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I had a similar experience. My (heterosexual) ex used to frequently use forums like Grindr, and it is very likely he used to use it for hook-ups, but when ‘caught out’ or questioned, would blame the coke. My theory is that that is a side of him that he was deeply ashamed of and the cocaine allowed for the freedom of self. I think cocaine allows and justifies the desire, but doesn’t create something that isn’t there already.
If nothing else. I hear every word you’ve said. And you are right. My situation was incredibly similar to your own.
If I can offer one piece of advice, don’t have a baby with him. I adore my daughter, she is my whole world, along with my elder son who is not my ex partners. She is the miracle I never even realised I needed. If I had to go back and make the selfish choice, I would do the same all over again. But it would be selfish. She came into a life that has a chaotic, irresponsible, selfish parent. Even as I type this, she is gently sobbing herself to sleep as she misses her dad. All I can do is hold her and reassure her that I am solidly, without question here for her. I will never be able to explain to her how a ‘disease’ stopped her Daddy from being around. She will never understand how a ‘disease’ took our financial stability, isolated us from friends and family, made us nervous, made us walk on egg shells. How do you explain to a three year old who is crying herself to sleep that Daddy couldn’t ‘get better’ for us, but less than two months later ‘got better’ for another woman and her children. How does a three year old begin to understand why her mum won’t have her father’s mother anywhere near her either, because they used mummy as a scapegoat for Daddy’s addictions? Rather than defending Mummy, the further enabled the abuse, the lies the addiction. How does my nine year old explain to his sister why he is not sad that the only father he has ever known has moved out, moved on and spends so little time with them? My nine year old lived eight years of his ‘Father’s’ ‘disease’. My nine year old begged me last week not to have a glass of wine. How do I explain to both children that money is tight to the point of non existence, still paying off the debt of keeping us all afloat, paying a solicitor to keep us safe, while every penny Daddy had was ground into a powder and sniffed. Daddy’s parents paid for the private rehab, gave him money for drugs, paid his debts, when he stole a family members car, gave the victim their car as a replacement,on top of the insurance money- and paid the court fine for the multitude of offences and convictions. They still pay for a solicitor to drag me through the court to ensure he still has access to the children. How do I listen when they compare our life to his, our teeny mid terrace to their 4 bedroom house in the country?
I wish I had more answers for you, but all I have is questions of my own. On a good day I can be rational and say that yes, addiction is a disease. On a bad day I want to scream how ludicrously crap that is. A person with a disease does everything they can, for as long as they can, as hard as they can to stay with their family and loved ones. An addict continues on their path with no thought whatsoever to their loved ones. A person with cancer wouldn’t tell you that you were crazy if you told them they had cancer. A person with COPD wouldn’t steal your car and try to justify it by saying it wasn’t their fault because they have COPD. A neurodivergent person still has to be accountable for their actions. A person with epilepsy wouldn’t be able to steal money and be able to blame their condition. I suffered extremely serious mental health issues- no-one told me it was okay to give up parenting for twelve months and put myself above all things. I see addiction as it is. ADDICTION. I see recovery as a monumental achievement. I see the excuses, the justification, the self-absolving of all sins and guilt as a horrific injustice to those of us who never chose to have our lives ruined. One day I dream of going to recovery meetings and telling some of my stories.
Please don’t have a baby with him. Grieve for the future you had planned and hoped for, but don’t have a baby with him. You will tie yourself to his wagon for the rest of your life. And worse, you’ll tie the child too. You also need to get your daughter out of that situation. Ring Womens Aid tomorrow. Get advice about the debt, the house, how to move forward and how to escape. While he is in rehab, take every single step you can to prevent him coming back into your life. Tell his mother he will not be returning home, take his things to her house. While he is not there with you convincing you of a future that won’t happen, take back the future you deserve. Leaving an addict after they got sober was the hardest thing I will ever have to do, but by giving up him, I also gave up his ‘disease’ and that disease nearly cost me everything. I wasn’t hanging around to see if he could say ‘no’ next time thus destroying the very little the kids and I had left.
This reply has really hit a chord in me. I hoped until there was no more hope in me, so when I was faced with the prospect of choosing to give one more chance, I walked away. I didn’t have anything left in me to have the strength I needed to hope for a better day. I had to take back control of my days, of my life, of my sanity and let go of the future that would justify the past. I think that’s the hardest thing as a partner of an addict, letting go of the hope.
Your reply also highlighted something else. My partner left rehab and has remained sober for 18 months. He stopped drinking and no longer takes drugs. He’s held down a job, formed a new relationship very quickly and today my young children are meeting the woman who feels like took my happily ever after. I often question whether or not it was the right choice to leave, but I remind myself. It was not the drink or the drugs I hated. It was the way his addiction made me feel, lied, cheated on, stolen from, manipulated and abused. The substances may have turned him into a person that he may not have liked either, and I’m sure than when is actually honest with himself, he feels shame. The problem came though, that his new, sober, spiritual form of himself, could not accept that it was still his responsibility that he did those things to me. I received a text last year saying he was at a certain step and wanted to arrange for a brief meeting to make ammends. It was insulting, offensive and still curdles my stomach. How could I live through what I survived and accept a simple apology? I needed actions, not words. I didn’t need to hear that it was the drugs or the booze that made him do that, so it wasn’t his fault. I didn’t need to hear that the substances turned him into a person he didn’t like. I needed to hear some acceptance and responsibility took the one life that I had been given, abused it in a very way possible, and then shrugged it off as though it was someone entirely apart from himself. I don’t know if anyone may stumble across this thread in the future, but I would like them to hear my voice, as he never will-
You caused harm. You may have been controlled by something else, but you made that choice every single time you took or drank something. It wasn’t an easy option to say no, and I recognise that your sobriety is a battle that had to be hard won. But it was still your choice to take something knowing it would affect me. You gambled me with every pint, with every shot, with every bottle. You risked our lives, our home, our future, our children everytime you picked up that phone to get more cocaine. Every single time you did either it felt as though you were betraying me, the children and everything we had ever worked for, wanted and achieved. That was still you. You were that person. The person you became, was still you. Regret, shame and recovery does not magically separate the two people. If you can become a better person, then that is incredible. But please don’t tell the people who you used as a life raft during that time that its not your fault that they are now adrfit at sea, while you sit happily on your boat of recovery and sobriety. They once lived on the boat too. You cast both of you overboard. If you both made it back to the boat, please don’t ever take for granted how much your partner had to do to survive. Never stop apologising and making sure that loyalty, devotion for you in your darkest hour is recognised. They sacrificed their own life for yours. Please don’t come out the other side and tell them it wasn’t your fault. It was your fault. They loved you. They almost drowned for you. The you then, and the you now. You are one person to them.
To the rest of us still listing out in the ocean, still feeling robbed, abandoned, betrayed. Please take a fraction of the kindness, the sympathy, the empathy, the resilience, the love that you had for them, and use it to save yourselves. Whether you saved them or not, whether you saved them and then found yourself cast off, or whether you are sitting back on the boat feeling uneasy. Swim for yourselves. Because if after everything they do not realise it was you as the life raft- it wasn’t the drugs, the alcohol or the pills, it was them and still is.
Getting clean and sober, and staying so is an amazing achievement that I won’t diminish in anyway. Actually facing the waves you caused and the destruction they wrought, it may be hard for you, but the people you hurt need it. They need you to not just be medically better, but actually for you to take steps and fix the damage that you caused. Sorry is not a word, its an action. Sorry takes effort, time, patience and self sacrifice. Sorry takes commitment.
You need to work out what you are getting from this relationship. Take your daughter out of the equation entirely. Do you get love? Attention, affection, praise, support? Do you get happiness? Does the food outweigh the bad?
If he stopped using would he actually be the person you want? Or would he still be someone you didn’t want to be with?
You can’t control him, you can’t control his addiction or actions, but you can control yours. Your life is a choice that you get to make, your happiness is valuable. You deserve to be happy.
If you want to walk away, that’s okay, but it will take strength.
If you want to stay, have him see a GP for further advice and support. Going round the house and binning the lot will feel amazing for you, but its likely to lead to an almighty row.
Thank you. It’s pure burning anger that doesn’t go away. Unfortunately you don’t seem to be able to openly dislike an addict nowadays. It’s stopped being about the harm they’ve caused to others and more about what they still need, want and can manipulate to get.
To the man who took my life, turned it upside down, used me, squandered everything we had and still made me feel like I wasn’t enough.
Well done for getting sober. I believe its been nearly 18 months now. I know that after you left rehab I said I couldn’t do this anymore and walked away.
I didnt have anything left. My whole life, my whole world had drowned in your addiction. Every part of my life was touched, tainted and blackened by the lies, the abuse and the manipulation.
I will never forgive you for taking me to court over our children. Spending the last 18 months pretending that you are the picture of respectability, that it was ‘active addiction’ that caused you to do those things. That shrugging it off and disregarding all my pain and out of your control. I hate you for making me into the bad person who wouldn’t give you a second chance. I gave you second, third, fourth, twentieth, hundredth chances. You took none.
I hate you for lying this whole time that you have been in a relationship. 18 months on and you still tell me, the kids and the courts that you go to work, go to meetings and go home. I hate that you are still manipulating me and those around me.
Mostly though, I hate myself. I hate myself for not leaving the first time I could see where this was headed. I hate myself for loving you. I despise myself for you being the father my children are left with. I despise myself for wondering if I could have done something different, or if I should have just taken one more chance to get the happy ending you seem to now have with someone else. I was the one who sacrificed everything, who lost everything. How dare you then even contemplate having a lovely happy life when you stole mine. You stole mine and drank it. You stole mine and sniffed it. You stole mine. You don’t deserve to be happy, because you took all my chances and poured them down the drain.
I followed the rules. You lived a life completely without consequence or remorse. Yet, you won. I lost. And you don’t deserve it.
I’m going to hold on to this pain and not let it go. Because I saw you. I see you still. I live through all those years, while you skipped chapters lost in a hole of addiction. I clung on. I got us through. And my god. I deserved better.
You may battle with this addiction for the rest of your life, but so will I. The difference is, it wasn’t my fault.
From an ex partner of a former addict. Saying the things out loud that I just can’t anywhere else.