[hs13]

I’ve been in a 9 1/2 year relationship with this man that I always thought of as my forever person. The way we met was like a fairytale. I saw Him from across the room and immediately I knew I couldn’t be without Him. This magnetic pull to Him is something I had never experienced before and is now the hardest part of our whole situation.

We had 7 mostly great years (I mean what relationship doesn’t have a few roadbumps). Then over the course over the last couple years He started using cocaine more than the rare recreational usage most 20 somethings do. The first year of the heightened drug use was mostly not too bad. Staying up too late one night or so here or there and sleeping in real late the next day (a problem for sure but nothing unmanageable).

Then it started happening more and more frequently but still just the one nighters. I did what most people would do and confronted Him about it and said this was a problem that needed to be handled because I didn’t want His child that I had been helping raise (in a 50/50 custody with his child’s mom) to be around that (having been a child of alcoholic and addict parents I couldn’t bare to see this poor sweet innocent child go through the same).

It would come and go in waves and eventually because I was getting more and more upset about it, He started hiding it. At this point I started kicking Him out because I was the provider of our housing (had been for most of our relationship) and He was starting to not even take care of His own responsibilities including taking care of His child and started causing issues with the child as well since he was old enough to know something was up. Eventually I decided enough was enough and broke up with Him.

This is where the real rockiness started picking up. He’d go on a bender for a night or two and then started not sleeping on these benders. This lead to extreme paranoia. I’m pretty sure at this point He’s getting cocaine that’s laced with meth and mdma. I was constantly being accused of cheating on Him and He’d spend nights outside my house peeking into and knocking on all the windows until I came out to talk to Him which always ended up in screaming matches.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bring myself to call the cops for a while because how could I be the one to set His life on fire? I felt so helpless and His family was little to no help. I eventually couldn’t handle it anymore and so then one time I did call the cops on Him but He ran off and the cops wouldn’t do anything about it without putting a restraining order on Him or filing charges against Him. My heart was breaking watching Him spiral and knowing there was nothing I could do to help Him or myself since I couldn’t be the one to ruin His life and He was unwilling to get the help He needed.

This continued off and on for a while until I just didn’t know what to do anymore and couldn’t shield my stepchild from it anymore, so I told the childs mother that it wasn’t a good idea for the child to be around Him because I thought it was the right thing to do.

At this point we almost lose custody of His child because even though I was keeping Him away from His child, the mother was not happy and I can’t say I blame her. I think this was a bit of a wake up call for Him because He got completely sober and stayed that way for 6 months or so but sadly this is the longest bit of time that He was able to stay sober.

Then the drinking started again and with that came the cocaine and the paranoia. I’m not sure what to even do anymore. This cycle of getting clean and then using again is really starting to have in impact on my life. There even came a time that He defaulted on the car we have jointly and I had to shell out thousands to prevent it from being repo’d.

This last round I found out that my stepmother (who I have a very rocky relationship with due to her drug and alcohol addiction which lead to me basically raising my younger half brothers) has breast cancer. I had already lost my father to lymphoma and I knew this was going to be a hard hit on my younger half brothers. I had already been worried about my one of my half brothers because he seemed to be living his life rather wildly and had moved away pretty far after losing my father.

So I planned a super short 2 night trip to go down down there to assess the situation and try to be there for my brother. While I’m down there He goes on another bender and completely loses His shit so bad that He starts harassing my family when I start ignoring Him. So now this trip that’s supposed to be about my brother is now all about Him and now the only thing I accomplished is adding more to my brothers plate.

I just don’t even know what to do anymore, I’m so torn. On one hand I have a man who is responsible, loving, kind, motivated, and just about everything I want in a person and the other I have this monster who just wreaks havoc on my life. I love Him to death but I fear one day He will actually be the death of me whether He finally just completely loses it or I just finally give up fighting for my own life. I’m so defeated and depressed at this point I’m having a hard time just getting out of bed. I don’t think I have it in me to go through another slip up yet I also can’t seem to let Him go. Mostly because between these glimpses of hell, I see the man I have always loved and this reignites the hope that this time it will be the end of it.

He went to a meeting for the first time yesterday. I’m so proud of Him for finally taking that step but I can’t help but feel like this is just the calm before another storm. I can’t help but feel the internal cringe everytime He gets close to me. I’m constantly shielded and can’t stand to let Him in again yet the thought of letting Him go tears me apart.

How can I simultaneously love and equally dispise and hate Him? How do I get past this? I see a man who is fighting his inner demons and know this is not really Him. I want nothing more than to be able to help Him even though He’s destroying me and that makes it all the more confusing. I fear letting go will cause him to really dive off the deep end and I can’t stand to see how that will impact His child yet I feel I am just enabling Him by staying. How can I keep being here to help Him pick up His peices if it’s slowly killing me inside?

[eddie123]

Hi there, this sounds like a very difficult situation for you and I am sorry. I know of a great charity that supports people like yourselves nationwide. The family support programme is all remote and they help many families a year. Please see link and fill in the referral and someone will endeavour to respond within 24 hours. https://adaptoxford.org.uk/the-icarus-programme/

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