fourth-house

hello, this is my first post. thank you for the good information in your messages i've read.
i am a little shy to bring my situation here...it is not dramatic or life-threatening as so many struggle with.
it is about a recovering drug addict who ran. we had a warm, new, and i thought mature, relationship. i met him in an al-anon meeting. he has 10 years recovery from cocaine/heroin. sponsors 2 men. does outreach. takes his 4 kids to church on sundays. he looks like one of the winners.
6 months into a lovely relationship, he bolted. did not cleanly end things, left me hanging. i wrote to him, thought it was depression, i did not even consider relapse, but he did not answer any of the letters. (i wrote to his work, did not want to call him at home because of the children). i tried communicating for 6 months because i thought he was suffering major depression (he struggles with depression) and recovery from that takes a long time,but finally i gave up. and began to consider relapse (i had not thought it possible for him, but i have since read and learned about it). it seemed to me that even a clinically depressed recovering addict would find the strength to at least end a relationship rather than run and remain deadly silent. relapse began to seem possible.
we are not young. we are of middle age, not naive, with a lot of life experience.
my therapist is shocked by this silent treatment i have received, calls it "brutal." and it does not fit with the image of a recovering person living a life of integrity, taking care of issues. i am incredibly confused and still, one year after his abrupt withdrawal, the shock lingers. he is still working, still parenting 4 children, he is not dead. but i know nothing of his life, we did not have mutual friends yet, and when we began dating i switched meetings. his refusal to be at least compassionate enough to communicate, to acknowledge my letters which were loving, to just respect me enough to respond has left me reeling. he seems like a recovery star. and his behavior has left me sick and unsure of what reality is. in the letters i asked him to let me know if he wanted no further letters from me and i would immediately stop writing.(i have good boundaries). but not a word, one way or another. perhaps he did not open them.
i have read about dry drunk behavior and wonder if this is what is happening and why this feels so much like a relationship gone wrong due to active addiction. and i wonder if anyone out there has been in a similar situation with a recovering addict who looks really good but knocks you for a loop through covert emotional abuse. i have read that a person is being emotionally abused when she begins to doubt her own perceptions and questions her own sanity. this has been my experience in this. i expect this kind of confusion with an active user. but do not know how to hold this in my mind with a longtime recovering addict who speaks at conferences and is a sponsor and also attends al-anon in addition to CA. it makes me feel crazy and thank goodness i go to therapy every week to deal with it.

so i am posting this in case it resonates with someone else's experience out there. i would like to hear other people's stories, if there are any that seem to be a fit. i learn from your stories.
thank you.

SaTiT

I'm sorry that you're getting the silent treatment.
lack of communications is not good for anyone.
Any threapist would tell you that communications is key.

my gf pretty much dose the samething to me

if he wishes to end the relationship then he should tell you.

this circumstance has probably retriggered a lot of un resolved
anger or emotions with in you. maybe it also triggers abandentment
issuses.
If you experince un resolved anger or abandenment in your pass,
this current situation will seem extreemly overwhelming.

not being able to resolve the matters
on gose the obsessive behaviors. This is how my obsessions
cycle starts. i went though a very same experince not too long ago
or even with my ex-wife decades ago. thankfully, my ex-wife contacted
me after a year. I needed to know, from her, not her lawyer, her parents,
or her friends. While the answers she told me wasn't what I wanted to
hear, but at least it was resolved. From that moment on i was able to
move on with my life.

I'm going through this at the moment
i still struggle with my gf becuase of lack of communications and
she just left it up in the air. i find myself going back into old behaviors
of putting my life on hold..becuase i don't know what's up.
She's not drinking today and yes everybody in recovery loves her,
but having a personal relationship with her is a totally different story.
I don't know what i did that was so wrong for her to treat me this way.

what i'm doing is just trying to focus on myself, so that i don't sink
into a depression or go into an obsession. I get guilt for some stupid
reason..but i wasn't the person that wreacked our lives...so i have to
work through it .
I'm also a recoverying alcoholic. i came into recovery long before I've
ever met my gf. I'm also ACOC...so it's kind of wacked all the way around
on a good day.

I'm not totally spiritaul or wanna seek out my HP or communicat with god
at the moment. i have the answers, but I'm not doing it.
I know why i trun to god...becuase nobody really gives a rats ass one
way or the other and a HP would love me unconditionally like the way
i need to be loved. It's a phase or stage i'm going through ...i guess
bascially i feel hurted for being treated the way my gf treated me.
after all these years, after all we've gone through...I'm a bit bewilder
at the moment. and I don't think my HP loves me or can careless at
the moment. i feel what i feel

i don't beat up myself thou...i know i'm just hurt, so I'm just processing
being hurt. I guess I'm trying to move on with my life in a way.
baby steps, baby steps.

i guess I'm getting better...even thou i don't think I'll ever want to
get into a relationship again....becuase I'm hurt at the moment

I havn't gone through the...I hate all women and i think they're
evil..B@#$%s. ..stage, yet.

it's okay thou..I might be hurt,but I'm not crazy, crazy.

i hope you find your way through it too.
Love yourself first and formost.

Hangin' In

Fourth,

I'm sorry you are going through this and am glad you have found SR.

So I'm going to call it like I see it, ok? I know you are hurting over the loss of this relationship, but it's been a year now. For some reason this guy bolted. You can analyze it all day long, try to figure out what is going on with him. But, in the end, I really think the focus needs to be put back on yourself and moving on. We can't spend our lives trying to figure out why other people did what they did. I know it has affected you. We are all here because we have been affected by the behavior of our addicted loved ones. But the 12 step program I try to live by tells me to get the focus back on me and work on my issues.

Since you are in counseling, maybe you and the counselor could work on how you can move forward with your life without so much emphasis on why he did what he did. He hasn't responded to letters or calls, so he has given you an answer by his actions. Yeah, I think how he ended this thing is a chicken way out, but it is what it is. Now what can you do to make your life better today?

We all have heartache and pain, Fourth, and I know this hurts. I really do understand. But as long as you continue to try to figure out what was and why it went wrong or why he did this or that, you're stuck in it.

I'm praying that you can get the focus back on you. I know meetings always help me get back to a more balanced life.

Hugs,
Hangin' In

Elana

My experience is that addicts who are not in recovery (note, they may or may not be active in addiction) are cowardly. I wonder if that is not a huge reason for the addiction.

My XABF is out of my life. I do not wnat to communicate with him. He simply said , "I am unhappy. I am moving out." I asked him why he was unhappy. He would not talk about it. Coward.

He moved out and I did not have closure because of a lack of a reason. I started to understand codependency and with the help of SR and alanon and books by Melody Beattie, I started MY recovery. The lack of communication and discussion still bothered me. He could not sit down and be honest with me. That would have taken courage and decency.. two traits he never had.

Later I found out he was cheating on me and that is his M.O. I am sure he is now cheating on her. He is a scumbag and not in recovery and in active addiction. His cheating and my learning of it was all the closure I needed and I am grateful for the knowledge of that.

I had known this man for 6 years. We chose a house together and I bought the house (nothing was in his name). A year after we got the house he abruptly moved out.

My suggestion to you is forget it and move on. He has his issues and a guy/girl who pulls a disappaering act is unreliable and not worth your effort REGARDLESS of the reason for disappearing.

mooselips

fourth-house,
My heart hurts for you.

All I can add is what I see with my oldest addict son, he is emotionally, and mentally stunted. He's 34 years old, and functions like a 17 year old. Perhaps that is why your exAbf never bothered to give you closure. I'm not saying this is for sure, only from my personal standpoint of my son, who is emotionally inept.

Regardless of the reason, you have alot of living to do, move on, enjoy your life...
Hopefully talking it out with your counselor can help you feel better, but sometimes there are no answers to our deepest questions.

Hugs to you,

fourth-house

how good to hear from people about the experience of being shut out. thank you. and especially to "satit" who was so honest and unafraid to share how much the experience of coldness devastates. no matter our age, we are never prepared or resilient when it comes to abandonment.

with an active addict, i could absolutely have gotten it, understood what was happening. i never expect responsible behavior from anyone in active addiction. it was the shocking incongruence of public and private. i think for some of us, the choices addicts make are so unimaginable that we have nothing inside to figure it out because it is so alien. yes, thank you as well to the writers who spoke of emotional immaturity. when i was 13 i acted in similar ways....

while it has been a year since he
ran off, i have worked diligently through therapy and journaling and reading to stay grounded. all we can do when we are taken under by abuse is to reach for any kind of anchors we can until time takes us through the experience and out the other end. it does not happen according to the calendar, but it depends of the wheel life and when it will make its turn. how we hold on is our challenge.

what i have learned in reading is that with addicts, one has to take the long view. things do not work out, or move, within a few weeks or months. even with major depression, the sufferer is at the mercy of the illness for 8 to 12 months. so i feel my time of waiting was the right one for me.

and isn't it strange, how, a year can go by and it seems like only a few weeks has passed? how truly relative time is to the human heart?

it was amazingly healing to hear other people's stories. i do believe in miracles, in redemption, in fate. and i think it is love that makes everything bearable. love is action, not words. it is a lesson i have to learn again and again. we can be so seduced by words. everyone on this earth needs love and words seem to be love. but it is action.

"satit": you are real and i trust that kind of raw honesty. thank you and i hope today that some moment, or moments, you have a conviction that you are being prepared for genuine relationship...whether with your gf--who is not done changing--or someone your HP puts in your path. it is a hero's journey we undertake, and in the old myths, there is always the element of surprise and unexpected help. so just hold on until the wheel turns, and hold to your principles, and we'll make it together.

again, how grateful i am for stories.

Hangin' In

Fourth,

Since being around the rooms of recovery, I've learned that just because a person is sober doesn't mean everything else gets okay over night. Just like with me and working my program, I have to work at it. Changing oneself is hard. I know I didn't get the way I am overnight and I'm not going to change or get better overnight. So sober doesn't necessarily equal mature behavior.

And you are so right. Everyone goes through dealing with the addiction, rejection, hurt, pain, whatever in their own time. There is no book on how long it should or shouldn't take.

All I know is I do have control over how I choose to react to the addiction, rejection, hurt, and pain in my life. I can be a victim or I can choose to work toward being the victor. I was the victim for a while. That didn't work for me. Al Anon and this board taught me that I am the manager of my life and I do have a choice in how I, with the guidance of my HP, decide to run it and respond to the curves life has thrown me.

Best wishes for you as you come into your own recovery in your own time.

Hugs,
Hangin' In

hope213

fourth,i want to welcome you to S.R. i am glad you are here. i do not know why he bolted on you but i would not worry about it.yopu are lucky he did. find someone who appreciates you.prayers, hope

mike_mass

Sooooooo true. I did something similair to a girlfriend when I was using...had to leave the state on account of my job and stopped all contact abruptly. I resolved this through the steps but it is still a stain on my conscience.

GratefulGirl

i dont really have any advice but i wanted to say that you write beautifully fourth house.

fourth-house

dear hope 123, you made me smile. and mike-mass...thank god you have a conscience. i have stains on mine, too. what we do about them is what counts.

it is a full moon, so our feelings will be more intense, our perceptions clearer. i find myself wanting to hoe a garden or build a house in a full moon.

i bought a house last fall, in a town just outside the city where i met my exAbf, and because i hoped for family in it, and hoped it would be him and his children, i bought tons of board games, children's books, bats and balls, those sorts of things. a table that would seat 8. heavy dishes kids won't have to worry about breaking. by then i had not heard from him in four months, but i believe in holding a vision for someone, and i thought at the time he might be too ill to hold it for himself. what we hold in our hearts has power.

i raised a son by myself, i have fulfilled my mothering instincts, but i was hoping to know his children, and love them, too. their mother is mentally ill and an active alcoholic. i would have liked to offer them a home which felt safe.
and,

i bought those things because i believe in making concrete what our hopes are. even if God ultimately says no, it seems to me i need to do my part and open the door to my deepest wishes by creating something in the physical world that says "welcome".
it shocks me when people say no to happiness and yes to misery. and i think it probably makes God deeply sad. we are free to say yes or no to life.

i also sewed two small patchwork quilts for his little girls, which i keep in the closet. if he doesn't come back--and chances are slim that he will--i plan to give them to charity. but sewing those was also a way to keep connected. a silent way to deal with the silent treatment.

i am a writer. i guess it showed. thank you for the nice remark. but i love plain messy honest language from the heart. i don't care how many typos or what. i love the feel of the words i read in everyone's posts. i let go a long breath of relief and feel safe. so much in the world is calculated for an effect.

everyone go look at the moon tonight!

Elana

Oh I did similar and XABF, who never had much, moved in with me. I figured I was providing him with a place from which he could safely move into a successful life. Unfortunately, HE saw it as the perfect sfe place for drugs and cheating! We had a 5 year history at this point.

Please don't take this wrong, but this sounds filled with expecations. You had not heard from this guy in FOUR MONTHS!!!!!!!!! Still, you had an expectation that he would somehow resume contact and move in??????

He may be mentally ill, and that may be the reason. Or he may have found a GF he liked better. Or he may have decided he was feeling smothered. Myabe he is one of those guys where the pursuit is the sport and once the capture happens he loses interest in the prey! Who knows?

He may not even know! He was wrong not to talk to you, but people DO THIS. It HAPPENS. It HURTS. It is mean and miserable but NOT all that uncommon! After 2 months of no contact, the message being sent is LOUD and VERY Clear!

I have no words, and I am sorry for your pain, and maybe I am really wrong but all this seems way over the top to me. I am looking at this and what shouts out at me is that an awful lot of YOUR pain was SELF INFLICTED by unreasonable expectations and pursuit of a goal that had been removed as a possibility.

fourth-house

elana, yes, false hope and unrealistic expectations are deadly for anyone. i knew when i shared that information about waiting and saying yes to life and hopes that it would look like someone simply being filled with illusion. i agree with you that it is dangerous to hold out false hopes, especially when someone has been rejecting and cruel.

there seems to be conflicting messages in recovery. one camp says "screw him and get on with your life." the other camp says "it's an illness, get on with your life but know that he is ill and give it some time, for there can be profound healing and miracles." my exabf was ten years' in a strong recovery. i had good reason to believe he would--and will--eventually do the right thing.

maybe i come at addiction from the wrong angle. in my family there is someone who suffered major clinical depression and in this illness, you do not, ever, no matter what, stop contact, even if the person disappears from your life or refuses to communicate. send frequent communication and gifts and whatever else you might do to let them know they are loved and missed. every book will instruct friends and family this way. and when people emerge finally from the hell of that illness, they are able to say with deep gratitude, "thank you for not giving up, even when i couldn't reach back."

so what i learn from that illness is that there is a period of waiting it out. and i feel the same about relapse. if someone has a solid history of recovery and then flips in his behavior, it looks like relapse or major depression, and from my view it is necessary to hold on and let time work, let healing happen, and not expect results or changes in weeks or months.

this doesn't mean you stop living! heavens, no. i bought a wonderful old house i cherish and i continued writing and i continued involvement with my friends and family. i wasn't curled in misery with my board games all around me. thank goodness.

but in this there was, and is, a danger that i will not see his behavior as abuse but as illness and so will not hold him accountable. and i do see it as abuse. and no matter its source--illness or addiction--it is an assault on someone else. the silent treatment sends a clear message that you are not worthy of someone's time or respect, that you are a meaningless object to be tolerated and ignored. it devastates. it murders the child in us. abusive parents use it on their children like a whip and abusive men and women use it on their spouses as a method to control by inflicting psychological pain.

so you are right, elana, to sound the alarm. i gave it the time i felt comfortable with, knowing what i know of the disease, and now i am beginning to move beyond that and into a clear-eyed look at being abused. that's why i came to this board. for clarity and strength from others. i shared about the house and the children because i do think it is allright for people to let life know, through ritual or symbol, what they most wish for--which, for most of us, is love and family. it was my way of putting a candle in the window for someone lost at sea.

but i'm done with that. i am shifting. it's time. it will take a while to let go completely because such things take time. and there is a part of me that knows that he could come back with information and amends....but the chances are very small. the chances are always small, with the disease of addiction. and it is up to the individual how long and in what way she chooses to fight that darkness that has come into her life through someone's addiction. because it is a darkness. and every action we take, every thought we have, either feeds addictive disease or starves it.

he does not know i have these "welcome" symbols in my home, nor will he ever. he will not know i kept the candle in the window for him. this was my private experience of maintaining faith in darkness and i do not regret it. everyone is different in their character and in their choices and this is something i think the recovery program sometimes does not appreciate. there are those who do not bond deeply, who can easily say "screw it" and move on. they are of the cowboy/pioneer character. and there are others who absorb emotion very very deeply and need more time to move that emotion out. there is no one way to deal with the pain and the grief of loss through addiction. i try to always appreciate the personality and needs of the individual going through an experience.

what we can hope for is that the individual simply does not abandon his or her principles and core values in the experience. beyond that, it's our job to let them live through it however best they can to survive.

there's a great book called "it's not okay to be a cannibal: how to keep addiction from eating your family alive." it really advocates for the family being tough and seeing with wide open eyes what the addict is doing and getting away with. i've read it several times. plus "getting them sober" by toby rice drews, which is my manifesto! it's all about taking care of yourself. (the title is a trick to lure you in!)

i still want someone in my home to play monopoly with and to pop up some popcorn and watch a movie with. to love. we are made for love and for connection and i am not embarrassed by a wish for love. but never would i just settle for a "body" next to me. or for the dramas of someone acting out, simply so i can have someone. i have lived through enough pain in my life to be able now to to hold my ground. if we say "yes" to abuse, the door is wide open and we'll be knocked down again and again when it comes roaring in.

sorry...i'm so meptaphorical!! i hope it's not too irritating.

it's really good to communicate. thanks, elana, for saying what you think.

bookmiser

(((((((fourth-house))))))))




I'm gonna go look at the moon. lol

Elana

Hi Fourth House:

Myy husband was severely clinically depressed since age 10. I was married to him for almost 20 years. His depression was similar to his Mother's who had the same problem starting at roughly the same age. Her trigger? Her Mother died (in Germany) and her Father remarried. She, and therefore He, did not want this child from the fisrt marriage around. She was shipped off to an Uncle's where the older cousins raped her. Her marriage to my husband's Father was arranged and she ws sent to the US.

My Husband's trigger was when he was ten. He was playing with matches. The fire got away from him and the family farm's barn burned to the ground. They saved the animals, but lost the winter's feed supply. Two days later, while in the one room school house where W. went to school the teacher gave a lecture on the dangers of playing with matches and finished up saying, "So you NEVER play with matches, isn't that right W?" That is how he recalled it. Often, due to his mental illness I wonder if she really said that or if he imagined it. Doesn't matter, it was real in his mind.

My X husband had a PhD in Physics. He blew his career on alcohol and came back to the farm. He was a good farmer.. one of the best. I met him several years later. He had been "clean" for over 12 years. He was not in AA or any sort of recocrey. He had replaced alcohol with the hard labor of farming. I knew nothing of AA or Alanon. I also did nto know he had ever had a problem. His family and he both hid it. Besides, it was "over" wasn't it?

He and I were married and there was an age spread. He was a very handsome man.. looked like a cross between Newman and Redford. I was young then and not bad looking. We made a good looking couple.

He was clincally depressed and he was an alcoholic and (later I found this out) had a problem with Rx meds. He was asexual and self centered. I was little more to him that someone who he could discuss physics with, politics with, geology with and who was a great laborer and eventually a very good farmer. I was not a wife and there was little laughter or love in our house. I was there nearly 20 years. Ten of those years were entirely without any sexual contact.

When the cows were sold I tried to make it (relationship and marriage) work, but it was impossible. I felt like I was dying living there. It nearly killed me to stay and it nearly killed me to sell my horses and leave my beloved farm. I made it though. I am here.

I do not care HOW clincially depressed this man was. His illness was HIS responsibility NOT mine. He wanted a pill to fix it. He would not do the work to fix it himself. He tried to fix it with alcohol. His depression destroyed not only his life but nearly destroyed MINE AS WELL.

He would go to AA for awhile and relapse. He was very child like socially. If he thought he was being criticized he would get hurt and would leave and not go back. He always felt he was better than the other ppl at AA because of his extensive education. He thought he was better than me for the same reason and stated it many times in many ways (If we had a discussion and I was making a valid point counter to his, he would storm out saying we could not discuss things because I only had a 4 year degree and did not have his education in debates!! Talk about abuse? This man was emotiaonally abusive AND depressed!).

I got out to save me. We were divorced. I stayed in contact for awhile but it was too much for me to do. I finally just stopped contacting him. His illnesses were his responsibility. My health is my responsibility.

Three years later, after several failed suicide attempts, he was committed to the State Psychiatric Hospital and 8 months later he died there from a massive heart attack (so they say). I will wonder forever if he finally succeeded in creating the end he so desparately wanted and the heart attack story was one his family conjured because they were embarassed by his mental illness.

Yes. You have choices in recovery. You can stick around the addict or other person (codies are not always 'in love' with addicts.. they can be codie to other people as well). You can detach and love. I see the courage of many many parents here who do just that and I admire their strength and their ability to both detach and to love.

You also have the choice of walking away and saving yourself. I chose not to let my xhusband's diseases destroy me along with him. I do not think my HP, who I choose to call God, put me on this earth to waste what precious time I have here being destroyed "waiting" for someone to get well..

My Xhusband made NO effort to be truly well, but hid behind his own facade (much as your x BF has hidden behind a facade of recovery.. and BTW this is not the first story like this I have heard!).

Addiction and depressions are both diseases which require the sufferer to take a proactive stance and battle the disease on a day to day basis. If they do not, they relapse. By being there.. and being supportive you may be helpful but ultimately the management of these diseases are up to the person who is ill.

The same is true of codependent behavior.

All the support in the world cannot cure an addict, a person who is clinically depressed or a codie.

Those "cures" are really symptomatic management on the part of the sufferer with medication and therapy or NA/AA or NarAnon/Alanon as an adjunct to the self action of symptomatic management. Symptomatic management means the person who is depressed, addicted or codependent is absolutely accountable for their behavior.

They are accountable if they are active. They are accountable if they are in recovery. It is their LACK of accountability that makes us detach and let them drop to the bottom.

As to love? I have reached an age and a point in my life where I am no longer willing to compromise my time on another person. I do not think I ever want to go down relationship road again. I am happy in that decision. Occaisionally I struggle a little with it and then I go and do what I want and I don't have to explain it to anyone and I feel fine about it.

I must say that I never want to be "head over heels" in love again. My life is complete without that and I am free.

"Free" is the sweetest word I know.