hurt.and.alone

I am 22 years old, and I am married and we have a 3 month old baby. My husband is addicted to oxicotins. He has been addicted for a little over 2 years now. I have asked him to quit repeatedly. About a month before our baby was due I gave him an ultimatum. I said he would have to quit the pills, or move out. He said he would quit the pills, but of course he didnt. He hid taking them from me till right before the baby was born. In a month he spent over $1000 on pills. I did not know how far his addiction was until this point. About 2 days before I had the baby he confronted me and told me that he wanted to quit, and that he knew he had a problem, and that he was so sorry, and he would quit for me. He was clean for about 3 weeks when he started doing them behind my back again. I found out last week, when he stole money out of our bank account. I had to take his debit card away, and hide my purse from him. Somehow he found a checkbook, took some checks, went to walmart and wrote a check over to get more money out of our account...TWICE. And just yesterday he found my purse and he took his debit card back and took another $60 out of the account. I told him that if he ever took money out of the account, that I would consider that taking money away from our daughter, and I would have to ask him to move out. We do not have that much money, so when he even takes out $20 it hurts us. We are in complete debt because of how much money he had spent on it before. He has also lost 3 jobs because of his addiction. When I started confronting him about this, he started talking about killing himself, and that I didnt deserve him. I am really scared of what he would do if I left him. But I am not sure how much of this I can take anymore. I love him so much, and it hurts so bad watching him do this to himself. Everytime he lies to me, or steals money out of our account, it breaks my heart over and over again. I cant trust him at all. He'll lie to me about what time he works, or what time he is getting off that day, he lies about where he is going, or what he is doing. I am trying so hard to remember that it is not him doing this stuff to me, its the addiction. But it still all hurts the same. I do not want to leave him. But I think thats the only option I have right now. I asked him to go to rehab, and he doesnt want to, he says he can quit on his own! He told me that if I left him, he would probably overdose. I cant let that happen to him. I dont want to give up on him, but am I fighting the enivetible (sp?)???? I need to think about whats best for my daughter too, and right now I really dont know what to do. I have nobody to talk to, and I really need someone to talk to about this, cause its eating me up inside.

Selah

welcome to SR - I am sorry you're going through this...but many of us on SR are in or have been in the SAME situation. Read all you can, there's great advice here.
It's up to him and only him to stop, if you have already threatened to kick him out and haven't followed through he will continue to abuse knowing you aren't serious. Stick to your guns, he has to know you are demanding a better life for yourself and your baby.

(((((hugs)))) to you - I'll keep you in my prayers.

GiveLove

Hi hurt,

Welcome to SR, I'm glad you found us. Read around and learn more about addiction, what addicts do, and how others have learned to cope with this evil thing in their lives. Knowledge is power.

I'm sorry he's blackmailing you into staying in this situation. Lots of addicts threaten suicide when we talk about getting away from their madness. I'm sure that you care about him, but know that this is very typical addict blackmail. If you read some of the other posts, you'll see this is a common thing.

If you can find a Nar-Anon meeting or an Al-Anon meeting (they're for families & friends of addicts, not the addicts themselves) I found that really helpful. You'll find others who are going through the same kinds of things, and start building yourself a support system. Happysoul's right: You did not cause this, you can't control it, you can't cure it. Right now, you need to turn your focus on yourself and your baby and make sure you survive it, because addiction is a progressive disease, and if you think it's bad now...well....I don't want to scare you. But please start being self-protective.

Here's a small step you can take today, right now: Go to the bank, withdraw all of the money in your joint account, and use it to start your own bank account that he cannot have access to. This way, you can be assured that you won't be made homeless, and your baby starve, through his addiction.

If he is the sole source of income, then you have the right to demand he sign his check over to you, to deposit to your account, which again HE CAN NEVER HAVE ACCESS TO, no debit card, no checks (keep them in a safe deposit box if you need to - a box costs like 15.00/year). Alert the bank that you are to be the only signer on the account, again get yourself your own PO box to have things sent to (again, like 10-15.00/year) Burn the debit card. Find the checks, and burn them too. Watch out for credit card offers in the mail -- he may sign up for those behind your back, and you will be responsible for that as well.

There are people on this forum whose addicts ran up so much debt that even after the addict is long gone, they've spent the rest of their life trying to pay off the $100-200K that they're now responsible for because they were married when their addicts rang up the bills.

Addicts in active use don't care what happens to you. You have to start doing these things. You can worry about whether to leave later - but for now, you need to protect yourself.

Sending you hugs and strength to take care of yourself and your tiny girl. She deserves a better life than to grow up with a thief, a liar, and an addict.

GL

caileesnana

Welcome, you're in the right place!
Keep reading and posting, it helps!
susan