cessy68

tomorrow will be day 6.

Not many days for the average person who decides to go no-contact. Nothing much changed, the usual b.s....and he went to stay at a friends and vowed to 'leave me alone' and also told me to 'stay out of his life'.

That lasted a few hours and a text came. A call followed. Both I ignored. A couple more came by friday... and finally tonight (sat night), him asking if we could meet and 'talk', saying he loved me and missed me.... bla bla bla.

This one I responded to by saying, "***, we have been down this road before. Nothing changes. I won't put myself in this position any more. I'm sorry".

Of course another text came, another call..... I tried to ignore them, then finally picked up the phone, saying "WHAT"!!!! and he said, "can I please call you tomorrow, I just want to talk to you about a few things, I'm trying".

I said I gotta go, and hung up.

I know I should not answer the call tomorrow. What will he say that would make a hill of beans difference? I'm sure he didn't have some grand englightenment, (that I USED to hope for) when we'd do this dance.

BUT I'm writing to you all, because I don't think I can do it. A part of me realllly wants to hear what he has to say. I don't know. I really don't know. As much as it would hurt, at a time like this, I almost wish he meant what he said, and really wanted me out of his life. I wish that he didn't contact me, because eventually the pain would end and I'd just move on. This seems to prolong the agony, and there is always that little seed of doubt inside of me saying, "what if he really has seen the light, and is willing to make positive changes?"


Urgh.

I hate loving someone who I know just 'cant' do the right thing.

I wish I wasn't so weak when it comes to him.

Love,
Cess

itisatruth

I don't see weakness in your post ~ you will become stronger with each step forward you take for yourself....it will get easier rather than harder the longer you stick with no-contact.

I know what you mean about wishing he meant what he said. For a long time, I kept wishing my H would just let me go, stop wanting me. It would have been kind of like an escape for me, without me actually having to have enough strength to do it on my own.

Staying busy and distracted with other people around helped me immensely when I asked my H to move out last year...I did answer his calls sometimes, but I always made it clear - just like you did - that I could not accept this type of life for myself anymore.

Remember why you're doing this & I hope it gives you more strength.

coffeedrinker

The few brief times I have decided to not take the calls or reply to the texts, I always felt like it would be the right thing to do to at least tell him what I was doing. "I can't talk to you now for awhile. I need time to think"
If you haven't done that, perhaps it will make it easier for you to follow through.

Just keep telling yourself it is for right now -- I think that the thinking "this is my new forever now" makes us sad and more vulnerable to caving.

I just thought of a possible alternative. He desperately wants to communicate something to you. You are curious what it is. What about telling him that you need that space to not engage with him now and would he please respect that? But he could write you a letter getting everything he wants to say out on paper. Then you could look at it and not have to worry about being reactive.

sofacat

Hey cessy.....

I celebrated by one month no Mr. Sofa in the house yesterday...instead of getting a chip, I bought myself a hot fudge sundae. I can tell you that the first week was absolute torture for Me. I had such a hard time with this and the hole in my stomach was unbearable at times. We did have contact and had a "meeting" to discuss what was what....it ended up being a whole lot of "quack quack quack" that day and after i had a mini meltdown...I started to see things for what they are...he is sick and I am an enabler. That day I realized that I had a whole lot of work to do on myself before we could talk again. I was waaaaay to vulnerable and angry and sad and insecure to have contact with him that would be productive. I needed more time. I still do.

I have been with him for 10 years now. He and I for the most part have a very fun, very friendly relationship. We genuinely like each other...you know? But the whirlwind of crap that blows around his addiction just became too much for me to handle anymore and I also started to realize that I wasn't helping him in the slightest...I was enabling his addiction...In my head it was for love, but in reality it was for control, and I cannot go back to that.

Now, we are separated...nothing is final at the moment. He is still not here and I am still working on myself. I knew that I couldn't make any concrete decisions until I gained some clarity on the situation for myself. I am a 42 year old woman and on my 4th toxic relationship. I am hell bent and determined to figure out why I put myself in these situations...and why my caring for people turns into "saving" and "solving" for them.

There is no way I can expect to have a healthy balanced relationship with him or anyone else as long as I have this hang up of mine. SO I am using this time to figure this out and heal. I need this change for myself and I am going to guard this with everything I have...even if it goes against my heart breaking from time to time. It p!sses me off...I'm not gonna lie about it...but I put myself here, and I have to deal with it.

Now that I have a month of "Me" time under my belt...I am getting better. I have moved past the being angry part to a feeling of more sadness for Him. The difference in me now, is that I don't feel like "fixing" him and I can see his tactics more clearly.

You don't have to make any concrete decisions "today"....but you can ask for some space from him, after all you have spent years and years with his addiction....some time for yourself isn't unrealistic and hopefully he will support you on this. But if he's still "active"....prepare to be confronted with a variety of tactics on his part to break you down.

Give yourself a break cessy...you're still "detoxing" too. It's tough, really tough...and it's a taste of what "they" go through breaking up with their DOC....but how can we expect them to work at it while we don't? Just a thought.

Hang in there woman. If you want change for yourself bad enough, you will figure out a way...and we will all be here helping you get through this.

tchappy

In my opinion NO CONTACT only works when you truly are ready. Just like you will get out of the situation when you are truly ready. If you are still wanting to hear what he has to say then you may not really be ready to end things or get on with your life.

No contact only started working for me when I was truly ready, when I truly had enough and finally realized that his words did not mean anything. His WORDS still mean nothing. His actions are what I would go by and his actions were the exact same...using drugs and lieing..same old story but he was using different words just to get me to answer the phone.

He still sends texts that he loves me and misses me occasionally and then some days he texts that he realizes that he has nothing to offer me (true). Then somedays he texts that he has figured out some things and wants to "talk" to me....All of the WORDS are just picked by him to use so that I might respond. His actions are not doing ANYTHING different.

So, like I say, no contact to me does not work until you really are ready and really want to move on from the pain.

eaglesgirl

Turn the cell off and dial the house number from the house phone to make it continuously busy if someone else tries to call it...

these have worked for me in the past....

Insulated

I think I posted this somewhere on here before. I had it in the forefront of my brain when I was on this rollercoaster. I remembered every evil thing my DAAF said to me and when he begged, pleaded, quackquacked, I reminded him:
You've made it clear just how ___________ I am. Therefore I wouldn't dream of making you spend another minute with someone so unworthy.

It's not YOU that he wants. It's the false sense of identity he gets from manipulating and overpowering you that he misses so much. When I got this through my head, it was my ah hah moment.

teke

i like what anvil said, and i agree with you, having constant contact does seem to prolong the agony. as long as you continue to take the calls or text, he'll more than likely keep calling and texting.

for my ah, i believe me allowing contact sent a message that said "yeah she's still waiting so its not that urgent for me to stop using right now, buying time." my ah would check back every so often, just to see if i was still open.

it helped me to realize his pattern of calling or texting and excepting that each time would be the same ole stuff. either he'd say i was hurting him,he was saying things to hurt me or he was saying we were hurting each other in some way. his call would always in some way leave me messed up. why continue to go through that, i would tell myself.

yeah i wished i could believe what he said but i came to believe while working my program and the 12steps was that if he ever truly began to work a program, i would not only notice the change in him, his behavior and conversation but he may one day want to truly make amends. so i went with that in mind.

when i looked at things in the world of forever kind of mind set, it was more painful but when i began to see it as a one day at a time kind of thing, it seemed easier. SO, maybe go "no contact" just for today, if you have to, you can have contact tomorrow. when tomorrow comes, "repeat".

Live

6 days is not a whole lot of time really...barely enough time for that decision to start to clear and settle;

I seriously doubt that anything life changing has been decided and acted upon from one day to the next and if it is a real decision it will last for more than 24 hours..so it's not really an emergency...and if it is not an emergency, then it can wait, right? even if that is not the most comfortable thing because it is a different step in the known dance that both of you are so used to. A dance that you don't want to continue, right?

cessy68

I'd have to agree here teke, It causes me sadness (that I use as strength) to remind myself,that this is the ONLY reason he is calling. Exactly what you said.

I tell myself, NOT to allow myself to be used so carelessly by another human being.... who just wants to know if i'm 'still around,waiting, loving....etc.' and how selfish of him to want that as well.

Thank u,
Cess

cessy68

Hey girl, congrats! i have been following your progress and my hat's off to ya! I have to know.... what is a 'chip'? Or do I dare ask? I saw u wrote that on another thread, and here as well.................?

Ur story gives me hope.

Hugs,
Cess

cessy68

hahaha, aw anvil,anvil, anvil.... such a way with words. FYI, your post was helpful... very helpful. However, I had to quote this and let you know I laughed my butt off, sitting here with my morning coffee when I read that--- (I found it funny).... although you were making a point.

I get it.

I guess it goes back to what I said some time ago, about what my own sister said to me. She had said the following: "cess, do not ask him to leave or whatever untill you are DONE, otherwise YOU are making the pattern continue. If you are DONE, when he leaves, YOU WILL not care if he calls, texts..... etc. If you are 'TRYING' to be done, in essence you are asking him to leave, and 'change' and come back. it's a manipulation tatic of sorts. If you aren't really DONE, you'll have him back before long.... with the same ol s***! so, just keep him there till you are really DONE"!

Problem is, I didn't expect this. I was trying to listen to her, and make my moves carefully. We had a mini-argument which caused me to start with my rebuttal about his drug addiction, and other failures to our relationship (the lies etc), and he said, "FINE, I'll just get outta your life"..... as I opend the door, with my 'tough-girl' attitude, I said, "MY PLEASURE".

I guess this set me up to have no-contact, before I was ready, I suppose.

CAN I BE READY?? Without carefully planning this, and deep deep down WANTING THIS?

hah.

THATS the question I probably shoulda asked in the first place.

Love,
Cess

sofacat

Well, I will tell you the "chip" thing.....

When addicts stay clean for one month, two month, one year yada yada....they get a chip at their meetings, right?

Well...I decided I deserved one too! One month yesterday.
But mine just came in the form of ice cream with hot fudge all over it! LOL!!!!!

Hang in there Woman....it's tough, it sucks...but it does get better...I know that can sound cliche' at times....but it is true.

((((((((( HUGS ))))))))))))

Insulated

they can tape a note to a rock and throw it thru the window, WE throw it back.

there's coffee spit on my monitor now.

cessy68

URGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Ok. so, I guess I didn't need to know 'what to do' when his phone call came in today.... cause guess what all???? HE DIDN'T CALL!

What an ***!

I see clearly the game... (teke)..... he just banged away at me allllll week, till I finally caved and 'answered' last night, now he's got the upperhand in HIS mind, and isn't going to follow through on his word to 'call' today.

Fine.

Urgh. (again).

I will utilize this as ANOTHER great learning lesson. His intentions are self-based. He wanted control. He wanted to 'see' if I would answer, and used whatever he could to manipulate me. I'm learning.

However, this is going to backfire, right in his face. All the times we've done this dance, I've called him on a day like today and said, "gee, I THOUGHT you said you were going to call.... " and the conversation would go from there.... with ultimately HIM having control of the conversation/relationship.

I'm done.

I'm not feeling a BIT guilty after all these years, and all this B.S.......to say that I'm moving on.

I'm going on a date. I've had two very nice gentlemen, that I know through friends ask me out... nothing big, just casual. Through the ups and downs of my relationship, I've thought about it, and always felt guilty, cause *** my pop back up/into my life, and I wouldn't forgive myself for having gone 'out' with someone, even innocently , like having a dinner or a drink, etc.

Not no more.

Making the phone call now.... I'm furious and done-with-it. (p.s.) love that one's screen name!

HUGS,
Cess

sofacat

I'm learning.

Well done Lady.

Have fun on your "revenge" date.

Impurrfect

((Cessy)) - good for you on going on a date - just a recommendation to keep it casual, as rebound romances aren't usually a good thing.

I think ((Teke)) is right and you have picked up on it - he's just wanting to know that he's got you right where he wants you...available when he wants you to be. That's why the NC works so well.

Another thing, as an RA, 6 days is a very short time in recovery. If he were truly working any kind of program, he would be focused on HIM and what he needs to do, and NOT be calling you, texting you, and wanting to talk, then not following through. That is behavior of an active addict (or someone who is a control freak, even without drugs), but my bets on the still using.

Maybe change his name in your cell phone to "DONE" or something like that, so everytime he calls or texts, that's what comes up?

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

NeedingHelp7

Cessy, don't beat yourself up. NC takes practice. I can't tell you how many times I "slipped" in the beginning. Sometimes I was so mad I would answer the phone just to tell him off, how he tore this family and marriage apart for the 1000th time, how he put pills/crack and other women before us for the 1000th time.
I remember the family court judge telling me "don't tell him how you feel anymore." WOW!! I had to learn to keep the way I feel out of everything with him because truly he didn't care how I felt. And when I didn't get a tenderhearted affirmation from him, I felt worse. The urge to call him was aweful for a long time. But as anything it was one-day-at-a-time don't call him, don't answer the phone to him. It gets easier....it really does.

Callie

Cess - I don't know if you can truely be ready to be done with him. BUT you can be done with the addiction. I know when I filed for divorce I was done with the marriage and the addiction. I've had and am still having a terrible time disentangeling myself from the actual person.

Take it easy on the date thing. Rebounds are never a good answer. Take some time for yourself to heal.

I know all too well about the control thing and the games. BTDT have the t-shirt. It's not a fun place to be in.

teke

cess, i agree with the others about the "revenge dating", maybe you could focus on preparing yourself for the next time he starts texting and calling. sooner or later, he probably will you know!