lovesmenot74

Well for anyone who hasn't followed my posts, I've been really struggling with pain, guilt, self-doubt and missing my ex ... been crying every day for a month now ... with no end in sight.

Last night I read a thread from someone (sorry, can't remember who it was) who listed their "don't think about it" moments and it inspired me to do something somewhat similar in order to grasp some reality to the situation.

So there I sat, teary eyed with my journal and got REALLY honest with myself. I wrote down what I saw in him that I loved and missed (his sensitive side, his tenderness and vulnerability - things that I also feel and therefore identified with him) and then I forced myself to really look at his actions and how he'd shown me right from the start who he really was ... and I just dismissed all the signs and concentrated on the feelings we shared and the hurts we'd both endured, and somehow had convinced myself that despite his actions, his words were who he really was and with someone to love him unconditionally, somehow, the things he showed me would fade away and the good I saw in him would somehow surface and erase all the bad.

I've always been a person who believes that love is all that matters and that love can work miracles ... and this experience has really shook my foundation of beliefs to the core ... I'm hurting in ways I never thought possible ... and even though this journal entry only helped for a little while. I really, truly, loved my ex with all of my heart ... I gave him parts of me that I'd saved for the one I thought would cherish my heart ... and now I feel so empty inside.

I'm going to post my journal entry in a separate post below ... and I'd like to know if anyone else did this right from the start ... I'd love to hear people share their stories in this post ... maybe if I don't feel so alone, I won't feel so stupid ...

jerect

(((lovesmenot)))))

You're thoughts are not stupid.. and you are not stupid.. You loved someone who was just not capable of loving you back.. Thats his loss.. I would say that he is the stupid one..

Sweetie, you are taking the right steps toward healing yourself.. Feel proud that you journaling and sharing your thoughts..

I'm glad you mentioned journaling because I really need to start doing that again..

Things will get better.. just keep writing and releasing your feelings, we are all here to support you..

lovesmenot74

For f***'s sake - there is no ****ing escape from this incredible pain. No matter how many times I tell myself I'm better off without you - I still hurt so bad that at night I wish for death - I wish to just go to sleep and never wake up. It is taking all of my strength to function - to just do the basics during the day & I don't eve care about doing these things. What's the point?

I had all these plans for our future in my mind - things we talked about - things I thought you wanted too. Looking back, I think you were just along for the ride. Did you even like doing the things we did together? I had fun & I thought you did too. I thought I'd finally found someone who enjoyed the same things I did. I was so happy in the beginning but I guess it's time for me to realize that I never really knew you - or at least, I ignored the parts of you that didn't fit in with who I wanted to believe you were. Maybe you acted how you thought you were supposed to act - I dunno. But I guess I really have to take some time to think about who you really showed me you are.

When I met you - you had no job, smoked pot, stole bikes and stole from your friends. When I got to know your mother, she told me you had one job that you told everyone you were going to work until you had money to buy an Xbox & then quit - and you did. She also told me you did all kinds of damage to the house & would deny it even though she knew no one else could have done it. She told me how you used to steal money from her all of the time - so often that she had to wear a waist wallet to bed with her to keep you from stealing money that she needed to feed her children - your own sister & brother! Your brother told me that your mom kicked you out of the house because you punched your sister!

Your friends are all jobless drug users. I am trying right now to think of anyone that you know who actually has a job that doesn't involve stealing stuff & selling it or selling drugs. I really can't think of anyone. That should tell me a lot. It should have also said a lot to me that you constantly stole things from your "best" friends! That you were more concerned about getting your cigarettes back from the friend that broke into our home & stole your smokes & my alcohol than being upset that she broke in at all.

When you moved into your friends' place (the place they were renting from me) you didn't pay any rent - you somehow managed to get them to let you move in and not pay. And then, when they came to me - they complained about you damaging the place & showed me holes in the walls & the door you kicked in. They also came to me complaining about how much you ate of the food when they could barely afford food & you were paying nothing. They came to me & told me about collectors cards and money you stole from them.

Knowing all of this, WHY was I so confused & hurt when you refused to work & pay your share of the bills when you moved in with me? Why did I think that just because you said you loved me, that you wouldn't destroy my things, steal from me, and take your anger out on me when you didn't get your way?

I guess I have to take the responsibility for being naive. I really believed that you were sorry for the things you'd put your mother though & I excused your breaking into her house to steal because I figured there wasn't any other option & I wanted to believe that, given some kindness, the good in you would come through. I guess I looked at all you've been through and I saw your pain & thought that all you needed to do was have someone positive in your life. Maybe I did think that my love could change you & make you want to make better choices. I guess I looked at mistakes & bad choices I've made out of desperation & thought that because I would have chosen differently if I had a choice, then maybe you would make better choices because you didn't have to steal or lie etc just to survive. I guess I should have realized that our fundamental beliefs are so different. I don't believe that drugs, theft & vandalism are cool things to do. I don't associate with the type of people you associate with. I've held a job since I was 14 & when I moved out of my parents' house, I got a full -time job because I knew I had to make money to survive. I haven't always been perfect, but I try to make good choices & be an honest and good person. I don't make excuses for my poor choices - I try to admit my mistakes & take responsibility - and I try not to make the same mistakes over & over again. I wish I had gotten to know you better before I allowed myself to fall in love with who I thought you were, who you could be & who I wanted you to be. I wanted to believe the words you said & the promises you made. And I think you probably wanted to believe these things in teh beginning too - but it was a phase - just like everything else - you start things gung-ho, but rarely finish anything - once the adrenaline kicks out, you move onto the next fun thing. you've learned to tell people what they want to hear so you can do what you want to do. I wanted a partner that actually DID all the things you said you were going to do. I waited & waited & gave you chance after chance to follow up & match your words with actions to back them up. You never did - not once. You were always happy to let me pick up the slack & do everything. You always said that "we" needed to work on things but I never actually saw any effort from you - again, just empty promises. And I let myself ignore all the signs in hopes that if I loved you enough, you would be who I thought you were.

I still hope & pray that one day you'll see that what we had was good & worth fighting for - but I have to accept the fact that you don't want someone to tell you that you are making poor choices & need to be responsible for yourself. You want to surround yourself with people who accept your behaviour & encourage it - not people who want you to reach your potential. That will never be me.

Impurrfect

I, too, thought love was all that mattered. If you loved someone enough, it would all work out. It took 3 relationships with A's, over 25 years, for me to accept that love just wasn't enough.

I'm really glad you're journaling and getting all your thoughts out...good for you!!!

You may have been naive (I know I was), but you are definitely not stupid.

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

bodychek

My suggestion is to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings and take your time to work through the loss. If your thoughts and feelings of depression start slipping to that dark place of dying, that is when you really should seek help outside. It is not weakness to reach out for help when we are hurting, it takes real courage to realize when we need help.

Relationships with addicts/alcoholics like us are very intense. When we are lacking, we go after our relationships with the same fervor as we do our drugs/booze. Unfortunately when we are entrenched in our disease, once we get our *fix* from you we go back to what our sick minds really want... drugs & alcohol. My ex-wife used to be demoralized by the fact that I couldn't just want to be with her and my children. The truth is that I wanted to want to be with them. The shame and guilt I felt because I would rather be out practicing my addictions than at home with my family almost drove me to suicide.

It is time to mourn the loss of your relationship and use it as a time for growth and healing. It will get better and you will be more prepared in the future.

Troubledone

lovesmenot74

First, I want to say that I admire you facing your fears head on. That takes a huge amount of courage and love. Love for yourself.

I've done a lot of soul searching about love, trust, truth, reality, etc. I think that those of us who love addicts are challenged to really learn what these things mean in a deep way, not just superficially.

My husband left me after 7 years of marriage and my niece is an addict and for what it's worth, here's what I've learned about love so far from those two things.

1. All those cliche's about loving yourself are true. Only loving ones-self is not some syrupy mushy selfish feeling - it means taking responsibility for what happens to us and acting on our own behalf to take care of ourselves because we believe in our own worth. Both in the eyes of our HP and based on the contribution we make to the world.

2. Really loving someone means doing what is for both my own and my loved one's highest and best good, even if it hurts like crazy. That means accepting my niece as an addict and sometimes calling the police on her, sometimes praying for her, sometimes visiting her and sometimes refusing her calls - depending on what inceases her's and my own level of self-responsibility. Loving someone is not giving them a fish, it's teaching them to fish or letting them go hungry until they want to learn to fish.

3. People can respond to love only to the limit of thier capacity. Those who are developmentally challenged in terms of either stalling at some early development stage or in the case of addiction, regressing, don't have the capacity to show real love - they have only skills to get what they need. And those skills (like manipulation, playing "hurt", acting incompetent, anger, etc.) are well honed. The question I ask myself now is - what is it in me that responds to that and how can I find healing for myself so I can respond in a healthier way?

4. The really important lessons hurt like *ell, are very difficult to learn, but they are wonderful once we've mastered them.

Please know that on the other side of grief is joy and if you keep the faith, you'll get there and it will be better than you can imagine.

Prayers for peace inside and out...

lovesmenot74

jerect, thank you for posting ... my head knows it's his loss ... and that maybe one day he'll be able to look back and realize what he gave up ... I try to remind myself that every one of my past relationships have contacted me eventually to tell me what a positive person I was in their lives so I guess I can't be all that terrible of a girlfriend (although it's a struggle to know I always seem to be a stepping stone and not the rock I want to be) ... and I can only hope that one day he'll see that the only thing I tried to do was love him ... unfortunately for me ... that day won't come when I want it to.

lovesmenot74

Impurrfect, I remember telling my ex once that being in love wasn't always enough ... it was in the beginning of our relationship ... but I've always felt that love was the driving force to life and without it, nothing makes sense ... it's so hard to doubt the very things that are who I am ... and it hurts that he isn't able to see how much I love him ... to this day I really don't believe he REALLY thought I loved him as much as I do. I think he always thought I'd leave, so why bother trying to work at something that would end anyway ... and it breaks my heart that he never even tried for us.

lovesmenot74

bodychek, thanks so much for your post ... it's always nice to hear from RA's because I just don't have a clue what goes on in his mind. I often felt like he wanted to want to work on us, or spend time on us ... but he never ever followed thru on anything. I was always so happy for even the tiniest gesture ... just grasping at scraps constantly ... I always felt like for every 20 things I did for us, I was lucking if I got one ... but I always thought eventually his depression (which is what I thought it was) would lift and he would come back to me ... I wish I had seen the signs of drug use earlier on ... looking back so many things seem to make so much more sense. I should have protected myself better ...

lovesmenot74

Troubledone, thank you for your post ... it's interesting to me how much of these things I already know, but seem unable to practice. I think my biggest challenge with my ex was discerning when it was appropriate to "lift him up" and when it was appropriate to "let him fall". He would often ask me for help ... beg even ... and yet near the end of our relationship, he blamed me for making our relationship more like mother/son than girlfriend/boyfriend ... and is unable to see how hard I tried to make things equal and balanced in our relationship when he kept asking me to help him or do things for him that made ME feel more like a mother than a girlfriend.

The hardest part (okay I don't even know what the hardest part really is) was that I always try to look inside myself and accept responsibility for my mistakes and change my behaviours and he absolutely was not able/willing to do that ... sure he'd apologize sometimes ... but his apologies, tears, promises were ALWAYS in an effort to get something for himself (of course I only see that in hindsight) ...

I tried my best communication skills and was constantly looking up new techniques to try to communicate with him ... and when you say "regressing" you hit it right on the head ... he seemed to get LESS mature as our relationship (and now I believe his drug use) went on ... to the point where I remember looking up ways to deal with kids etc because that is what I felt I WAS dealing with ... a 5 yr old having a temper tantrum.

bodychek

No problem loves... During my recovery I have struggled with feelings of depression and resentment towards my ex-wife. I thought deep in side that once I got into recovery and started feeling better, she and the kids would come back and we would be a family again. I resented her and got depressed when that didn't happen. Now I realize that our paths are to be parents to our children and friends, but not lovers. It took recovery and the 12 steps for me to unblock the sh!t inside and be able to accept god's will.

Goold luck in moving through this, it is for the better. I am here if you have any questions or need to get anything out.

winnie12

All that Love wants is to be loved back. If it doesnt it fades away because we all have an innate desire to be loved and we will eventually seek that out. Healthy love is a give and take - not always equal but always reciprocal between two people. In selfish love, the partner will string us along just enough to keep us Loving them - panic sets in when we're about to move on and they make empty gestures of love. I too thought love was enough but how many times have I heard "if you only loved me enough I wouldnt have these problems"? More than I care to count and from some of the people that I have loved the most. I dont believe that anymore - love takes mutual work, commitment, trust and i cannot do that alone.

Its the abusive partner who said "look what you made me do."
Its the Addicts who said "i cant do this without you" one minute and "stop telling me what to do" the next.
Its the cheating partner who said "i have to get it somewhere else because of you."
Its the computer addict who said, "my friends online understand me better than you do."

I've heard all of these and I will never open my heart romantically to someone again unless it is a very healthy relationship with a very healthy soul. If that means i'm to be alone then I have peace with that because I like myself and my life is simpler alone. I've learned that someone needing us does not equal someone loving us and you deserve to be loved.

SHAMAN

Reciprocation... not Accomodation.

cassandra2

No matter who your ex is seeing now she isnt getting even what you got at the beginning of your relationship. She is getting the shell of the person that is left. What is that worth? What was your relationship worth towards the end? I dont want that person back. I want the person that I fell in love with and if he comes back and I am still available or even wanting to maybe we will get back together. If not life goes on. It has to.