I've had to and am so happy that I've realised...
 

...that I love the person my husband CAN be.

NOT the person that he IS.

I think we so often get confused, there. We so often believe that our addict is either to blame, or they're not. It's so much easier when things are black and white, when that's not, ever, how life truly works.

My husband, when we met and were first dating, chose to be in counseling.
He passed his group therapy with flying colors.
He was a poster child for "recovery".
He voluntarily took his Suboxone because he knew that it helped him.
For the most part (even though there were red flags-aren't there always?) he doted on me and any problems we had could be surmounted.

He CAN be a wonderful, loving, responsible, energetic dreamer of a person.

But that's not who he IS.

He has dropped out of treatment.
Last I heard, via Progressive Insurance and the State Troopers, he side-swiped someone at an intersection two days ago, then tried to give the guy an expired insurance card. He reeked of alcohol. Go figure.

He has disappeared from my life and his son's.
He CHOSE to go off his Suboxone, to drink excessively, to behave erratically and shadily and lie about it.

This is the person he IS.
Unless he chooses to participate in his own recovery, which is never, ever, ever in the past tense, this is who he IS.

He is not "addiction".
But he IS an addict.
And only he can decide to be the best he CAN be, instead of letting that addict take over.

It is not my job nor my responsibility nor even possible for me to change that.

It IS hard to let go of the person you fell in love with because you're always imagining he's still in there somewhere.
Drug and alcohol aside, we always show a new partner our best side, and we feel at our best as well. That can be a trap unless we can begin to see reality, especially when it hurts us.
I'm glad you're moving on with a healthy life for you and your son.

What an amazing gift this post Is for me, right now, in the present. Damn, I almost let myself get sucked back into the fantasy of what could be.

My husband is clean and sober today, or so I want to believe. He is a great talker but his actions are weak. I can never go back to what was! What was I thinking?

Thank you!

Oh, Finding.
I truly, truly believe that what MIGHT be is in fact achievable.

But not by you. Nor by me. Nor our children, or our addict's friends, nor their families, or by Joe Public.

It MUST be by the addict him/herself. And if he/she isn't walking the walk, all the time, if his/her actions in any way seem disparate from the words coming from their mouths, then we must love ourselves enough to realise that what CAN be simply...isn't.

It's a series of heartbreaks, isn't it? Sometimes, if we're lucky, once a month, or every few, or once every couple of weeks. More likely, because that's the reality of it, daily.

I wish I could say that I'm shocked or surprised that my husband has been spotted looking strung out, destitute, and drunk.

I'm not.
He is who he is.
He CHOOSES not to be as good as he can be.

The hardest part in my case was not watching a
great lady go down. No, the hardest part was
realizing that the great lady never really existed
at all......except in my mind.

Interesting and deep. Now I am really thinking and I will never get to sleep. Thank you Vale, lol.

Yes, yes, and yes!

Thank you for that. I don't think I ever knew my AEH sober. I didn't find that out until way down the line and he would have his ups and downs but was always taking pills, drinking, using heroin and getting in trouble with the law. I guess I had some fantasy about us and things would get better. Well, they didn't and he is progressively worse. He doesn't have any contact with any of his young kids and moved hours away. Says a lot about a persons character.
I'm just glad that the chaotic lifestyle is over and there is stability in my home!

Vale, that's the rub, is it not?
A neverending source of amazement-how hard we work to maintain our illusion that someone is who they're not, all because we WANT them to be.

I'd take this one step further and say we fall in love with a projection. I choose men and imbue them with qualities I have. Or at the least, with qualities I am looking for in a mate. I believe them, I trust them, I think the best of them.

I overlook little things.

I mind-read. I assume they think the way I do.

How wrong I am.

There are worse things than letting go of someone you've idealized.

And that's holding onto someone who's not that person in the hopes they will become the person you idealized.

Yes, you are all so right.

When we finally have the courage to take off
the rose colored glasses----it is possible (not
easy, but possible) to push the jettison external
stores button.

Before that point, it is quite impossible.
It is why our wise moderators counsel SR old
hands to be gentle and kind to the newbies.

When I first got here, I was a caterpillar.
Morning, noon, and night I thought of nothing
but eating. I was a fat little grub all right,
feasting on codependency schemes to get 'my'
addict back on track.At one point, I even considered
cosigning for a place for her to stay!

(Sorry, gang, you are not likely to come up with a
story sicker than THAT!)

But I came to SR and for the first time ----
- I looked up. There were these ethereal creatures
with irridescent wings. I didn't know such things
existed. But once I knew---- the floodgates of
discontent opened.

These people didn't run to streetcorners to
press money into an addicts hand. They didn't
wonder for weeks on end if the addict was alive.

Now I'm a butterfly. But it wasn't easy.
Squeezing out of that damned chrysalis was a
bitch and a half! But it was worth it. Spreading
your wings means facing the truth. And even then,
you have to let them dry awhile.

Butterflys don't look down on caterpillars.
They don't sit on branches and laugh "hey! I think
you need to eat a few more thousand leaves, fatass!"

Butterflys ARE caterpillars----separated by a
few weeks, and alot of pain.Facing the painful
truth is like a hard workout. You are sore all over.
And the truth is, it will hurt tomorrow,too.

But in the long run (we ALL know) .

.....facing the truth is BETTER.

.......iridescent.......
(fat little caterpillars can't spell, either!)

Welcome to humanity. The diffficult task in life
is to reconcile what we want to believe with
what we do believe.

Oddly enough...I'm sure if you asked him how he's doing, he'd probably come up with some awesome story about how well he's doing.

Sorry your going through this...it's hard to leave them and even harder to comprehend how they can let the self destruction perpetuate :( even more complicated when there are little people involved.

Sure enough, he showed up on our doorstep yet again, last week. Same old excuses, same old lies, same old story about how he "missed us every day" and he's "sorry for being a coward and running away from everything."

This time I didn't even let him stay the night. He visited with the baby for a couple of hours, a couple of days in a row.

Then, I came home from my parent's house and he was in the apartment, hadn't called ahead, hadn't asked if he could come over, which was one of the very first criteria I gave him for how he was to behave if I was even going to think about thinking about reconciling with him.

He BROKE in, in fact, although the locks were old and you could have popped them with a credit card (which I'm sure he did). I ended up driving him clear back to get his car because there was no way in hell I was going to let him stay the night. (He left his car at the hospital, where he went because 'he got stung a bunch of times by yellowjackets or something', and then had his sister pick him up there and bring him to my place.)

The next day was my first day at my new job. I came home after an insane day to find that he had broken in AGAIN and gone through my desk, mail, lap top, and file box. He didn't really make much of an effort to hide it. He wasn't there when I got home, but he showed up at my door AGAIN not an hour afterwards, but rang the doorbell this time (makes so much sense, right?). When I wasn't overjoyed to see him, he started arguing and freaking out on me about how he had gone through the computer to "find evidence that I was F***ing someone else" and that "he knows the law". He said, "Do you really think a password is going to keep me out of the computer? You can't keep me out of this apartment." So, now we've degenerated within less than 4 days of him turning back up, straight to threats.

I kicked his ass back out again, told him that he was completely wrong about the law, but if he'd like, I could call the cops and we could see whose side they took.

Then I called the State Troopers and issued an official trespass, so if he shows up here again, I call 911 and they will come forcibly remove him from the building/grounds. I also had my land lady's maintenance guy put in nice, brand-new, sturdy locks...

The divorce is still taking longer than I anticipated, what with all the filing, refiling and waiting that has to happen because exAH has no permanent address of place of residence. (Makes it next to impossible to properly serve someone the paperwork and there are only about 3 ways that the courts will accept, all of which involve having the paperwork handed him in person...kind of hard to do when he's homeless at this point...) but I will have no hesitations about calling the cops on him if he shows back up.

I'm done making excuses for what a lousy husband and father he is. And it feels good to get to this point, because he can't manipulate or con me anymore.

Yay you!!!

I loved reading this. Your ex's behaviour sounds almost identical to mine. You're such an inspiration on how to stay strong and regain your life! You've got this, your baby is so lucky to have you for a mama. Isn't it nice to not have to deal with the stupid threats and accusations? That's one of my favourite parts.

RIGHT?! It just..I've never been able to get over how easy it is for him to lie/twist things, & then that he BELIEVES what he's saying & can't believe I don't believe him.

It hurts the brain, precious...