Berrybean

Can I suggest that you print this post out and keep it folded up safe in your wallet / purse, so that if and when those moments arise when you question yourself or start to feel sorry for him, or guilty for 'abandoning him' (not that you did AT ALL) you can re-read all this and remind yourself that blocking him and freeing yourself from this toxic (and potentially dangerous) relationship is the only sane thing to do.

I will be praying for you to keep a strong resolve.

Maybe now would be a good time to reach out to some of the friends you have (no doubt of this in my mind at all) become distanced from due to your relationship with this man. You don't need to tell them anything of what is happening, just ask how they're doing and say it'd be great to catch up some time if they're available.

BB

bmd1964

Thank you nsyap.
You are right. I am needing validation, permission inside myself to be completely unavailable to him. Today is hard. I'm losing my footing a bit. My thoughts are that often he's not even being manipulative. He is often very real and not a game player. He has told me many times that I have done nothing wrong. He knows who he is and how he is. He feels his own worthlessness and tells me about it. His faith in God is even stronger than mine. God is all he has ever had to rely on. He knows scripture very well. Much more than me. His battles have really been with God. They still are. I believe he believes that because when I think about the beatings and the morbid abuse he experienced as a child and his brothers have experienced and his mother who was 14 when she gave birth to him while his addict father was 35, I still feel sick inside. I can't get past it. How then could he, I tell myself. He still has anxiety today about finding the right tool. And he is disconnected from pets because his dad shot their puppy right in front of them for going on the floor. He made the kids bury the dog. Who would any one become as an adult from a child in that life. Then when you're 12, your uncle gives you beer. You are raised in an outlaw family and cops are bad. You had better never lose a fight at school. Your dad finally goes to prison for his violence against your mother because he beat her with a shovel and you still can't help but yearn for him. Life with mom is a mess. More men coming around and abusing her and you. Through the state you gain a 28 yr counselor at age 14 but turns out she is compromised as a woman and as a professional and begins a sexual relationship with you. Your first. You believe you are in love and she loves you. One day you two are found out, the authorities are involved, you are yanked from her and sent to another state to live with different family and she goes to prison for a year as a sex offender. You hear from her once years later but you'll never see her again. You grow up while your father is gone but have morphed into identifying with him. The one with the power. Not the victim that you now find disgusting. Time goes by your father is out of prison, you get to spend the time you have always desperately wanted with him but now you are headed to prison for your own violence. You grow in prison. You find hope but not realizing the damage left. It can never be replaced. You've lost your wife and your children, Your mother is and has been deeply ingrained in alcoholism since you can remember. Your father goes into a coma and passes away before you can speak to him again because you chose not to break your parole to do the right thing. You grieve deeply ..and bitterly! Where is God? Even with all this he has experienced God. He swears by it. Months after prison, he meets me. I don't fit any profile of anyone in his life prior. I didn't know this much about him from the start. I only knew about the prison sentence and couldn't take it for what it really meant. I was very un-worlded coming out of my marriage of 25 years. He begins to show he feels unworthy but is still very loving and hopeful of his future. Like he wants to face things head on. I didn't feel like a rescuer. I didn't know what one was. I'd always felt neglectful actually. Like I was inadequate. I wanted to be loved and I loved him and he'd really never known it and to this day doesn't know how to receive it. It's so strange though. He knew how to give it. He knew how to hug and give praise that wasn't about his need to please me or get sex. It's hard because he saw me. And I saw him. But he is losing himself, I'm losing myself and we've lost us.
This is really the reason I toggle with blocking him. I believe he will hurt from it deeply. It's why I needed it to be because he is finally gaining courage to go his way.
Sometimes I think it's actually his drug that is keeping him alive.
I still say even with his drug he is a walking miracle.

bmd1964

Thank you Berrybean.
I will do that. I just re read it and it helps. Today I was feeling very sorry for him. But tonight not so much.

Berrybean

I feel sorry for him as well. But I also know that drugsand alcohol don't help us make sense of past pain and abuse (from personal experience, albeit not as tragic as his). I also know that you or anyone else sacreficing your life and happiness is not going to make a difference, apart for perhaps holding off the consequences of his addict behaviour for a while, which means that he can't learn from them quite as quickly. Rock bottom is different for all of us - and it is where we finally realise that using really ISN'T the solution, and we get desperate enough to change in ourselves. It isn't an easy journey, no. I took some hostages in my time, just as other people while in that bubble of addictive thinking. When my bubble burst it felt like the end of the world, but it also allowed me some clarity eventually. It sounds like you thought you were protecting him, but you know, you may well of just been unintentionally and unwittingly protecting his bubble. It's actually even worse for him in that bubble as a believer, as he will likely be hating how he isn't able to be what he thinks God wants us to be. The shame and self-loathing really are hard to handle. Worse than hating an abuser in lots of ways. But while he's using and active in his addictions, that will control him more than his conscience. I hope his bubble does burst so he can be free.

Sure, he won't be happy if you go no-contact. No addict (just like your average child) likes having to live with the consequences of their own behaviour. That really isn't your side of the street though. And no hostage taker likes an escape, but that doesn't mean the answer is for people to sacrefice themselves to be an addicts hostage. That's just crazy.

This is your life. You deserve better.

BB

bmd1964

You're so right again Berrybean. I protected his bubble because it was my bubble too. I didn't want to lose him. I wanted to love away his shame. It's hitting deep and I'm scared again.. He hasn't tried to contact me so now I know he meant what he said about moving on. Now it's time to face why I held onto him and no longer why I was running from him. This is when it gets dark.

bmd1964

I want to say thank you again to everyone who took their time to read my long posts and respond to them. It makes all the difference in these ups and downs and back and forths in my head and heart about my relationship and break up with my ex loved one. I know I am not out of the woods yet inside myself but it's not as dark as it had been a time before this. I am very moved with how much people in recovery have had to face to be there. And yet still deal with to stay there. And so very grateful that you stay around here to help someone like me get to where you are. I come from a "functional" alcoholic large family. 3 of us are current addicts of substances, now 4 actually - my mom. She can't cope anymore. Sleeping pills for more than sleeping. A couple of us have been/are becoming more educated and aware of the reality of addiction. Me, addiction and codependency. The rest of us don't want to see it for what it is-It's because of weak morals, character and will power. Yet with the mix, over all, I think we are moving forward and knowing more. Today I feel hope

bmd1964

I would like to clarify a sentence. * "The rest of us don't want to see it for what it is. But rather see it simply as weak morals, character and will power."

Berrybean

One place that I found very useful in recognising my own feelings and reactions was CoDa. It might be worth visiting their site and just having a read to see if you identify with anything on there. I will say that I did my 12-step work through AA while cosidering what I read in the CoDa literature and from just a few meeting I managed to get to. I too thought my fathers drinking didn't stop our family being 'functional', as from the outside it certainly would have passed muster. We were dressed well, my mother made sure the house looked nice, my mother managed to rescue them / us from the financial insecurity my father secretly had us heading towards for many years once she accidentally found lots of hidden final demands and mounting credit bills, we managed to go on family holidays annually, etc. But then there is different kinds of 'functional', and it was only when I explored it all s an adult in recovey that I realised that emotionally it was a wasteland. And as far as being secure in my parents love for me - well, I never felt that their love was conditional, even though it may or may not have been the case. And I always dreaded having to ask my dad for things / give letters from school - especially if if meant him having to not drink so much because he was expected to be somewhere or do something in his usual beer-time. Thing is, I formed my ways of thinking and acting and reacting on my perception (regardless of the truth of it all underneath the egg-shell tiptoing, shouting matches, barbed comments and general stand-offs). And as I got older I became more adept at 'micro-managing' him, which is possibly where I first learnt to think and act so manipulatively. By the time I was an adult I was an expert at it - so much so that I didn't even recognise what I was doing. I even thought I might be slightly psychic lol, because I'd think and think about a situation and try it out lots of different ways in my head til I found a way that might work, and then I'd' just find myself' starting the ball rolling, and low and behold - wow, look what happened - exactly what I'd daydreamed / imagined - ie plotted and schemed and manipulated. When I started to learn how to have open and honest dealings with others that was massively scary, because I didn't trust people I suppose. If they were like my mum, then fine... but what if they were like my dad? What if things didn't work out how I wanted the too??? (insert scary music).

Anyhow - that CoDa handbook was a real starting point for me in looking at all that stuff, and recognising what I could change about myself that would mean relationships and dealing with my fear in a more sane and pleasant way. Not that I was a bad or nasty person - I'd just found some strange old ways of grabbing for some scrapings of emotional security, and needed to unlearn those things.

BB

PS Here's the CoDa link.... Patterns and Characteristics 2011 - CoDA.org