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You are not being dramatic. You have been let down and your children have been let down. You still fought for your children to have a relationship with their dad because you wanted their lives to feel normal. For them to feel loved.
Trouble is our partners seem unable to love anyone right now. Least if all themselves. How do you change that? No amount of excitement or life changes is going to work without them getting help and ditching the cocaine or other substances. We can try as hard as we like but in the end all we end up doing is hurting our own self esteem or self worth until they are ready to actually seek help.
I would be there if my husband turned around and said he wanted to go to the gp and get clean. I would be willing to help him. I think the door is never closed because of our child. But without that we end up going in circles.
Oh I know what you mean. How could we have been so clueless?! How did we let them lie like that. I often think about the hours I have spent worrying that it was me. I blamed hormones after having a child for example. I tried so hard to work on myself. Friends and family put these ideas into my head. Like after having a baby I didnt pay him enough attention. It meant that his comments and excuses hurt me more.
Then you try harder to make things peaceful and stable but that doesnt work either. Relationships are complicated enough and that’s the trouble. I feel like I need counselling after all this.
I wish I could stay and help my husband get clean too. But I know it would be a further detriment to my own happiness.
The problem is that cocaine is linked to my husbands work and his best mate. That is why I dont see him being able to break the habit. I could imagine the only way would be to move and change our lives completely. That would take a lot of love from me. I like my life and my friends and my son loves his school. I am not sure I would be able to give up more of ourselves for him. But I also think it would be the only way for him to get clean and still have a family. So much of his recent behaviour I feel has been because I have given up on him. I think he feels hopeless and therefore it’s not helped.
Years ago I noticed him doing similar behaviour. I didnt know it was cocaine. Our relationship was strong and I didnt have a child to consider. I gave him an ultimatum. Stay in stop drinking. Stop seeing your friend that you keep staying out with and I will stay with you. He did all that and he obviously was able to stop taking cocaine then. Now when I said the same thing last year he said no. Now I know it is cocaine and it was cocaine before. But unfortunately I think too much damage has been done to turn back.
Maybe it’s because I am considering both mine and our sons happiness. Maybe that’s what is different and ultimately why I gave up on him.
Well done in taking that step. I cant imagine how hard that was. You are doing the right thing for you and your children. You have given him a chance in the past to get clean as a family and he couldn’t do it then. Maybe the reality of losing you for good will be the push he needs to get help.
Of course you care about him and that is why he had to go. I know I have enabled my husband. Letting him continue to behave in the way I have and not being strong enough to give an ultimatum and stick to it.
My advice would be to not stand for it now. I didnt want to be the controlling wife who never let my husband have fun but I should have been! I shouldn’t have turned a blind eye to his behaviour. I shouldn’t have listened to the stories of how stressful work was.
Coming home late. Sleeping all day. Arguments started by me asking for respect in our relationship. I shouldn’t have accepted these things. Now it has become the norm. I am the nagging wife who is constantly ruined his fun. I am boring and always was apparently. Nothing is enjoyable for my husband now.
Our son is 7 and my husband has not been to one school event. Not one play or sports day. He doesnt get excited that he can read fluently and with expression. He doesnt notice that my son adores him. He doesnt get excited about the music he used to love. It’s like everything is grey for my husband and nothing we do can change that. The only thing that makes his life bright and exciting is cocaine.
I have to ask him to spend time with our son even though we are all in the house during this lockdown if I dont ask him my husband doesnt notice that the entire day has gone past with him in his room playing xbox and ignoring everyone and everything else.
It’s not like he is a terrible man all the time. If I dont bother him he just gets along with his life and we get on with ours. The moment I ask for his time or I point out his behaviour i regret it. I personally just can not live like this anymore. I wish I had realised that the weekends of fun would turn into this.
I have lain awake at night and gone over scenarios of what if he is dead because of my husband not coming home. As his mood has got worse and his behaviour more horrible I think sometimes what was worry and concern has turned into fantasy. I cant help it. That’s where my brain goes when its 3 in the morning and they haven’t come home. I have to admit to being a little disappointed when he finally turns up. It sounds awful but it’s the truth. And I hate that I feel this way about the man I love.
I used to shout at him I dont want you to be nice I just want you to be normal. It is such a rollercoaster and my emotions are wrecked from it. The whole time you are almost waiting for that explosion and you have to be ready all the time!
I think it is so hard not to question and not feel able to trust after he has lied to you. The lies my husband told me made me turn into someone I don’t really like. In the end the way I found out he was taking cocaine was looking through his messages and bank statements. The fact is he lied about the money and I believed him – he would be lending it to a mate, spending it on fruit machines, losing his wallet. When he was late home he didn’t text because he ran out of battery, he didn’t realise the time, he thought he had told me… oh and when none of those lies worked he told me it was because there is no point coming home to me when all I give him is a hard time.
The fact is he has had to become a very good liar. I wonder if he even knows the truth these days. Over lock down he has got worse in his cocaine useage. During my talk with him 2 weeks ago I told him to look at himself. He looks thin and unhealthy. I told him that his drug abuse was so obvious to everyone. I said it to try and get him to see what was happening to him. The only things I see after that discussion is more lies – taking cocaine during the day so that he could sleep at night instead of sleeping till 5/6pm was the first thing he tried. He pretended that he had stopped but I can tell from his eyes and his speech that he hadn’t. Now he has been eating tubs of icecream (7 tubs in one week) and cakes and cream. I know he is trying to put on weight so that his boss won’t notice his drug use!!!
Honestly it’s funny seeing him and his lies now. Whenever he is high he doesn’t look me in the eyes when he talks to me! he thinks he can hide it even though there is so little point now in him doing that.
Perhaps tests will make you feel more secure and helping him to keep going to meetings I am sure is important. if he is struggling with depression and sleeping all day it is natural that you would be questioning if it’s cocaine use as they are the usual signs. You have to question it and you have to put in boundaries so that you feel safe for your children going forward.
The way my husband has been with our son is the main reason I am seeking separation. It is also of course what makes me most worried. Of course he can be a good dad and our son loves him. but our son also reacts to my husbands behaviour. I feel the tension in him when my husband is sleeping all day. He knows what’s next. He lives in the same cycle that we all do. I do the the best I can and try to give my son safety and security and as much love as I can. My husband has been blaming me and our son for so long though I think it has effected our sons behaviour. There can be quite a difference in him when we are at home alone or when my husband is home. I know it’s not my parenting and always did but it’s hard not to question yourself when someone blames you for everything going wrong. I feel so sorry for our son stuck in the middle of all this. Like you I have felt sad about losing our my husband to this and losing our family.
I wish my husband would just move out and leave us alone. Unfortunately I know I am going to have to fight my way out of this whole situation. Trouble is my husband is very intelligent. He can take cocaine and still work and he mostly has little other problems from his habit. He makes lots of money and we are financially secure as we own our own house. I on the other hand have only worked part time since we had our son and I work from home so I am kinda screwed – leaving for me means losing the house, my son changing schools and me starting from scratch again with my job as I know I will need to leave the area I live in. That’s why I have stayed and that’s why I am trapped right now. He knows it and uses it in a controlling way against me.
It helps chatting in here. Reading people’s stories and not feeling so alone in all this.
I am the same louise with the texts! The hours I spent before I knew he was taking cocaine trying to reason with him almost makes me sick to think of!!! The things I was trying to get him to understand make me feel stupid that I was even having these conversations. And of course I cant really explain it to others as it’s all just too horrible! He constantly tells me I am lecturing him, he will often lament that I talked at him for hours and he is right. It is hard to break that habit but I am trying hard and coming on here to chat instead of reacting to him as much as possible – living with him still and it’s hard not to react but I am finding the strength and doing ok.
I think that it’s great that you have stopped this contact with him, it’s so pointless chatting to a cocaine addict. We go on and on and we get nowhere!
My husband has made me feel like this too. He often acts in rows like I am the crazy one. He likes to shout that out loud. He also likes to tell me that it’s me that is bullying him or even that our 7 year old is bullying him. He tells his family that I am to blame and that our son is never disciplined and that’s why he is always so angry at us and short tempered.
He also likes to twist the events of our past and blame me for everything that has gone wrong. He knows all the buttons to push and he loves to start arguments so that he can say ‘that’s it I’m going out I cant deal with you anymore’.
What I have come to realise is that over the last few years I have tried and tried to keep a family together thinking if only I could change it would be better. He kept telling me that so why not? But nothing was ever good enough. Days out were ruined. Holidays were miserable. Christmas was awful. And all the time it was our fault.
I know how you feel being angry. There are so many times when I have just wanted to scream at him, to get my point to him. But it’s so pointless. Everytime I have ever tried to talk to him I regret it because it normally ends with him being soooooo angry and recently that anger has got more and more aggressive so I know that’s it. I have to move on. It’s not for me as much as for my son. I dont want my son growing up thinking his anger is normal.
Like you I wish he would get himself better and be a dad again (before all this he was really a great guy, loving caring, helpful thoughtful and I miss him). But for now there is no point considering what the future might bring because I know in general that having expectations of him is pointless. I do feel by letting him go I won’t be able to help him and I feel guilty about that.
But it is better for me and my son and that’s what I am trying to focus on. You have done the right thing to cut ties and move on. I hope that you start to feel better and that things settle down. None of this is your fault and you have to think of yourself and your children now and that’s all you can do x
I feel like I was in your position a few years ago and I just learned to accept my husbands outbursts. The man I loved was still there and on occasion I would see that side of him come out. But move on 3 years and the man I loved is all lost. The horrible words he said on occasion are now a weekly or even daily occurrence. I have no choice but to make a plan to get my own life back without him as it’s what I have to do for me and my son. He has never admitted an addiction (cocaine) and still thinks he uses it recreationally. Every now and then he shows some remorse and says he wants to stop but usually within a week he is back to it. I feel stuck in a cycle. Wishing he would admit his addiction and do something about it so my son can have a dad but realising it’s just never going to happen and that over the 3 years things have got worse and worse and worse unfortunately.
I think we learn to accept the moods and the nasty behaviour, blaming us for everything. I hope that you can get your partner to seek help. I wish that I had been able to and hadn’t just put up with his behaviour for so long.
You are right, and I know I have options if things get too much. My mum is in the at risk group for coronavirus and that’s who I would want to run to but wouldn’t feel comfortable. I should concentrate on other options instead. I cant imagine what it must be like to watch your son going through this and wanting to help but not being able to must be horrible for you. For me lockdown has made me want to be closer to my mum and all I think about is the past and how it was between my husband and me before all this. I guess it bought it all into stark reality because all I wanted was my husband to be there for us and to make things feel safe but I have felt the opposite.