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That was some major offloading!!!!
And bythesea… despite what i say you must not feel guilty or ashamed for staying. Especially in front of your closest friends who probably understand wholeheartedly the dilemma we all face.
And it is a dreadful, horrible dilemma. Wanting what we thought we had and not wanting to throw away that chance of getting it back.
We have nothing to feel ashamed of. Nothing to feel guilty about either.
We did not ask for this and we did not deserve this.
The mess is not of our making.
We have been thrown into a different world and all of us are coping rge best we can under dire circumstances.
Nobody can say or even guess what the answer is.
I just really wish our addicts had used the common sense they were born with NOT to go down that road that they chose.
But realistically it’s not that simple. Nobody sets out to become an addict. Quite what they expect to happen when regularly consuming adfictive substances is a mystery to me.
However it’s all on them. Not us.
We can only stand by in hope and sometimes walking away is the only safe option for ourselves.
We have to put ourselves first.
????
Hello all,
I’ve not been on for a few weeks, as ive been throwing myself into family life and trying to give the kids the summer they deserve for the first time since covid/the coke years/the aftermath.
By and large things have been okay with my husband in that he hasn’t taken drugs, but yet as ThisTime has just precisely describrd he is not the man he was. I can’t work out whether the coke changed him, or whether he changed in order to tell himself that sneaking around our family home taking drugs was a reasonable thing to do. I think maybe both went hand in hand. He wasn’t an addict to begin with… he thought he had it under control. I can stop when i want… laughable. Since he shouldn’t have been doing it in the first damn place. A conpulsion he couldn’t control… yet he could control it enough to be sly and devious and cruel. Hmmm. That’s one only those inside addiction can truly understand.
Anyway i digress…. he just simply is not a functional person any more. It’s like he completely forgot along the way how to be a decent, useful, autonomous member of this family.
He is rude, argumentative and detached a lot of the tine.
I will be honest… i can’t be bothered any more.
For example… he hates his work and has taken to moaning endlessly about his partner. It’s turning into a huge and poisonous resentment. Yet he does nothing to resolve the issues. It then in turn makes me feel dreadful as he implies i make him go. Yet… before the cocaine occurred it was our shared dream for him to provide enough money for me to stay home and look after everyone. He then gets snipey and jealous if my daughter complains about her job/takes time off. It’s like he has the biggest chip on his shoulder and is setting himself up to be some kind of supervictim. He even complains about the kids school holidays as *they’re not fair*!!!!! Can you believe it?
We all had the same holidays growing up. Haven’t our poor kids suffered enough without being sniped at for sleeping in on school holidays and weekends?
If i sleep in sonetimes im selfish. Yet he forgets i have chronic insomnia as a direct result of his actions. Yet. if I’m tired he complains! If i don’t do chores im lazy. If i do do chores it’s inconvenient He feels i should do my chores during the day… which i do. Yet… newsflash… jobs need doing in the evening too!! And i think he can’t believe our children are actually autonomous people with their own lives and views. They make a lot of work and are time consuming. They’re meant to be that way. He seems to resent me spending time in the evenings talking to them rather than being at his beck and call. Yet if i pull him up he says It’s Fine… in the manner you would think he was doing a great favour. Then, rather than getting involved in the conversation or whatever he goes off to another area of the house and sits on his phone ignoring everything.
He literally does not seem to stop complaining. Ever.
I’m so tired and bored of it all.
He never used to be this bad.
I miss the man i fell in love with.
I even miss the man i was reminded of when he had begun the recovery process.
All i see is a rude, dysfunctional complainer waiting to tell me how bad his life is because of other people.
Take some personal responsibility ffs. Please!!!!!
He even wrecked my 24yr old daughter’s birthday being argumentative and rude….. then complained in bed that i wasn’t being very loving. I was trying not to lose my shit tbh. A blazing row won’t help anyone.
I feel all my energy goes into negotiating his moods.
I am close to walking away as all that circles round in my head endlessly is… what’s the bloody point???
My strongest advice to anyone is get out of shit relationships early doors. Dont hang about putting yourself through the mill, trying to be nice, hoping it will change. It generally doesn’t. Even if no drugs are involved.
It’s always hard but it is better than ending up like me. Wishing things were different and kind of stuck in a web of family life and mortgages.
15 years of marriage that feels like a bloody sham.
i don’t want to break the kids homes up. But they’re growing up fast. Littlest is 12 now…. freedom is coming for me even if i sit and do nothing.
Addiction wrecks everything.
hi debbie,
i was wondering how you’ve been getting along? it must be almost d.day for your holiday and i wondered if you’re able to still go with or without him?
x
well that is of course the million dollar question!
however what i can say is this: if you’re relationship was good before the drugs and you had a good future planned, and your partner wants to make amends and give you that future it’s worth staying for a while. You won’t know if you don’t try.
But…. all too often these addicts just can’t help their behaviour and there has to be a point where we can jump off the sinking ship before it drags us under. Where that point is will be an entirely personal choice, and it will be a difficult, painful choice too, especially if kids/mortgage/etc involved. You have to do what is right for you, and sometimes that will involve drawing a line and cutting free.
I will do exactly that if i ever discover my husband has been up to his old tricks, and if he doesn’t keep his behaviour on track.
I think he became complacent recently and that’s how his behaviour started to slip. He’s had to go back to the drawing board a bit. Remember his 12 steps etc.
I did some research when he had been horrid last month, and i think if we part ways i will get a decent divorce settlement. This is a huge relief to me as i no longer feel trapped where i don’t want to uproot the kids.
We shall see x
Hope everyone is ok this week and our addicts are going the right way!!! ????
xxx tell me about it!!!!! i read your other post and wondered if id stepped through the looking glass!!!!
i will reply properly when i get time… ive been gardening a lot this month… it’s my therapy and it has to be done when life allows.
stay strong lady… we can do this and our children deep down know we are there for them, and always have been, and ALWAYS will be!!! In time they will understand we have done our best with impossible circumstances.
Big love at ya ????
Addict behaviour certainly is a thing in my husband!!! It’s compulsive, impulsive, reckless and self-centered.
I guess not all addicts are the same but it depends what the addict was like when they became an addict.
Anyone can become an addict but certain behaviour/personality types are naturally predisposed. My husband probs has undiagnosed adhd… they are highly likely to fall into the addiction trap.
Ho Hum!
Anyway… how are you? x
Did you talk? Is he still clean? x
continued… yes… we do have kids… two together ages 11 and 14.. plus he took on my other two who are agrs 23 and 28… 28yr old has two daughters. we have been together 19 years and married 15 next month. in answer to your question… no i don’t think i would have stayed… but… it was the pressure of family life and running a business that gave him a massive chip on his shoulder… that’s why he started. And he has always had temper issues and various problems. i think he has undiagnosed adhd. We were going to the rocks before he started and that’s what made it easy for him to disrespect me the way he has.
I wouldn’t have stayed with him anyway apart from the kids!
However when he did the 12 steps he learned what a total ar$eh0l3 he has been all his life. He’s left a trail of destruction. He also met people (recovering addicts) who have had it really, really tough… he has led an easy life, yet he’s always carried this huge chip on his shoulder. It was an eye opener.
However his behaviour still csn be problematic. It’s a work in progress.
I am always on guard but at least i know the drugs aren’t a threat.
xx
Hey bythesea,
ive been a bit crazy this week but it’s so good that your husband wants to prove himself clean. We’re the lucky ones in this nightmare. He sounds as if he wanted out. Addiction is misery. The word originated from the roman word for slavery.. makes sense right!?
Any addict who tells you they are happy is lying to themselves, it’s misery but their brains are all mixed up.. I recommend you read up on the facts of addiction. Knowledge is power! Healthline is good and i went on lot of recovery centre/ rehabs web sites. When you understand the mechanics you can understand why they behaved the way they did.
Talking is also key… you’re both stuck with horrible memories… complete opposite sides of the same coin. I found talking through these bad memories helped me understand how sorry and regretful my husband is. It also helped him understand how hurt i am.
It’s painful but it helped us understand eachother.
I’m sending this one now as my sausage fingers keep hitting cancel and this is my 4th attempt grrr x
and i also remember my husband wouldn’t look at me, not at all… i never knew why, it was because he was lying, ashamed and didn’t want me to see he was on that stuff.. i remember when he started looking me in the eye again and that’s when i knew he was ready to start being honest and upright once again. and that’s how i feel sure he still is clean… obviously the cynic in me wonders if he’s just learned to cover his tracks better by using eye contact, but that’s what happens when you take a sledgehammer to the marital trust you once had x
hey,
i read your reply in may and it home so hard i couldn’t even respond at that time. it’s what you say about the safer place that is only possible because they stay clean. sometimes it feels so precarious for me, it’s been 16 months now and it’s good, and overall improving. yet, some days are better than others as my husband still behaves like an addict sometimes and it is very triggering. as time goes by the more you realise it’s always going to be there in the background.
what you wrote earlier also hits right in the heart, I’m still only at the relative beginning of this journey but i have clothes, pictures, shoes, rooms and places in this house, towns and even a country(!) etc that i cannot even look at or think about without being transported straight back to those dark times. it is full blown ptsd. have you maybe got a bit of ptsd going on?
like you when triggered i do go through a thought pattern and keep my head focused in the present, what else can we do huh!?
but sometimes it gets me bad!
eg… watching bgt semi-finals with the family… on comes a group from the 2020 version. they formed a lockdown choir…. my brain immediately remembers how dreadful life was during 2020 (his worst year of using/horrific behaviour)… remembers how lonely and frightened i felt, how it felt like all the families i knew pulled together while i was trapped in the most horrible circumstances without even my best friend (him)… he then remarks he saw them on youtube when looking up music videos… my brain then remembers he has since told me he was sat there on his computer using very, very, frequently… you get the picture… then more stars from 2019 and 2020… more memories of how we’d sat as family and as it turned out he was on the drugs…. by this point feelings over ride the calming routine… tears in full flow but i blame it on the programme ..however i get it down and we watch the program and kids go on their way… and I’m tidying the sitting room up to go to bed… he is standing by the door … it all floods back like a tsunami!!!! plus more… again from those days … i would tidy up… he would get shirty about some nonsense… go on down… obviously use… id do all the work…. he’d come up and moan, then go off… obviously use again… then pick a fight! push me/yell/whack something etc… go off and use, we’d then go to bed and he’d fidget round and have to keep popping off *to the toilet *… I’d eventually drop off and he’d wake me up fidgeting and disturb the whole house going up and down the stairs (going for a hit).
All that memory dump because he stood by the door and my defenses were weakened.
All i can do/we can do is (an official technique apparently!) is … remember the memory when it comes, don’t shut it down, feel the feeling and process. talk about the memory and how it feels. that’s the only route towards closure.
i don’t think we ever get closure from this, but we can get some small amount of peace from our memories.
i also strongly identify with the waking in rhe night. it’s when the memories are loudest.
i don’t know if it’s the same for you guys but the worst things happened in the small hours. the most amounts of drugs consumed, the craziest behaviour, the most terrifying fights, the lying awake wondering where things went wrong. looking at this stranger who was in my husband’s skin. also after i found out, not being able to sleep at all because of being so utterly distressed… any time i wake now my brain has to be kept on an extremely tight leash or thoughts will very quickly spiral.
i know im safe now, sort of but the memories and feelings are branded into every part of my being.
xx
debbie, i am so sad for you in what you write. it really does hurt our mental health so badly. please keep going and remember that you have done nothing wrong to deserve this terrible situation.
realistically we can’t control anything in this, except how we ourselves react. deep down somewhere inside him I’m sure he knows how rotten he is being but to admit to one thing would unravel everything and that addict mindset cannot allow that to happen. he is in denial and lies to himself more even than you can imagine.
i hope you will still manage to go on your holiday, i think you need and deserve it. i don’t know if going with him is the greatest plan but maybe this holiday is the catalyst for change. i am so sorry that you’re still stuck on that merry-go-round x
another quick reply from me as I’m off to the optician to try contacts in a minute!
about these drug tests… personally… and obvs it’s your choice…. i wouldn’t recommend going cloak and dagger and randomly popping them out… he might feel pretty cornered and you could end up with things blowing up in your face!
personally… I think you have every right to insist that he is provably clean.. for us i do not want someone on class a drugs around my kids. full stop. use or stay. the choice for the addict to make. you want to be here… prove you are clean! that’s me though.
so… we did daily tongue strip tests. every night before bed. in full view so no shady fake result tactics. i even did a couple to show willing and normalise it. went through a few packs but over time it became less important as it was clear he had no intention of going back to the circle of misery. he wanted out.
as for the lies… it’s a horrible, horrible feeling having been lied to in the way these addicts do. it’s like icy cold fingers clutching at your insides.
it sounds like similar to me with various little snippets and memories are clicking into place and it’s just the worst.
as i say 1.5 years is long but it’s not unfixable. but it has to come from them being honest every day and yes, you will be second guessing a lot and need proof sometimes.
from what you say your addict is relieved to be out from that horrid place of lies and misery.
hopefully he is genuine and it goes the right way for you.
my husband is 16 months and 1 day since he got caught and he is doing okay… he has his faults and a lot of work to do but thankfully sneaking around taking drugs no longer features.
hope you’re okay today xx
lots of love
oh .. i saw you haven’t spoken to anyone in real life… i cant recommend highly enough talking to at least one friend or family member… what you’re going through is massive and distressing. you shouldn’t have to go through it alone smiling and pretending all is fine when inside you’re dying. people understand a lot better than we might expect.
gotta go… x
a quick reply from me x
yes… you can get past this up to a point but it won’t be easy. you have to really love someone to be able to come through this together. the addict needs to do the work though, otherwise we are at risk of enabling them.
a lot of addicts think they can stop but in reality it’s not that straightforward.
i would honestly recommend drug testing on a routine basis because it takes the accusatory mood out of it… and then you know for sure one way or the other. it avoids a lot of awkward suspicion.
in terms of getting clean… 1.5 years is a relatively short period to be using this drug… some put away 30+ years. my husband was secretly using for 2.5 years. it basically means that the longer the habit has persisted, the harder it will be to break it.
some manage alone, or with suppprt from loved ones. i made my husband go to ca. it did him a world of good and woke him up to the kind of person he has been. it took the weight off my shoulders.
one more thing though…. this discovery has probably knocked you for six! please remember to take great care of yourself over the coming weeks – you might feel okay some days but others completely on the floor and devastated.
we’re all in this boat together and you are not alone xx
that’s so sad. at least she is young enough that you have plenty of time to reverse some of the damage.
unfortunately our kids have seen much, much worse. they’ve suffered many days and nights of us fighting and arguing. yelling, screaming, hitting eachother (not instigated by me), stuff smashed, pushing and shoving, holes in doors and walls, before the drugs, off the scale during the drugs and even sometimes since… though absolutely on any scale like before.
and unfortunately they are much older too.
my son is actually doing ok. he is 14 and frankly it brings tears to my eyes to see how chilled out and kind and loving he is. he loves us both and just wants to live in a peaceful house. i do worry a lot about him internalising his pain but we talk a lot. though he doesn’t like talking about his feelings i encourage him to do so. he has given many hugs to me when the sh1t has hit the fan, though inside I’m dying that he has to know of such things but I’m so proud of the young manvhe is becoming despite all this.
my 11 yo daughter however is not in such a good way. she is traumatised. she is angry with us both. she has seen and heard too much. she has her own issues. we think she has adhd. and also my husband almost certainly does. she is so angry at the world. she has self esteem issues. she has even self harmed. we have been trying to get her assessed is cahms for adhd since she was 6. it’s awful. when she goes, she sounds like her father. the things they say could be interchangeable. i see in her his issues. i am afraid she will end up on his road of self destruct.
if he doesn’t shape up, and stay shaped up her future is at risk.
I’ve told him straight i won’t allow his behaviour to hurt her in her own home any more. it was a shock for him to realise just how seriously he has damaged her.
hopefully enough? who knows…. he is an addict… do they ever really stop being themselves?
god knows xxx
when i was feeling suicidal over all this stuff, the fear of him wrecking their life chances if i didn’t stay around soon made me remember my place is here. I’m here for them, not me but then i found the sun did come back out and I’m glad i stayed to fight another day.
sorry it’s a depressing post!
hi waltonfam, i popped on your username and read the post that you wrote recently and it brought tears to my eyes, it’s so horrible what their behaviour has done to our kids xx
I’m going to write a proper reply later but you are not a bad mum and neither am i, we have done our best.
i see a lot of similarity in our situations.
take care xxx