No, it’s not my workplace, we both train there but he hasn’t been for months. He turned up the day and time he knew I would be there, with 100% certainty. He texted me early in the hours after I’d walked out… apologising and saying he knew what he’d done to me. The damage. And apologising for being so cruel and hurtful.
He does know where I live, yes – barely 10 minutes from his own flat. We have never shared a place. Some time back I started putting boundaries down… rules. And one of them was he doesn’t get to turn up at my flat.. particularly unannounced. He has respected that. He isn’t abusive in that way, he doesn’t demand money or threaten me or blame me or demand I support him.
It’s funny what you said about grieving.. because that’s exactly what it is, and it’s exactly what I’ve written in my reply to him (the reply he maybe won’t ever see). You mourn the loss of the person you fell in love with, and you know they are in there somewhere, but they are not coming back. They have been kidnapped by the drugs, they are a ghost of the person they were. That’s a hard part to deal with, because you feel if they stop and get clean, that beautiful person will come back. But does it repair the damage, does it return the lost trust, the disrespect, the abuse, the terrifying thought that they will lie to you again, lapse, use again?
It’s easy to be angry but in calmer moments I know an addict doesn’t mean to do it – it’s simply the nature of addiction. But when they do it over and over again, it becomes difficult to believe they are sorry, and difficult to believe they can’t stop treating you like crap and lying to you. If you mean it, change your behaviour.
Do you think your girlfriend may have abandonment issues? It sounds possible. Someone with abandonment issues will keep pushing you away, to see how many times you come back. My partner knows he has and has acknowledged this. Maybe this or such a low opinion of herself that she tells herself she doesn’t deserve you. This also seems to be a common theme with addicts… which is why they use drugs. I have never known a happy person to take drugs. Never.
It’s all very well feeling they don’t deserve us, but their task is to change their behaviour and show us by their actions that they do. Not to repeatedly use and lie and deny.