He did quit the coke decades ago – just like I hoped he would (and you are hoping for with your loved one), but he is NOT the same guy that I fell in love with all those years ago. That guy was sincere, attentive, always loving, happy, transparent, caring, supportive, charming, engaging, my rock. This guy is remorseful, full of anxieties, brash, guarded, sad, selfish – and sometimes the qualities of the younger guy that I fell in love with. I see the younger guy sometimes – but I want that guy all the time. Since that is the guy I want, I’m always trying to find him in there. But, what do you expect? He decided coke was a good idea all those years ago. Coke was created by the devil. Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t leave him all those years ago. He was awful. I didn’t know what was actually happening, and I refused to believe that he would turn his back me, but he did – totally. Coke changed him. He didn’t even tell me the truth until I finally had the guts to confront him just a few years ago. The truth is, for me anyways is that sometimes I wish that I would have left him all those years ago as I think that overall – my life would have been better. And, sometimes I am happy that I didn’t know about the coke until he quit it (5 years after he started it) and that I didn’t know that he cheated on me during the coke years until just a few years ago, as I know that I would have left him and I wouldn’t be with him now. The point is that we can’t go back to where we were before he started using coke. We’re not the same people. We still love each other, but we are both broken in some ways. He hurt me so badly emotionally, and like you – I didn’t deserve any of it. I am determined to get past it, but the damage is great and it really hurts. All these years later – so much. How can he make it up to me? I’m not sure that he can, especially while he continues to carry around his baggage from it and sit in it. I want to believe that he wasn’t well during those years, and many times I believe and feel that he is really remorseful. His guilt is and has been a heavy burden for him. But, it’s not my fault and I have suffered enough for things that I had nothing to do with. I have been the loyal and loving wife – always. I deserve so much better then what he did – and he knows it. And, so do you. Marriage is for better or worse, but did you really expect this much worse? We all f*** up. This is true, but a person can only take so much.
