Enduring the Pain
Living for years in a relationship with an addict is one of the hardest things that a person can do. There is no logic, rhyme or reason to why you become an enabler, you just do. It is like after a flood or tornado, you just walk around after each episode wondering what happened. For many it seems that it didn’t seem to start out that way yet somehow, here you are in a story waiting for the new script.
One of the hardest things in this situation is trying to get the addict to see that they may have a problem. You want to love and protect them and fix things but you become the villain. You end up with no respect, broken promises and lots of lies. The embarrassment of yet another DUI or a lunch that turns into happy hour or an anniversary where all you can do is cry.
Each step of leaving someone with an addiction is painful and hard. Love turns to disgust and then back into love until finally, it is time to leave and once again you become the villain even though their irresponsible behavior has caused you to call it quits and live without the drama. I have seen this way too many times. The pain is almost too much to bear.
When a person has an addiction, be it alcohol or drugs they have to be the one to see that there is a problem. You will not be able to do it try as you must. Though it is called an “illness” the pain that it embarks to others isn’t fair. They leave a mess and you clean it up, over and over. It is as though they have no disregard for you or your schedule, your events or plans and guess what? You are right, they don’t. Their world revolves around them and their fun regardless of everyone else, until the next day when you hear that they are sorry. The sadness is that they use the term illness to their benefit and then they do not have to take responsibility for the problems that they caused. The blame shifting begins and again you are the villian.
For years a friend of mine was torn between the drunken days and the sober ones. She wanted a relationship and it was easy to fantasize that everything was ok. It was always decided in her mind to justify the bad and try to remember the good, to place her husband on a pedestal and never tell the truth. Sweep it all under the rug and pretend to be the perfect family. The failure of their relationship, so her husband told her, as he fired a barrage of insinuations, was that she had everything to do with the failure of their relationship and why wouldn’t she look at her part? She was told over and over that she was not smart and that she would not make it without him.
My recommendation was Al-Anon with a 12 step recovery program. At every meeting, it states,”you didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it and you can’t control it”. They really help families to see the truth and face it with other people who are going through the same thing. Gaining back self-respect is everything. Once that respect is gained back your inner strength reappears. Truth comes back to your inner being and you realize that you cannot return to the sad insane soap opera that you had been living in.
There does come a day when you are just done. It does not make you a bad person, wife, mother or friend. Everyone hits their bottom at one time or another and realizing that you just can’t go one more day living in the world of addiction and imagined recovery is ok. You don’t deserve it, walk away. When you finally do that, though it will be hard, peace will flood your mind, soul and body.
When life throws us a curve ball whether personal, property or even financial it takes time to regroup and decide what path you are going to take. If you live in an earthquake zone and are always worrying about losing everything maybe you should consider moving. Let’s relate that to a person who has endured years of instability, lies, out of control behavior or unkept promises from living with an addict. It is your choice to stay and pretend or leave and gain back your self-respect. Think about it, move to a higher ground. The view is amazing, beautiful, and healthier, and you are so worth it.
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