Yes! Only the addict can sort themselves out, we’re just the cannon fodder that gets hurt in their path.
We need to focus on ourselves and not make them the focus. My husband is 208 days clean now after 2.5 years of putting drugs before me and our family (assuming anything he says is true!) and the longer the clean time goes the less i feel like congratulating him… why should he get a pat on the head for not carrying on acting like a crazed psychopath!? Me and our kids deserve the medal for surviving these years but we’re all still suffering the consequences.
I have after almost 7 months of pondering realised it’s the behaviour NOT the drugs. Him taking cocaine was just a small part of the problems. As I’ve told him recently … you’ve been suffering from chronic selfishness all your life! That’s how he told himself it would be fine to casually destroy our lives, when he knew full well that taking class a drugs around the kids was completely inappropriate. He worked very hard to get to the point of losing control of his drug habit.
Like you jorad, we have 4 kids, nice house, lovely life and everything going for us but he chucked all that under the bus quite deliberately.
We’re still together and soldiering on, but the stress of his behaviour and the shock of it all has made me very, very mentally hurt. I’m not myself any more and i hate that person who allowed him to get away with it for so long. I had no clue and i feel so stupid and angry with myself. Yes, obviously not my fault but you lokk back and think if only this, if only I’d done that.
Unfortunately, you can’t go back and we just have to deal with our side of the fallout.
On we go…