Hi Mammy
Sorry you are feeling so upset. I think we go through phases as sometimes I’m feeling so upset or so scared or so sad and other times I’m feeling angry or numb or whatever… it changes a lot.
Re: money – as he has left and your son is disabled are you able to claim benefits such as UC, PIP etc? I’m claiming UC and PIP but things won’t be financially better for me until my finances are separate from his when I’ve moved out… as currently we are on a joint claim.
So today I finally managed to be assertive for 5 minutes and I literally told him that he has to call the doctor tomorrow as he had promised. I didn’t actually give an ultimatum… I left it hanging. He agreed he’ll do it. Now I will have to see if he does and how honest he is as he had previously said he would tell this one doctor he trusts.
He just said to me that he wants to create a plan with me as he knows why I’m asking him to call the doctors… but to be honest, I don’t think he does. My impression is he thinks that I’m fed up (which obviously I am) with the relationship (or lack of it)… but to be honest, it’s beyond that… I’m fed up with living with a drug addict and all that entails.
He sits around all day doing nothing except get his drugs, use, sleep, take a bath, watch TV, smoke and drink. The rest of the time he’s bossing me about. The one normal thing he still does is a sporting hobby once a week. He takes all the money, his mood is all over the place and he is volatile and aggressive with me and our child as well as being super unpredictable with other people.
I’m not sure what he thinks I want or what he thinks can be saved. I want him to save himself – to be clean and to get back into work. This is without me… I mean regardless of me. I want him to do it for himself and for our child. So that he can be present for them.
I am not sure if he got clean and sorted himself out whether things could be better between us… I feel beyond that now. Like I said before, the abusive side of him would likely still be there. He is very controlling and I want to be free of that. Yet regardless, I need to find a way to co-parent on some level with him and my best chance is if he is clean.
Coming back to you Mammy… if your husband does get clean and get with someone else, that doesn’t mean the problem is or was with you. It never is! We get all the blame but it is not our fault. We don’t force them to get drugs. We don’t force them to take them. They will find any reason to justify it… including blaming us… my one did it earlier. If our young child is misbehaving (normal for their age) then he blames me for not controlling them and says their behaviour is stressing him out and so now he needs to use drugs, smoke and drink. Tbh, when a person is at that point, they should just be on their own!
I also don’t think it’s about not being enough. Are they enough for us? Do we then go and use drugs or gamble?
From watching my one – no one person or family is ever enough. He has his issues that cause him to use… he has a lot of unresolved trauma from his childhood and past. He has a lot of emotional and psychological pain as a result and I believe he uses the drugs and other substances to try to dull that pain or remove it/replace it even for just 10 minutes. So… even if he met someone else, they might be a high for him for a while during the initial exciting, honeymoon phase but once real life sets in, all his problems will still be there.
My one even said this… even if he moved away… and got away from the dealers and the friends and people who are linked to using, he’d still have the same underlying problems that he’d brought with him.