My story...glad I found ya'll...

[sexysadie]

We've been together for 5 yrs now. The past 6mos his drinking and depression have gotten the best of him. Three weeks ago he was supposed to come home for dinner but instead stayed at the bar. I got pretty upset. It was how shall I say an accumulation of things that had been building up in me. I packed him an overnight bag and told him to stay at our friends house. Well he didn't go there.

 

He ended up staying with someone else we know who was renting a room from this woman. Well two days later BF ended up getting involved with her. This is not him at all. He's absolutely against affairs, he taught me to trust again. I feel betrayed. I spoke with her the night that I met her at our usual hangout. She told me that she thought he should come home. But she couldn't tell him what to do. She was definitely not someone he would normally find attractive. He has admitted that there is no attachment, he's feeling stone cold to emotion right now.

 

He took her out of town over the weekend with all of our friends and myself. I was very good...polite not rude. I could see the discomfort in him each time she tried to snuggle with him in front of me. I became this third person just watching it as though it was a dream. No emotion. But I cried myself to sleep the first night we were there. But I never shed any tears publicly. I just held my head high.

 

I've been to a therapist now several times to learn about how I had been enabling him and that my anger that night was really fear about the unknown. I still have some work to do. She told me that I had to show myself that I could move forward and not do it for his benefit. She also said that since the begging and pleading didn't work, it was obviously time to try something else. So I am trying to keep my distance...although technically we work together. But he hasn't been to work in 3wks now.

 

He's losing his business...his partner and I are trying to salvage it for him. He's drinking 24/7 now. From what I saw over the weekend she can drink him under the table.

 

We had not been talking very much over the past few weeks until this week, because he was so full of anger. I found that a mutual friend of ours had been sabotaging the situation because he thought he would be there for me...and pick up the pieces and it wasn't until he point blank came on to me that I realized what had been going on. I told BF about my discovery. I've not been on holiday for a couple of days just to hide out and heal my wounds. It's one thing to lose the love of your life but to lose what you thought was your closest friend too. It's all been too much.

 

He has only a suitcase there now that I packed for him. He mentioned once last week about getting his stuff...but then when I asked him, he blamed the weather...and hasn't mentioned it since. But our partner asked him about it and he has no plans to come get his stuff but at the same time he said he is not ready to come home yet. I can see the pain in his eyes but I can't reach him at all.

 

I'm working on myself and moving forward. I've given him a letter that my therapist had me write him as an apology and a basic love letter so that if he ever had any doubts of my love he could read it.

 

That's my story in a nutshell...I love this man and I know he loves me but how do you break down a wall of pride and get to the heart of the man?

[DN]

This is a tough one. It is almost always a mistake to break up with someone, or throw them out of the house, unless you really mean to end the relationship. Not a good idea. But that is not the major cause of this situation. You could almost certainly win him back from this woman so neither is she..

 

The major problem, and the cause of everything else, is his drinking - he is an alcoholic. and that is what he, and you, have to deal with.

 

Has he ever admitted that he has a drinking problem? Because until he does, and asks for help to deal with it, there is unfortunately little that can be done.

[WuvWolf]

I agree, for his wellbeing, the drinking is the most important thing. It's hard for people to change because of someone elses influence. Trust me, I have been there. I had to find a reason to stop drinking on my own and take the classes on my own. He has to find purpose and meaning in his own life, otherwise he has joined the vicious circle that many alchoholics fall into.

[sexysadie]

Yes he knows he has a drinking problem. He is the first one to admit it. We had together worked on this and he had cut down his drinking to just a couple of days a week. He'd come a long way from when I first met him, which is right back where he is now except then he had 2 roommates. However, our friend had just broken off with his fiancee and had been going out every night and all of a sudden BF decided to join him to "comfort" him as he said. No one forced him to go. That weekend was my daughter's bday. He didn't have the money to buy her a present but he was able to go up to the bar to play darts and forget to come home for dinner.

 

I've given up begging and pleading...I've let him go to do whatever it is that he thinks he needs to do. I know his pride is hurt very badly. I just don't know what I can do to reassure him that it would not happen again. We have a wonderful life together, memories and everything. He said what happened with her wasn't supposed it be that way. I do forgive him...I know at first it was out of spite...and now I can see the hurt in his eyes, when he does look me in the eyes. All weekend long she was like a third wheel there with us having such a great time like nothing was ever wrong between us, but she was there.

 

So now I am trying the absense makes the heart grow fonder routine. I am not even sure if that will work. I know he cared enough to call around to see where I was going. He's also not taking calls from our mutual friend now.

[thegirl_00]

I feel for you, and for him. I have been down HIS road before. Not with a loved one, but with true friends that i have had since i was 4. I got involved with drugs at 19 and also become an alcoholic. I ditched all my good friends and became friends with the wrong people. After 6 months i realised i had a problem, so i went to the addictions foundation to get help. Now that i am sober i realise all i have thrown away, those 6 months of my life ruined childhood friendships.

He misses you a lot, but he's trying to forget by drinking. However, you are doing great. Drinking was defenitly the reason for what happened here, just remember addictions are easy to get involved with but very hard to get out of. But you don't deserve to be treated like that, you can't change him, he can only change himself, you will defenitly find someone else and hopefully he will get help for his problem. good luck.

[DN]

Has he been to Alcoholics Anonymous?

 

You might find AlAnon a help for you. It is a support group for the familes, loved ones etc, of alcoholics. You will find there people in the same or similar situation as you and they can help you get through this situation.

[sexysadie]

He's not going to go at least not now...I've been to a couple of meetings and have been on the AlAnon message board as well as gotten a Therapist. There has been some comfort there, but what I am trying to do now is to get to his soul and reach into his pride to tell him it will be okay. We will be okay. I know that sounds strange, but he has no one right now but this woman. Everyone of his friends has turned their backs on him. He must feel very alone and it doesn't have to be this way.

[DN]

Then I think for your own sake that you have to back off for now and gain some equilibrium in your own life. If he comes back to you then you can decide what you want to do at that time.

[sexysadie]

I've been in No Contact (NC) for about 48 hours now. Tonight is the night when we all meet our friends to throw in a dart tournament. At first I wasn't going to go, but the more and more I thought about it, I decided that by my not going, I was giving in. Just where they would want me to be...staying at home, crying and pouting too ashamed to show my face. The OW wants so desperately for everyone to like her. They can tolerate her, but like me they have little respect for someone like her.

 

I know that this weekend was an communication opening for us because I was there and showed that despite everything, I was quite capable of having a great time. So I've decided to go. I'll be just as cordial as I was over the weekend.

 

I just am trying to grasp this NC that everyone talks about on Alanon. If your goal is to work out your issues, how does NC help? I can understand a cooling off period. Why does this all seem like high school games? ARGH...if I'm gone, you'll miss me? How often does that really work? I mean if I am supposed to move forward, then I shouldn't have to sit at home crying my eyes out when I should be able to go to where my friends are even if they are his friends too.

 

Thoughts?

[DN]

I don't know what AlAnon says about no contact. But on here most people think that it is not a strategy to get back with someone by making them miss you but a means of getting over someone that you have broken up with.

 

You can't heal properly from a relationship if you constantly see them or talk to them becuase the wound is constantly being reopened. So you need no contact to heal and move on with your life without the ex.

 

If, by chance, the ex realises that s/he made a mistake because they miss you so much, and you then decide that you want to reconcile and mutually work out the problems that caused the break-up that is good - but it is not the prime purpose.

[sexysadie]

An update...he actually phoned me a bit ago regarding a client who owes us money. He mentioned that he needed the money for the electric deposit for the office where we are moving into. He then mentioned he was not going to the tournament tonight. I said okay. I phoned the client and gave them all our NEW company information and then phoned him back and told him that I had left a message...I then asked sweetly, "Hey I forgot your car window is broken, can XXXX pick you up for the tournament?" He said he offered, but there's no fundage...I said Oh, okay. Talk to you later.

 

Missing the tournament tonight is the BIGGEST deal to him. He's never missed a tournament since they started. It's where all our friends will be tonight. Even the past three weeks he'd been going and taking her along...It's an easy 50.00 win for him...so guess he's either too ashamed to ask her for the 10.00 entry fee or she turned him down. Either way, you could hear the disappointment in his voice.

 

That was it...I was polite, I didn't enable...I didn't cave in...it was my first detach w/love as I have been learning on another board.

[sexysadie]

They did end up showing up last night...again I put on my happy face. I was fine. An interesting thing happened, I met someone last night...all night long he kept coming by and smiling. We finally sat down and talked. I told him that it was just too early for me, I was coming out of a long term relationship, but he was very nice, told me I was beautiful and if/when I was ready to call him and we'd have dinner. I was very nervous because HE was right there when all this happened. Won't read into it...just took the compliment and the possibility of a friendship.

 

I am going back to No Contact today..he's the one who called yesterday and now it will be a week before we run into one another again since I am only going to go and throw in the tournaments from this point on...no other social gatherings with OUR friends for a bit. I seem stronger when I am not around them. I don't have to listen to them. Tired of all the drama.

[sexysadie]

Well I have definitely gone the NC route...and I feel very strong and empowered the longer I go. It's just amazing...once I started it...it was like an addiction to ME...go figure.

 

In any event, he's been burning up the cell phone here all day. Hasn't left a message for me, so I gather it's not that important. He's used to me immediately picking up the call or calling him right back. Now he's getting to experience what I did when he wasn't taking my calls. He told me to move forward...and I am...which means NC.

 

If it is work related then he can certainly call his business partner who has been waiting for several days now to hear from him since he's had his phone turned off the past couple of days when she tried to reach him.

 

I hope I can continue the NC and feel as good as I am feeling the past couple of days. Meeting w/Therapist again on Thursday.

[sexysadie]

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all your wise wisdom, thoughts, love and concern over me. It really has greatly been appreciated and I'll need ya'll as the days progress.

 

EX was supposed to be moving into a shared office space with 2 of our mutual friends and I was opening my shop in the front retail space of the building. All this was supposed to have transpired a month ago but with everything that had been going on...the past month we were in limbo. He wasn't fulfilling his financial obligations to the other tenants, nor to his former business partner. He was telling stories to grandious the situation.

 

Well yesterday, the friends called a meeting with all of them, him and the partner to find out where his head was with moving into the space. To make a long story short, facing everyone at one time in a "Carefrontation" situation was very unsettling to him. He was not able to continue with his "truths." They offered him everything but money to help him. Asking him what he wished for etc...and they all told him what they wished for. From what I understand many tears were shed.

 

Last evening we all went out to a different place to just get away and let him cool off...well they ended up showing up there. He was already drunk when they arrived and proceeded to go down hill very quickly. At first everything was fine we were all talking and having a great time but then OW came and sat down and told me she was taking him away for a week to let him sort things out. I was in agreement after all that had taken place earlier in the day. He got very upset and started lashing out at me blaming me for everything. He threatened me 3 times before he was escorted out by her and our friends. I held me own never trying to argue back just letting him go. I knew I was safe with all of them there.

 

This am things went from bad to worse...his former partner told him that he was completely removed from the business (she had to make that decision). He then called our mutual friend and made threats against him.

 

We've lost this man to the bottle...there is nothing we can do now but hope that he finds his way back to the person he was. But we all are in agreement that he can't take us down with him. I've let go as well as everyone else that has loved and cared for him, including his parents...this is not the man we know and love.

 

Big hugs ya'll...this has been a tough 24 hours...

[DN]

I am sorry this has all gone so bad for you. I think you are wise to sever contact with him - he sounds toxic right now.

 

It is so sad for you to see a good man do bad things because of an addiction. But unless he recognises the problem and wants to get help for it there is little that can be done without endangering your own well-being. It hurts to let him go but it is the only thing to do.

 

Good luck - and I hope all is well for you soon.

[sexysadie]

Thank you...yes I agree it had to be done...for everyone's sake, his family, friends and myself and my family. This will be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I can't begin to tell you all of the guilt that I have in my heart over this...if I had only done this/that...but every now and then I realise that I never forced him to drink however, I did enable him. That fault is with me along with everyone else that has loved him and cared for him the past few years. He has a new enabler now, unfortunately she is also an A...but it's all out of my hands now. I wish him the best.