What do you say to an addict?

To the Love of My Life:

You are an addict and I am grateful that you are finally able to accept it.  I have tried, throughout the entirety of our relationship, to communicate openly with you regarding the toll your actions were taking on our relationship and me…even before I knew the extent of your problems.  I love you in spite of these issues.  To a fault.

I guess the greatest impact that your addictions have had on me is that they have affectionately welcomed doubt into my life.

Before you slipped deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of depression and indulgence, I saw signs of your tendency to lie, your ability to drink yourself into oblivion, and your nonchalance about taking various illicit drugs, but I never doubted myself or you and your ability to migrate away from those bad habits given the right circumstance and motivation.  We did not take the decision to begin a new life together lightly and YOU made the choice to move forward with me.  You convinced me you were ready to cut back on the party life and I was sure that we would be great together; supporting and motivating each other, unconditionally loving each other, getting lost together exploring the world and growing together…starting a family.  Now I don’t know.

Everyday is something new.  I doubt myself and my ability to accurately assess the world around me, I doubt my worthiness of being loved and admired by anyone, I feel ugly and stupid.  I don’t know who I wasted the last 3+ years of my life on.  I was going through my own personal struggles, but put them aside to support you and I didn’t even know who you really were.  You say, and I do feel, that the man I fell in love with (the kind hearted, considerate, LOYAL, motivated man) is the real you, but I don’t know.  Feeding into your addictions allowed you to take advantage of me, betray me over and over again, essentially steal from me, lie to me all the time, be vicious to me, infinitely disrespect me, be physically abusive towards me, and all without feeling any remorse.  You actually laughed about it.  You shared your success in being an asshole to me with others and literally laughed while I worked my ass off providing for you and maintaining the home and our family.  I don’t know who you are.

I still want the future we always dreamed of.  I want our home, our kids, our health center.  I want to see the world with you and grow old with you, make it a better place with you.  I don’t trust anyone else but you to be there when I get cancer and eventually die…but I can’t trust you either.  I knew you weren’t opening up to me fully, but I gave you everything.  You were my best friend.  You were the only one I turned to and the only one who could comfort me, but You. Just. Didn’t.  You didn’t care about me.  How can I trust that you do now?

I tried to get rid of you so many times and you cried and begged…but it was just another act of manipulation.  You say it’s genuine now, but how can I believe you.  You put my job, my future, and my health at critical risk and you just didn’t give a fuck.  Only enough to make sure I still put a stress free roof over your head and make sure your laundry was folded and put away and you had a warm meal served to you every day.  You used me.  How can I ever accept that that wasn’t the plan all along?  How can I ever know you aren’t just being the adept con artist that you have proven to be and are plotting to ruin my life as you “change” in rehab?

Your addictions have made me question everything on a daily basis.  Your persistence in my life has caused me pain and suffering every day….and each day I have to go do more work to mitigate what you have done.  The program outlines allowing you to deal with these things yourself, but our lives and responsibilities are intertwined.  Both of our names are on leases and registrations and insurance: I cannot afford to, nor do I want to, fall into debt or have a bench warrant put out for my arrest because of your negligence.  I am so tired of having you as a charge.  You were supposed to be my partner, my equal.  Now I just don’t know who you are.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to recover and heal from the damage you have done to me.  I don’t know that you are capable of truly changing.  My whole life is doubt.

I guess people tend to talk about the money that they have lost, the property and interpersonal damage caused, friendships ruined, jobs in jeopardy, countless other issues that are part of the natural fallout of having an addict intimately involved in your life…but those are things that I, personally, have been able to recover from.  This doubt, however, I just don’t see how I can stop it from permeating my mind.  Doubt.

I hope we are both able to move past these trials.  But there are no guarantees with you.  I guess there never were, but there was trust.  Now, I just can’t even tell if you were ever even serious about having a real life together or at all. Doubt.

I love you, and I want to be with you, but is it even the best thing for either of us? Doubt.

Maybe it’s time to move on.

Love you Forever,

Jessica