship in the future. And back in my shoes, I don't know how I became the enemy without conflict. It felt like he was punishing both of us. And I feel like the bad pancake.

I wondered about the store throat too, because it was inconsistent with what he later said and did. I think it was maybe 40% true at the time it started...but quickly morphed into a mental health crisis.

It helps me to think of it that way, thank you. I just wish I could get rid of that hope that's stuck to me still.

trailmix

Well I think if you haven't ever suffered from severe mental challenges, you can't know what you would do. From outside here we might think, well I would want him to help get dinner and talk to me about my worries and hold me when I'm feeling down etc

But generally, mental illness (and this is a broad generalization) doesn't have room for others, just like alcohol. I say broad generalization because that is probably more for severe, perhaps not effectively treated mental illness. It's not that the person may not want to get better, it's that there is no clear path to get there. So he doesn't have room for you, nor the mental capacity, certainly not now, for you (for a relationship).

If he's feeling a bit more stable now, would he want to come back? Would he risk being right where he left from? Another thing that plays in to all this is he was only sober for 3 years, that's a great start to sobriety, but it's a start only. When he got sober he had to learn to live on life's terms, that's a big order as well. If he came back tomorrow as the guy on facetime, the one you didn't recognize, would that be ok?

I don't want to squelch your hope and who knows what he will do,

edoering

I really, really caution against the belief that we need to know. Because, personally, my healing didn’t begin until I let go of the “need to know.” At the root, that was both a control thing and a codependency thing—I wanted to know what was “real” so I could maybe fix it (control it) OR to know what was “real” so I could feel validated in what I was experiencing.

Funny story? No amount of validation was ever enough, until I believed myself. No amount of research, professionals agreeing with me, etc, healed that insecurity that I was “wrong.” Codependency symptom—needing other people to agree with your perspective on reality to believe it, to believe yourself. As if your lived experience doesn’t count until someone else agrees. But as long as I didn’t believe myself, I could take any evidence or external validation and twist it into an argument against myself, and torture myself with those thought-rabbit-holes.

The more I tried to “know,” the longer I was fixated on him and the past and wasn’t healing.

The best thing I learned is that feelings are not addressed by your brain. They are physical sensations that process on their own time/pace. Most honestly, my brain WAS torturing me, because I was physically/emotionally in pain and my brain was running around in circles trying to justify the pain. “You feel this way because he’s actually fine, and you were the worst part of his life, and he’s better without you—why else do you feel so hollow and exhausted?” But my brain was trying to make up complex answers to a simple truth—I was hurting. That’s it. No need to explain or justify.

I addressed the pain more successfully with somatic-focused care. Deep breathing. Vagus nerve exercises. Body scans. Just letting myself feel emotions and focus on the physical sensation (observing and accepting it) and then observing when the wave passed. Eventually, it changes. The feelings and your body change. But you can’t force it, or “think” your way out of it.

I also caution against thinking mental illness or addiction explanations will resolve your doubts and grief. In my experience (with family members and my ex-husband) they are inseparable. Addiction is just a term we use to describe a certain cluster of behaviors that are disordered, just like mental illness labels are used. I personally think of it like a specific kind of chronic mental disorder. The roots of those behaviors are a combination of mental disposition (natural brain chemistry and biology), environmental triggers and trauma, and personal choice/free will. Our personalities are also a combination of our biochemistry, environment, and personal choice. We don’t really “cure” parts of who we are, but we can manage them how we want to. If you take away social stigma from addiction, there’s no benefit to one diagnosis over another. And no two bodies with bipolar disorder are the same, just like no two bodies with addiction are the same. It expresses uniquely based on the unique person’s make-up. The truth is so much simpler, but also more “complex” than these diagnoses. There is just the brain, body, and soul of the person you love. It has the pros and cons it has, and they make the choices they make. No label or diagnosis perfectly describes their experience. No label or diagnosis means it will be easier to fix, or that they are more or less at fault. We can only make decisions with the facts we face, and trust that that is enough.