Post by BunnyEars on Jan 22, 2020 10:36:04 GMT -8
5 years ago I threw my husband out of the house on his 41st birthday. After 16 years living together.
I remember that night, I got home from to work to a couple of my girlfriends blowing up my phone to tell me they'd found him fall-down drunk and high in a bar, and they were bringing him home. They literally carried him up my front steps, not before he fell twice. The next morning, after a vicious fight, I was done with him.
His drinking, drug-use, depression, and workaholism was out of control. I had made it worse over the last couple of years by declaring I no longer wanted monogamy with him, was seriously questioning my sexuality, and was openly exploring relationships outside the marriage. He'd become unrecognizable to me, sloppy in appearance, zero self-care, joyless and angry. I looked into my future with him and felt terrified and trapped.
After our separation, he became a full-blown heroin addict. For a while, he owned two successful businesses. Now he's lost them both and moved in with his mother and brother, who is also an addict. We still talk, get together when we're in the same city. I still consider him family, I think about him all the time. We aren't yet legally divorced. He's been such a mess, and it's such an annoying and expensive process, I won't get any help from him and I haven't got around to doing it myself.
But now I'm starting to get the paperwork together, 5 years of separation is long enough to wait. Today I contacted him about it, and heard the same thing I've been hearing from him for years. He's very unhappy. But it's getting worse. He says he has no reason to live. Thinks about ending it all. I tell him to get help. I offer an ear. I tell him to get an antidepressant or try exercise or travel. As usual, he will never make any move towards helping himself. When we were together, pretty much the only time he did anything life-affirming was because I arranged it and dragged him along. Now with no one to do that for him, he's lost.
My love addiction manifested differently through most of my marriage. I didn't have POA's, not until an NPD woman seduced me 2 years before I physically left my husband (I'd already starting checking out of my marriage by then.) I wasn't obsessed or lovesick over my husband like that, but I overfunctioned in that marriage, I WAS the relationship. He took care of me financially, but that was about it.
I carry a lot of guilt for leaving my marriage, not staying on in his "sickness" and health. The brooding, hot-headed star I fell for is now a toothless, broke addict living with his mother. I know it isn't my fault, but I contributed to it. I chose my happiness over his. But am I really that much happier without him than I was with him? The happy, healthy partnership I hoped I'd one day have if I was brave enough to leave him hasn't materialized yet. But I could never go back to him, either. I could not go back to being the person always trying to coax him into health, and joy, and connection. I need to put on my own oxygen mask.
I remember that night, I got home from to work to a couple of my girlfriends blowing up my phone to tell me they'd found him fall-down drunk and high in a bar, and they were bringing him home. They literally carried him up my front steps, not before he fell twice. The next morning, after a vicious fight, I was done with him.
His drinking, drug-use, depression, and workaholism was out of control. I had made it worse over the last couple of years by declaring I no longer wanted monogamy with him, was seriously questioning my sexuality, and was openly exploring relationships outside the marriage. He'd become unrecognizable to me, sloppy in appearance, zero self-care, joyless and angry. I looked into my future with him and felt terrified and trapped.
After our separation, he became a full-blown heroin addict. For a while, he owned two successful businesses. Now he's lost them both and moved in with his mother and brother, who is also an addict. We still talk, get together when we're in the same city. I still consider him family, I think about him all the time. We aren't yet legally divorced. He's been such a mess, and it's such an annoying and expensive process, I won't get any help from him and I haven't got around to doing it myself.
But now I'm starting to get the paperwork together, 5 years of separation is long enough to wait. Today I contacted him about it, and heard the same thing I've been hearing from him for years. He's very unhappy. But it's getting worse. He says he has no reason to live. Thinks about ending it all. I tell him to get help. I offer an ear. I tell him to get an antidepressant or try exercise or travel. As usual, he will never make any move towards helping himself. When we were together, pretty much the only time he did anything life-affirming was because I arranged it and dragged him along. Now with no one to do that for him, he's lost.
My love addiction manifested differently through most of my marriage. I didn't have POA's, not until an NPD woman seduced me 2 years before I physically left my husband (I'd already starting checking out of my marriage by then.) I wasn't obsessed or lovesick over my husband like that, but I overfunctioned in that marriage, I WAS the relationship. He took care of me financially, but that was about it.
I carry a lot of guilt for leaving my marriage, not staying on in his "sickness" and health. The brooding, hot-headed star I fell for is now a toothless, broke addict living with his mother. I know it isn't my fault, but I contributed to it. I chose my happiness over his. But am I really that much happier without him than I was with him? The happy, healthy partnership I hoped I'd one day have if I was brave enough to leave him hasn't materialized yet. But I could never go back to him, either. I could not go back to being the person always trying to coax him into health, and joy, and connection. I need to put on my own oxygen mask.