Story of a wonderful man w/ a horrible problem...
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Between the ocean and the mountains
Posts: 653
Oh, I am so very sorry. It isn't you, cher. It isn't that you are constitutionally lacking courage. It is the effect of his disease on you. It is draining you of life and will, slowly, like ivy chokes a tree, destroy you. He is so powerful, his disease has such control now, and you are too fragile to stand against it for yourself.
I don't know what to tell you other than to never allow yourself to be isolated with this, for it will take you all the way down and you could die before he does. You must tether yourself to some kind of support. You MUST. Alone, you will be lost.
Attend Al-Anon twice a week. Find a counselor and see that person once or preferably twice a week. See a physician for treatment for traumatic stress and exhaustion. Go to church.
Just PLACE yourself in these environments and let the holy spirit in them begin to work.
This recurring devastation is going to send you into major depressive disorder (if you are not already there) and one day you may curl into a fetal position on the floor and be incapable of getting yourself up again.
Why don't you stay connected here, too? There is much love and understanding here.
Bluejay
I don't know what to tell you other than to never allow yourself to be isolated with this, for it will take you all the way down and you could die before he does. You must tether yourself to some kind of support. You MUST. Alone, you will be lost.
Attend Al-Anon twice a week. Find a counselor and see that person once or preferably twice a week. See a physician for treatment for traumatic stress and exhaustion. Go to church.
Just PLACE yourself in these environments and let the holy spirit in them begin to work.
This recurring devastation is going to send you into major depressive disorder (if you are not already there) and one day you may curl into a fetal position on the floor and be incapable of getting yourself up again.
Why don't you stay connected here, too? There is much love and understanding here.
Bluejay
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 45
Thank you Bluejay - those are very inspiring words. I've been lucky (if that's what you can call it) in that I've made 2 very close friends recently - before my AF went awol - who as strangely as it sounds, have both been through this with their ex-husbands. And I had NO IDEA that they had been through this prior to today - maybe they were angels sent to me in a time when I needed them most. I have other very close friends, and family who love and support me, but it's not the same hearing "you're strong, move on, you don't need that in your life" from them, when they have no idea how to relate the way these 2 new friends can. Maybe this is what I needed - the Tether you described Bluejay. I'm hoping and praying.. maybe their struggle to leave, and the strength and peace they have found in the wake of doing so, will somehow inspire me. It doesnt feel like a pep-talk or a lecture coming from them today, it felt like we were soldiers, fighting the same fight together. But still no word, so I'm trying to push through today as best I can... 
Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Between the ocean and the mountains
Posts: 653
Yes, angels from God, those two new friends who will understand like others cannot what the power of the disease does to us, how it weakens and defeats us, even if we have all our lives been strong and capable.
Every person in the world who is intimately connected with an active addict (and most intensely drug addicts) is crushed by the addict and by his or her disease. Well-meaning people will tell you that you deserve better and to just cut him loose and move on and that you can do it, do it for the children, etc etc. But when one has been decimated over a long or intense period of time by the insanity of an addict, then one has lost the inner resources to do for oneself what needs to be done. It is as if all will has been lost. This is also the message of the First Step:
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol". [We admitted we were powerless over the effects of the alcoholic or addict in our lives].
Like addicts, codependents go through stages--early, middle, late. With the addict, when he reaches late stage addiction, he has lost the ability to consciously choose recovery. He requires intervention which forces him into recovery. (The book "The Addictive Personality" describes this.) This intervention can come in the form of a major health breakdown, or an arrest, or professional intervention, or--in some rare cases--the hand of God, an abrupt spiritual conversion. (This is what happened to Bill W.)
Codependents in the late stages of their emotional illness also, I believe, become incapable--or nearly incapable--of being able to fight for their lives and their children's lives, and to consciously choose recovery (which means physical and emotional separation from the active addict and commitment to long term recovery of mental health for herself).
Your two friends can be the first two tether lines for your recovery. And you can add more lines to help you find balance and strength. As I said, just place yourself in therapeutic settings and allow the holy spirit to take effect.
Do so right away. You are losing time and ground under your feet everytime he goes back out and then returns to you, more insane than ever. A demon controls your man, and there is nothing you can do for him, other than to say NO.
Love,
Bluejay
Every person in the world who is intimately connected with an active addict (and most intensely drug addicts) is crushed by the addict and by his or her disease. Well-meaning people will tell you that you deserve better and to just cut him loose and move on and that you can do it, do it for the children, etc etc. But when one has been decimated over a long or intense period of time by the insanity of an addict, then one has lost the inner resources to do for oneself what needs to be done. It is as if all will has been lost. This is also the message of the First Step:
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol". [We admitted we were powerless over the effects of the alcoholic or addict in our lives].
Like addicts, codependents go through stages--early, middle, late. With the addict, when he reaches late stage addiction, he has lost the ability to consciously choose recovery. He requires intervention which forces him into recovery. (The book "The Addictive Personality" describes this.) This intervention can come in the form of a major health breakdown, or an arrest, or professional intervention, or--in some rare cases--the hand of God, an abrupt spiritual conversion. (This is what happened to Bill W.)
Codependents in the late stages of their emotional illness also, I believe, become incapable--or nearly incapable--of being able to fight for their lives and their children's lives, and to consciously choose recovery (which means physical and emotional separation from the active addict and commitment to long term recovery of mental health for herself).
Your two friends can be the first two tether lines for your recovery. And you can add more lines to help you find balance and strength. As I said, just place yourself in therapeutic settings and allow the holy spirit to take effect.
Do so right away. You are losing time and ground under your feet everytime he goes back out and then returns to you, more insane than ever. A demon controls your man, and there is nothing you can do for him, other than to say NO.
Love,
Bluejay
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 45
So I haven't been on this site in quite awhile. Its the most recent and traumatic events in my life that have brought me back. I had continued to be with the "wonderful man" that started this thread, back 5 years ago. It was all a continuous sick cycle carousel of life that we had been on. He would be clean for 1-2, maybe 3 months tops. He would relapse, be gone for 1-2 days, return, depressed, a shell of himself. I would forgive (but not forget) and life would slowly get better. Repeat cycle. However, a month ago today, he returned from one of his "adventures" and said that he had to tell me something. All along, while he was gone on these costly and dangerous adventures, I would ask him if there were any women involved. Any contact, physical stuff. He would say over and over again that he would never do that to me. He would never put me at risk and that he loved me more then to ever do something like that. Yeah, well.... I'm a sucker for believing that. He had been performing physical acts with prostitutes, crack whores, whoever, all along all these years. I was crushed. I was shocked and scared. I told him that I would need to see him fight, for himself and for me. 2 weeks later, I had seen no efforts on his part, and I started to pull away. 1 more week passed, and he told me that he was leaving. He was going to move out, that he didn't want to hurt me and my children anymore. Now I know that rationally, I should be happy to have this waste of a relationship done.... I know that someday I will feel that way. But as of this moment, I am destroyed. I feel like he has turned his back on me, like I'm not worth the effort. Not worth fighting for. I feel abandoned and alone and helpless. I've been crying all the time for the past 3 days (since the UHaul came and took what he had away) and I'm a shell of myself. Please, anyone that may have gone through this, I could use some inspiring words for strength. 
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Jungle
Posts: 5,435
First let me say that I'm sorry that you are hurting. Emotional pain seems to engulf the entire being....mind, body and spirit.
It sounds like you've been in and out of this emotional pain for the last five years. I didn't read the whole thread but I read the first few pages. Hopefully, the cycles that you have been going through are over. He's gone now. And as bad as that hurts, it's an opportunity for you to finally move forward. You deserve more than what he was able to give.
You will survive this. You've hopefully learned something important without becoming so jaded that you will never trust again. And it will take time.....perhaps lots of it.
In the meantime, it may be wise to get to a dr and get yourself checked out from head to toe. Make sure you haven't been left with a gift that keeps on giving (STD). And make a promise to yourself and your daughters that you will take care of yourself (and them too if they are still at home) first. You're worth it.
Again, I'm so sorry that you've been hurt so deeply.
gentle hugs
ke
It sounds like you've been in and out of this emotional pain for the last five years. I didn't read the whole thread but I read the first few pages. Hopefully, the cycles that you have been going through are over. He's gone now. And as bad as that hurts, it's an opportunity for you to finally move forward. You deserve more than what he was able to give.
You will survive this. You've hopefully learned something important without becoming so jaded that you will never trust again. And it will take time.....perhaps lots of it.
In the meantime, it may be wise to get to a dr and get yourself checked out from head to toe. Make sure you haven't been left with a gift that keeps on giving (STD). And make a promise to yourself and your daughters that you will take care of yourself (and them too if they are still at home) first. You're worth it.
Again, I'm so sorry that you've been hurt so deeply.
gentle hugs
ke
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
Welcome back, cherbear.
Again and again on the site, we tell new posters, and we repeat to each other the brutal unchanging reality of the dark disease which is called addiction: that it renders the addict powerless, that the addict will lose control of all aspects of his higher nature, will succumb to the worst and most diabolical shadow parts of himself, and will not and CANNOT be a loving, responsible, trustworthy partner to ANYONE. No matter how good that partner might be nor how much she might love him.
As the addict denies the control addiction has over every part of himself, we continue to deny the control addiction has over our relationship with the addict. We think that we will bargain with it, we will out maneuver it with love and steadfast devotion, we will hold fast to the addict and in doing so, prevent him being swallowed whole. We think we will save him, our marriage to him, and the family we made with him.
We are, when we think this way and act out this thinking, living in delusion. We have not fully surrendered to the fact of addiction as a power greater than ourselves. And if the addict has no psychic conversion to sobriety, there will simply be no change in our tortured life with him. Things will only get darker. Everyone will disintegrate. Addiction kills all good things.
You have battled and you have lost the fight. It was inevitable.
But you can still emerge from this and create goodness out of the darkness you have lived. Only you can do this, only you can make that choice, only you can determine in what way you will bring light out of this hell. But you can.
We are glad to hear from you, and we hope we can support you as you repair your shattered mind and heart, and somehow give you faith that life can be better than you can ever imagine so today.
Please be sure to forgive yourself for anything you hold yourself responsible for in your entanglement with addiction, for you could not have fully understood what was happening to your partner nor to yourself. It is not your fault. It never was.
Again and again on the site, we tell new posters, and we repeat to each other the brutal unchanging reality of the dark disease which is called addiction: that it renders the addict powerless, that the addict will lose control of all aspects of his higher nature, will succumb to the worst and most diabolical shadow parts of himself, and will not and CANNOT be a loving, responsible, trustworthy partner to ANYONE. No matter how good that partner might be nor how much she might love him.
As the addict denies the control addiction has over every part of himself, we continue to deny the control addiction has over our relationship with the addict. We think that we will bargain with it, we will out maneuver it with love and steadfast devotion, we will hold fast to the addict and in doing so, prevent him being swallowed whole. We think we will save him, our marriage to him, and the family we made with him.
We are, when we think this way and act out this thinking, living in delusion. We have not fully surrendered to the fact of addiction as a power greater than ourselves. And if the addict has no psychic conversion to sobriety, there will simply be no change in our tortured life with him. Things will only get darker. Everyone will disintegrate. Addiction kills all good things.
You have battled and you have lost the fight. It was inevitable.
But you can still emerge from this and create goodness out of the darkness you have lived. Only you can do this, only you can make that choice, only you can determine in what way you will bring light out of this hell. But you can.
We are glad to hear from you, and we hope we can support you as you repair your shattered mind and heart, and somehow give you faith that life can be better than you can ever imagine so today.
Please be sure to forgive yourself for anything you hold yourself responsible for in your entanglement with addiction, for you could not have fully understood what was happening to your partner nor to yourself. It is not your fault. It never was.
Member
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 1,691
I am so sorry for the pain and what you have gone through. I hope that if he's not ready to fight the fight from the inside out that he will stay gone. This back and forth stuff is what I think is so lethal - for you and especially for the kids.
You're probably worn down which is why you feel so bereft. You've had a huge shock and horrible violations have occurred....no wonder you are hurt. It just takes a while to sort it all out.
For me - I kept holding out hope that things would eventually change. But nothing changes if nothing changes. If nothing else, please look out for your health. I'd be surprised if he ends up leaving on his own accord - or if he does, I doubt if he will stay gone. Please be aware of the big possibility of those things happening and have ways to fortify yourself if you do believe that things have not changed.
The only way that I made it out eventually was to work a program of my own....sending you thoughts and hugs.
You're probably worn down which is why you feel so bereft. You've had a huge shock and horrible violations have occurred....no wonder you are hurt. It just takes a while to sort it all out.
For me - I kept holding out hope that things would eventually change. But nothing changes if nothing changes. If nothing else, please look out for your health. I'd be surprised if he ends up leaving on his own accord - or if he does, I doubt if he will stay gone. Please be aware of the big possibility of those things happening and have ways to fortify yourself if you do believe that things have not changed.
The only way that I made it out eventually was to work a program of my own....sending you thoughts and hugs.
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 31,179
((cherbear)) - Though I'm glad to see you back, I'm sorry for the reason
I'm a recovering crack addict and left my XABF#3 because he chose to keep using, I chose recovery.
It was hard, but it was absolutely the best thing I could have done. You've been on the rollercoaster long enough, sweetie. He's made his choice. I will say, though, that he's not using AT you, he's just using. When we are active, our brains pretty much think of nothing else but the dope.
You deserve a life without all the drama, you really do.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
I'm a recovering crack addict and left my XABF#3 because he chose to keep using, I chose recovery.
It was hard, but it was absolutely the best thing I could have done. You've been on the rollercoaster long enough, sweetie. He's made his choice. I will say, though, that he's not using AT you, he's just using. When we are active, our brains pretty much think of nothing else but the dope.
You deserve a life without all the drama, you really do.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: the shire
Posts: 379
hugs and peace to you cherbear.
i have only been here since july so i just read your posts and everyone else's from 5 years ago...no offense...but it seemed like the first posting that you have and the one today is no different.
now, i truly understand why people in this community's first advised when dealing with an A is to run...run...run far away from them...for a minute i thought it was harsh, i read most of the comments that were posted to your first one and every one said, TAKE CARE OF YOU, NO CONTACT...but in the end they said too that its your choice...and there's nothing wrong with you sticking it out with him...but more than ever now i realized that there are things that never really change....love is not enough...yes they will try to get sober but...ONCE AN ADDICT ALWAYS AN ADDICT....after my xabf broke up with me, i was torn to pieces, devastated....the first thing they told me here was try NO CONTACT....the next threads i started still says i miss him...this wonderful man i meant...but then again i was told that I WAS LUCKY and that HE DID ME A FAVOR REALLY for not being with him anymore...i took it one day at a time....its hard...because just like you...HE MEANT THE WORLD TO ME, HE WAS SPECIAL, HE WAS MY SOULMATE....until i stopped caring/enabling...then he found someone else.
i miss my xabf, and i think about him every single day...i miss doing things with him since we share the same interest...am i better now as person? yeah, i could say that...i no longer worry about him being with someone else sniffing coke, drink until he drops and all those things that he does when he is high that sends me to the panic room.
hang in there, have some time for yourself, away from everything so you can sort your feelings and what's on your head out...your HP is looking out for you and know that you are not alone...DO WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST FOR YOU.
hugs and peace again
i have only been here since july so i just read your posts and everyone else's from 5 years ago...no offense...but it seemed like the first posting that you have and the one today is no different.
now, i truly understand why people in this community's first advised when dealing with an A is to run...run...run far away from them...for a minute i thought it was harsh, i read most of the comments that were posted to your first one and every one said, TAKE CARE OF YOU, NO CONTACT...but in the end they said too that its your choice...and there's nothing wrong with you sticking it out with him...but more than ever now i realized that there are things that never really change....love is not enough...yes they will try to get sober but...ONCE AN ADDICT ALWAYS AN ADDICT....after my xabf broke up with me, i was torn to pieces, devastated....the first thing they told me here was try NO CONTACT....the next threads i started still says i miss him...this wonderful man i meant...but then again i was told that I WAS LUCKY and that HE DID ME A FAVOR REALLY for not being with him anymore...i took it one day at a time....its hard...because just like you...HE MEANT THE WORLD TO ME, HE WAS SPECIAL, HE WAS MY SOULMATE....until i stopped caring/enabling...then he found someone else.
i miss my xabf, and i think about him every single day...i miss doing things with him since we share the same interest...am i better now as person? yeah, i could say that...i no longer worry about him being with someone else sniffing coke, drink until he drops and all those things that he does when he is high that sends me to the panic room.
hang in there, have some time for yourself, away from everything so you can sort your feelings and what's on your head out...your HP is looking out for you and know that you are not alone...DO WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST FOR YOU.
hugs and peace again
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 45
Hi everyone. Thank you for the supportive words. I just wanted to clarify that he has moved out. He is no longer at my house. That's why this hit me so hard. I should hate him for all he's done, but the love prevails. I know I've read in some co-dependent books that addicts are good at manipulating a co-dependent. That's clearly what I am, and hope to be no more. Today was better then yesterday so maybe that's a sign.
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 31,179
I never drowned in them, but my mascara was all down my cheeks and t-shirts got soggy. I know this is hard, I gave up the crack AND my XABF#3 at the same time but I got through it (thanks, in big part to SR) and so will you.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 45
Well I made it through night #2 sleeping alone. I'm very grateful that the school year starts tomorrow, the routine and busy days may really be a blessing. I was weak and texted my xabf before I went to bed last. I just said that I hope he's settled in at his new place and that I miss him and love him. (I regret the last part). He read the text (thx to iPhone I get notified when he gets a text) and didn't reply. The next 5 min felt like hours. So I finally texted again: I understand and you don't have to say it back. He writes back: you have to understand, I do love you but there's been too much damage done to the relationship. More tears. More crying. But I deserved it really for saying that I love him. It's such a familiar and comforting thing to say. I've been saying it for years, and I still feel it, so to just suddenly stop one day because he wants to leave due to the damage done and potential binges in the future, well my brain can't process it. Well I'm hoping to have a good day today. I wish the same to all of you as well.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 493
Originally Posted by bluejay6 
if he doesn't get clean. in fact, it is likely he will come to hate you. .
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