Here we go again

Asadwife · Resident

A few weeks ago, I left amessage on this forum about my husbands use. His DOC is Cocaine. I have spent the last ten years being married to him trying to put pieces together to figure out what is going on. He is a loner and does not have a lot of friends.

I threw him out about a month ago, at which point he started going to meetings and I let him move back in----what a mistake. Last weekend I was cleaning the house before leaving for Florida and I found a hanger that had a bunch of black stuff on the end. I kept cleaning and came across a crack pipe. I called and confronted him and he said it was one last hurrah before he quit. We went our separate ways on vacation and he wound up taking a greyhound to where I was because I would not pick him up. While he was with me I noticed a lot of trips to the bathroom and while we were waiting for dinner one night he just disappeared.

Fast forward two days and he does not come home all night. He stumbled in at about 10:00AM at which time I confronted him about bank statements I found the night before. There were several nights where he had withdrwals between $500-$1,000 and charges for a hotel.

He told me that he had to work all night getting ready for the Miami Boat Show which has happened in the past, but obviously not this time. He told me that I did something illegal opening his mail---imagine that!

I know that he is a loser and NOTHING good will ever come of being with him, but I love him and can't seem to step back from that. I always forgive him because I want someone to love me so badly. This is my problem I know. And when all of this is going on I know it is not love.

I took all of his clothes and threw them out of the house today. I cut off the credit card, disconnected his cell phone which is in my name, and cleaned out the bank account. The locks are being changed shortly, I am waiting on the locksmith as I type this. I also visted my lawyer today and got the name of a fierce divorce attorney. I am going through the motions yet I feel so awful.

For so long I have stoped feeling, because what I was feeling was so awful. In so many ways I am broken and numb. In others I still feel awful. This is the price I am paying for living in denial for so long. From all of this I know I will never recover. There is no way that I can possibly put all of the pieces back together personally.

What I would like to ask is how do you face your denial without becoming overwhelmed by the feelings? How do you get over the aloneness and where do you start putting your life back together? It all seems so impossible right now. When I looked at him all I wanted to do is help him try to find help, but I know that I cannot do that. He is the one who needs to find that help himself. Apparently after getting thrown out of the house three times, going to rehab, and snorting and smoking a recent inheritance from his father he is still not at rock bottom.

I need help protecting myself emotionally and I worry about him returning to my house stealing those things of value that still remain.

Please help me......I am at rock bottom.

Admin · Site Admin

Have you ever asked yourself, why are you here, and he is not?

Admin · Site Admin

Quote:

Apparently after getting thrown out of the house three times, going to rehab, and snorting and smoking a recent inheritance from his father he is still not at rock bottom.

The common idea that someone has to be at the rock bottom to start care for him/herself is wrong.

Asadwife · Resident

Yes Gene, I have asked myself why I am here and he is not. It is becoming painfully obvious to me that he does not want my help.

shampoo · Resident

hello,
i did the EXACT same things you are doing when i found out about my ex.....you are making the right decisions.
if you are worried about him breaking in, take your jewerly or other things you think he will take and hide it somewhere.thats what i did. also, make sure no money is around. i worried ALL the time mine would come in when i wasnt home....i know what you are going through. what helped me was i took my stress out in a positve way. i started exercising like a freak...made sure i was gonna stay STRONG.people would say i was going through my divorce and looking better than i had in a long time...talk to people that will be there for you through this. in the beginning its hard to pull away from something thats been a part of your daily life but as you keep seeing what hes doing, it will get easier to say...i dont want this anymore. you are doing great. stay strong and keep going!
Tracy

Admin · Site Admin

Asadwife wrote:

Yes Gene, I have asked myself why I am here and he is not. It is becoming painfully obvious to me that he does not want my help.

I do not know if he wants your help or not, but for sure he behaves the way, that his cocaine addiction is not a problem. Family intervention or professional intervention may help addicted person to see different side of his/her addiction and may get this person into the treatment. But before anything else, you should protect yourself. Your wellbeing should not depend on his condition.

Asadwife · Resident

Thanks Tracy and Gene for taking the time to respond. I know that it is true that I must protect myself. As painful and heartbreaking as it is I have resolved myself to the fact that I must exit this relationship.

And this is always a however......however, I because of who I am and how I see life I have continued to try to get help for my husband. I called someone who he was in rehab with who I thought might be able to help him. I do not want to live through the death of my husband and that is all I can envision, so I called his friend tonight to see if maybe he would reach out. He was very agreeable, but in the course of the conversation I found out that my husband's DOC is not cocaine, but crack. I am so shocked to learn that. Don't know why. I know it is the same animal different stripes---just shocked that I thought I had it all figured out.

What I am learning is that I truly know very little.

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

How have you tried to help your husband for the past ten years?

Asadwife · Resident

At first I tried to help him by begging him to get help. I have paid the bills and sacrificed things that I should have had because money would disappear. I have been his friend and support system. I tried to get him involved in church. When he went to rehab I was there when no one else was. His family all live at least 1,500+ miles away. Lately it is toxic. Because I am no longer so understanding. Now I am FLAT OUT PISSED and falling into depression. And I articulate that frequently to him. I have kept too much inside covering up this mess of a life, a role I know all too well growing up with an alcoholic father.

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

Asadwife wrote:

At first I tried to help him by begging him to get help. I have paid the bills and sacrificed things that I should have had because money would disappear. I have been his friend and support system. I tried to get him involved in church. When he went to rehab I was there when no one else was. His family all live at least 1,500+ miles away. Lately it is toxic. Because I am no longer so understanding. Now I am FLAT OUT PISSED and falling into depression. And I articulate that frequently to him. I have kept too much inside covering up this mess of a life, a role I know all too well growing up with an alcoholic father.

So, basically, you've enabled his addiction all these years.

Are both of you wanting to end the marriage?

Asadwife · Resident

Yes, I enabled it---absolutely.

I love him, but at the same time I cannot accept this life any more. I want to be married to the person I fell in love with. I am beginning to ACCEPT he no longer exists. Neither does the person that he married. I used to be so bold and had such a passion for life. I used to be thin and looked great. I am now quiet, isolated, and gained weight. I look in the mirror sometimes and ask who the he|l is this person.

He called me tonight and said he has met someone else. This is the ultimate for me to hear. I loved him "warts" and all. The addiction I have experience with, the infidelity I do not. My head is uneqivocably telling me to leave him, he is telling me to leave him, now my damn heart just needs to get on board.

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

Asadwife wrote:

He called me tonight and said he has met someone else.
This is the ultimate for me to hear.

I am so sorry.

Do you think he's just saying that,
thinking you'll want him to come home?

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

Asadwife wrote:

I cannot accept this life any more.

Why did you accept it for so da-n long,
if you saw he wasn't trying to get it together?

I think you should honestly try and save your marriage

Asadwife · Resident

Lord BLESS YOU FOLKS. I cannot THANK YOU enough for being here at a time that I need people who geninely understand the most.

Since I have been last on I feel like a window, a door, and the whole damn barnyard has opened for me. My husband called. We got into a conversation about the other person. I told him that I was willing to fight the drugs for him, but I don't have the strength to enter a tug of war with a third party too.

I apologized to him tonight for shoving his face in it when he used. I told him it was a deep regret in my life. I told him that there still was hope on the other side of using. I told him that I wish that he could see himself through my eyes---all of the talent and goodness that he had to offer the world. I told him that there is such an amazing caring person locked up inside that was there to come out. I told him that through this website and a gazilion hours reading about cocaine addiction, I understood for the first time where he was at. You folks are extraordinary people for sharing you lives so people like me who are alone and embarassed and shamed can come to a place and really understand.

I told him tonight that I was addicted to him as bad as he is addicted to cocaine and crack and that in order to take my first steps towards living that I needed to let him go....to pursue a life doing drugs, a new relationship whatever. I was not nasty but even steven. I am finally in a place where I can say the words and mean it. I told him that just like he needed to sever the ties to the drug world in order to recover that I needed to sever the times to him. OMG it felt like a million pound weight came off of my shoulders.

While we were in Florida last week he sent me to a spa. Originally he booked a 25 minute massage shoulder massage for me. When he gave it to me I have to tell you it still made me feel awful because I was thinking that was the least thing he could have given me. (He makes a lot of money) I never said a word---I never would. I graciously thanked him. Then he actually went back and booked me four hours in the spa. I told him that when I sat in the spa going from treatment to treatment I FELT good for the first time in ever so long. I told him I wanted to FEEL that way again, and I thanked him for giving me the gift of feeling that way after a life of feeling like crap for so long.

Then I told him that I forgave him. And I meant it. He actually started to cry...a lot. I told him that it was okay. He told me that it wasn't okay. And I told him that he was right. It wasn't okay and that he was right I had suffered when I shouldn't but I told him despite all of that I still forgave him. He started sobbing so bad that he said he had to go and he hung up. I have never seen him cry other than at his dad's funeral.

I think I was trying to say good bye to him and this way of life while trying to still give him hope that life could be better even if I was not there. That the ball was completely in HIS court to choose the life he wanted for himself.

I told him that it was like watching him drive toward a brick wall at 100 MPH and he said you are in that same boat too. That really opened my eyes to what a freaking bad place I am in and I am choosing to take that same ride. The brakes came on for me tonight. I do not want this pseudo life any more.

I sit here, way later than I should be still trying to process this conversation and what really happened.

pause4poetry · Moderator

Quote:

He called me tonight and said he has met someone else.

Do you know if this "someone else" is also an active user?

Michelle

keepitreal · Helping Hand IV

Asadwife wrote:

Last weekend I was cleaning the house before leaving for Florida and I found a hanger that had a bunch of black stuff on the end. I kept cleaning and came across a crack pipe. I called and confronted him and he said it was one last hurrah before he quit.

We went our separate ways on vacation and he wound up taking a greyhound to where I was because I would not pick him up. While he was with me I noticed a lot of trips to the bathroom and while we were waiting for dinner one night he just disappeared.

I'm confused....
Why snip this from the total picture?

Asadwife wrote:

While we were in Florida last week he sent me to a spa. Originally he booked a 25 minute massage shoulder massage for me. When he gave it to me I have to tell you it still made me feel awful because I was thinking that was the least thing he could have given me. (He makes a lot of money) I never said a word---I never would. I graciously thanked him. Then he actually went back and booked me four hours in the spa.

Was this his way of making nice, nice,
knowing you were pissed and trying to smooth things over...
or, was this his way of making it look nice, nice,
so he would have some free time to use?

I guess I'm just a little confused about 'the vacation'.
I would think the two of you should have been,
spending quality time with each other....together.

He has a drug problem and your marriage is collapsing....
spending 4 hours being pampered by strangers,
could have waited for another day.

Asadwife wrote:

I told him that through this website and a gazilion hours reading about cocaine addiction,
I understood for the first time where he was at.

While you may like to believe that...trust me, you don't.
What I'm reading tells me so.

Peace, Love & Strength
Lynn

Asadwife · Resident

Guess I am looking at it differently, but I understand what you are saying. I genuinely looked at the time in the spa as something for me. It is something I rarely get out of the relationship anymore as there is never ever money left for things like this. I guess I was surprised that he chose to spend that kind of money on me instead of using the money to buy drugs. The amount of money that he spends on drugs is genuinely shocking to me sometimes. I don't understand how the drug world operates--ie costs, amounts, etc. as it is a place I do not go.

I don't understand what I snipped from the total picture? Maybe I did not explain things well enough or something. My husband went down to Florida on business the week before I went. I was supposed to meet him a week later in Miami and opted not to. He knew where I would go. I was staying with a family member who works at a resort in Florida so I did not have to pay for a hotel.

And you are probably right I don't truly understand. But on some level I have really believed that this is something he has a choice over. I would ask him if he thought about me anytime while he made the call to get the stuff, while he was taking the money out of the bank, when he went to pick it up, or he went to use. Now I am realizing that when he is thinking about getting high he cannot process the impact on other people at THAT time. I have also felt like he does not have a conscience as he continues to use despite my depression. Now I am beginning to realize how bad he feels when he is not using. I realize how much he beats himslef up and how much like a failure he is failing as well. Not being an addict myself and knowing the way I feel about our relationship is something I have a hard time accepting. My ideology of being married to somebody is such that I believe that being with your partner/husband/lover should make you a better person than you are without them. I have always tried to make that true in a relationship. In the past it has sometimes I have met this with success and other times not so much. That is what I was trying to say.

Asadwife · Resident

Michelle,

I doubt very much that this other person is an active user. He has gone to great lengths to hide this behavior from me. I doubt that pattern would change with another person.