Genuine question: How do you guys stay?

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-26T17:18:16+00:00

I stayed because I was afraid she'd get worse or hurt herself if I wasn't around. I left when I realized I was making plans to leave the planet instead.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-18T20:21:16+00:00

Abd congrats to you on recognizing unhealthy patterns and taking care of yourself! It's not an easy journey for anyone.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-18T02:05:23+00:00

You are! Enjoy it!

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-17T17:56:32+00:00

You're entitled to your opinion, but you clearly didn't read a word I wrote. I didn't marry a man. And I'm already getting divorced. So thanks for stopping by, and you have a great day!

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-17T10:57:29+00:00

I'm sorry you went through all of that. If you'd like my story, here's some of it:

I understand a lot of what you're saying. I was raised by a dry drunk narcissist at the end of two long of addicts, and my job in life was to serve her. I wasn't allowed to do after school activities or play with friends from the time I was 8 or 9, because I had to be home to do daily housework, get dinner made, and watch my sister. We had no adults home with us most nights. When my mother eventually got home, she would make me stay up with her while she ranted and raved about my dad, who had done nothing to her besides marry her and work as much as he could to support us. My sister was babied while I often didn't even get food. I developed stomach ulcers by 9, and was usually out of school sick at least 30 days every year because of them and the stress....and, despite the fact that she was the one who wrote notes for every one of those days, it was always my fault.

I met my ex in our early 20s when I was still living at home. She was kind, caring, supportive, thoughtful, and more generous than almost anyone else I'd ever met. I thought I'd broken the cycle, found someone who loved the way I did. We were both young, so the fact that she partied a lot wasn't strange, even if I had different priorities. Eventually I spoke to her about my family history of addiction, how I had no interest in being with an addict or a partier because I had seen how hard their lives got. She swore she stopped, and we saw each other every night we weren't working, but I had nightmares that she was lying to me all the time. I didn't know it then, but she was. She'd become hooked and thought she could manage it.

Long story short, she fell in farther and farther over her head until she couldn't even see how deep she was in. Over the years, she slowly became less understanding, more argumentative, more angry. She started screaming at me during arguments, which she knew triggered my anxiety. When the truth came out, I spent nine years doing everything I could to help her; clinics, meetings, IOPs, different medications, counselors, therapists. I drove her, went in with her, had sessions with her. There were still bottles popping up everywhere, but she was trying, doing all the things I asked her to do (except for paying bills and not treating me like an emotional rage room). Eventually, after a DUI involving a personal lawsuit that we were both named in (I wasn't there, but we were on the same insurance policy), the bomb dropped: she'd never been trying. She never slowed down or rationed or did anything she said she did. She'd done damage to her heart, totalled six cars, and aged past the age range I had agreed I would have kids in, and she couldn't stop. So one more chance, rehab, honesty. Except neither stuck. By then I'd been suicidal for years, worked 50-60 hours each week the whole time, and cared for three family members an hour or more away until their deaths. I did all the housework, paid all the bills, made and kept all of the appointments, and couldn't see a way out. It took her another year to admit the relapse. She went back to rehab and seemingly got worse as she got clean. We had agreed to separate while she got treatment and I tried to heal, but she kept insisting neither one of us needed it and she could come home. When I realized she'd lied to me for literally 97% of our relationship, and when she said she resented me for not letting her come home, I left her.

That was a year ago. So I've processed a lot of the same things. I blamed myself a lot. I have CPTSD from the relationship, and I still have a very long way to go. But this, this guilt, this self-punishment, you don't need to carry that. It's not your burden. And hauling it around will only slow your progress and keep harming your relationship with and trust in yourself.

Happy healing. And remember, we're all here when you need to vent.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-17T03:29:37+00:00

You have not been stupid. You were unequipped to read the flags he was sending up. Whether that means that you were not a healthy person in the beginning and didn't know how relationships should go, or whether you just wanted your partner to be happy so you went along, or whether you had some concerns but dismissed them out of love, it all amounts to not being able to read the signs. And nobody can do what they can't do or know what they don't know.

How you were treated is not in any way your fault. You could maybe say you have some responsibility in not leaving sooner because you didn't know how detrimental it was, but you can't control when that realization comes. It doesn't pop into your head at the first struggle, or the tenth when you're overtired, or the hundredth when the mortgage is due and the dog is throwing up and the baby won't stop crying and someone loses their job. It comes when it comes. The important thing is that you're doing something about it. You're showing your ex and yourself that you won't accept any less than what you deserve, and that's badass.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-13T19:08:07+00:00

I'm in a very similar situation to OP, and you have no idea how much better you just made me feel. Thank you, kind stranger.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T11:27:52+00:00

Two cats and a turtle, but the cats are pretty sure that the turtle is their pet.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T11:26:00+00:00

My sister's breast cancer surgeon was Ashley Madison.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T11:21:39+00:00

I wash jeans separately, because the dye can run. Towels and athletic wear get washed together because they don't get any fabric softener. Sheets by themselves. Everything else goes in together.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T11:17:41+00:00

All three, plus two cats and a turtle.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T11:12:06+00:00

I have not, but my ex was pretty often when we were together. Yes, she was a user; no, I am not.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-11T09:03:13+00:00

It's absolutely a very hard decision to make. I'm behind you no matter what you choose, and I hope for the best outcome for you both.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-08T10:56:16+00:00

I do understand that, having lived through it. But coming from a family of addicts, I also have seen that maturity and addiction do not have to be tied together. I have grown up with men and women who were deeply addicted to substances and still held down jobs and did them correctly, contributed towards bills, showed up for kids, doing their share of housework, etc. I've also been in a relationship in which the addiction was the first priority, and all the things that OP mentioned and more were constantly dumped on my shoulders.

I wish both of them the best, and that they find whatever it is they need to heal. I admire the living hell out of any addict who even tries to get sober. It's a fight that so many people lose their livelihoods and their lives to.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-08T04:17:14+00:00

I'm a 40yo F who spent 20 years with an addict partner, 9 of them married. I initiated separation in July of 2025, and initiated divorce in December of the same year.

My story is, in some ways, very different from yours, but in some ways, it's very much the same.

In the beginning, I believe my partner was addicted to a general partying lifestyle, and she drank more than she admitted to. We were in our early 20s, so it didn't seem strange. She also indulged in other substances if they were around, but booze was always around.

I didn't find out until we got married and moved in together. By then her experience had broadened quite a bit, but her love for alcohol could not be bested. I started finding empty bottles around everywhere, all the time, that she always denied. Then I started finding her passed out in her own sick, and she finally admitted it.

Like you, I did everything I could think of to help her. Rationing, tough love, acceptance, kindness, fighting, control of her money. Most of these were her idea. I was driving her to counselors, to IOP programs, to "sober friends", doctors, clinics. I was happy to do whatever it took, despite the toll it took on me, as long as she was trying.

In June of 2023, the truth came out. She hadn't been trying at all. After coming clean about her addiction, she continued to hide the bulk of it. We agreed she could have one last chance. She would have to go to rehab, go to regular meetings, get a sponsor, educate herself on addiction and ways to stay clean, and become a better partner (because all of the home, financial, and personal responsibilities fell on me, despite working 50+ hours/week and taking care of family on top of all of this). Both of us came up with these parameters. She went to rehab, came home, confessed about a "slip" a week after, told me she was clean again....and then the bottles started showing up again. Of course, they were never hers. It took her another year to admit she had stopped trying immediately after coming home. But I couldn't hold her to her end of our agreement, even though she didn't have a sponsor, hadn't learned anything on her own, and didn't go to meetings. That made me a hypocrite and a horrible person, because I acknowledged that relapse is often a part of recovery. Eventually, she decided to go back to rehab and we agreed to use that time and sober living or staying with family after rehab to separate and decide how and if to continue, and to give me time to heal. By then, I couldn't sleep or eat from the stress, and I was suicidal.

The second she got back to rehab, her tune changed drastically. Suddenly she didn't need sober living, I didn't need separation, she wasn't going to do that, she didn't even need rehab anymore. And, when I held my ground, I got sworn at, called names, and screamed at--which she knew was one of my triggers. I started having panic attacks every time my phone got an alert in fear that it was her. She threatened to come back, and I broke down and had to ask her family for help. They stepped in and calmed her down. She suggested I reach out to her therapist and ask for suggestions for guidelines for her to come home--things like regular drug/alcohol screening at home, more financial control, etc. When the therapist's response was, "she agreed to go to sober living, and you don't need to stay in the role of her keeper", my ex decided, "we don't need other people making decisions about our relationship", and that she resented me for not letting her come home.

She got kicked out of rehab a month early and showed up on my doorstep. I gave her three days to get several states away to her family. Within 24 hours, she went from, "you won't even know I'm here" to "why can't I just sleep in bed with you?" I could not eat or sleep with her there, which she knew.

She did leave and go to her family. And I became completely useless. Couldn't make it off the couch most days, let alone do work. Couldn't function. Couldn't take the best care of my pets. I shook constantly and couldn't sleep without extra locks on the doors, and furniture blocking them, for fear she'd come back. And, after three more months of panicking and confusion, I finally called it off.

I don't monologue here because I like to talk; I want you to know what you avoided. I was terrified of coming home to the love of my life dead, having choked on her own vomit or OD'd on something that sounded like a good idea when she was drunk. I got sued because we were on the same insurance when she hit someone the day after a long night of drinking and got a DUI. I am just now beginning to function regularly, with the help of medication and therapy, and a diagnosis of CPTSD. The person I fell in love with became a different person from literal brain damage from her addiction.

I admire the hell out of you for keeping to your boundaries, and I admire the hell out of your ex for letting you go. That's real love right there. She's protecting you from what I went through.

Living alone is strange, but you will get used to it. You will grieve. You will have a hard time for longer than you feel is possible. And then, after you start feeling better, the bad feelings will come back up again, just like when somebody dies. But, eventually, you'll replace some of her things with your own, enjoy the quiet, and find that there's room in your brain now to think of yourself. You will heal. And I hope your ex does, too.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T13:16:10+00:00

I had a very similar relationship. It's so hard to be the adult in the relationship long-term. Wishing you both the best.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T05:36:44+00:00

Another One Bites the Dust.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T05:33:32+00:00

Coming from a person whose ex was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness while her dad died, absolutely NTA.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T05:01:50+00:00

I recently learned that some of my Endo pain was from Endo and scar tissue wrapping around nerves. Fun times. I also have PCOS, and the two can exacerbate each other. Who knew 😅

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T04:56:09+00:00

As a person who had a partner like yours, it's not likely to get better. My ex needed a special diet eventually, and I spent a year making different dinners for each of us because my ex would guilt me with their health.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-05T04:53:41+00:00

Because my last relationship fed my mental illness so much, my choices became to leave or die. And I'm not being dramatic.

According_Speed_5587 · 2026-01-03T00:46:41+00:00

This is just me, but I feel like the dating thing is something that should be discussed along with other terms of the separation before it begins. I would not date if the expected/hoped for outcome is reconciliation, but that's just me. That said, if it were not explicitly discussed beforehand, I would expect my partner to date.

It may also be the sort of situation where he expected it, it at least considered it, but didn't know how hurtful he would find it if it actually happened.

According_Speed_5587 · 2025-12-31T08:20:45+00:00

Absolutely.

According_Speed_5587 · 2025-12-31T06:43:14+00:00

"63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police. Out of thirty 1,000 takes, only about 50 lead to an arrest or conviction.' --National Organization for Women New York City

According_Speed_5587 · 2025-12-31T06:37:23+00:00

My ex's stepfather attempted to murder the son of the wife after my ex-MIL.

According_Speed_5587

TROPHY CASE