Hi...I'm new here and am seeking support so I don't lose my mind. I've been in an on/off relationship with my A for almost a decade. My A comes from a household where the mother is the A and he is the only child. I'm an early 30s female living with chronic illness and I come from a family where my father was an alcoholic and my mom was a hardcore codependent. I have two brothers that are somewhat codependent. My mom and dad both came from households where alcoholism existed. In my relationship 'inventory' 1/3 of the men I have dated have been alcoholics. I thought I knew all about them and could spot them a mile away. I was wrong. I learned the hard way there are different types of alcoholics, I wasn't aware of the secret binging A prior to this relationship I'm in now. All the alcoholics I knew before were the types that drank daily and openly. He was a new breed to me, he hid his drinking and binged on an infrequent basis. It took me a long time to be able to learn how to tell if he was drinking or not. Usually I could tell from his eyes and the way he'd talk. Now I can tell by using those clues and also by his smell when he sweats...he stinks. His chosen weapon of self destruction is vodka but if that isn't around he'll drink anything else.

I met my current A when we were attending the same business school. I had just left an 8 month relationship with an alcoholic prior to meeting my A and told him I was very wary of getting into any relationship without taking some time for myself to heal from that loss first. He agreed and said he wouldn't push for a relationship and is content to be my friend but when I'm ready date again he wanted me to let him know. I thought that was very nice and understanding of him. Within a week of this talk he began to pursue me with flowers, lil gifts and thoughtful notes left in random places where he knew I'd find them. I didn't see this behaviour as something to run from at the time...I was flattered by all the attention. I see now that I allowed him to go over my boundaries.... Anyways we started to date about a month after that and again I was flattered that he wanted to spoil and spend lots of time with me. I admired his intelligence(I always fall for brainy men), loved his sense of humour and we shared a love of adventure and travel. We went out several times together where there was alcohol around and I never saw him get totally drunk. He always seemed to be reserved about drinking when we were out with others, I never thought anything of it. Just thought that he was very responsible about his drinking. About a year into our relationship he got really drunk at home and freaked out on me, calling me all sorts of names and then passing out. I was left shaking and wondering what the hell just happened. I was unable to sleep all that night and when he woke up he asked why I was sitting there all stone faced. I asked him if he remembered how he treated me last night and he replied not really. I told him what he said and his face fell. He apologized profusely and promised to make it all up to me and he's never going to pull that kind of crap again. I believed him, he seemed really sincere and remorseful. But it has happened time and time again. I've left him several times over the years only to return when he's been sober for awhile and seems to be putting effort into getting better. When I return to him his behaviour is usually nice and respectful for awhile...until he drinks again and everything repeats. The last time we split was almost a year ago for several months of no contact and he was supposed to go into a treatment program. At that time I entered counselling for my own issues. She gave me the link to this site and said it may be helpful for me the times I don't have her around to talk to. As for my A, he never entered any treatment and admitted he lied about that recently.

I'm at the point I'm trying to formulate a plan to get him to leave for good. I'm going to a friends place after Christmas so she can help me figure out the details. Something happened last year that made me rethink the relationship I'm in. Sitting in a waiting room for days on end waiting for a loved one to wake up you can get a lot of thinking done! I almost lost my dad due to an alcohol related accident, a fall. We weren't sure if he was going to wake from his coma but he did, he's just incapable of taking care of himself now. Dad's been sober for over a year now and it's woken me up to how short life can be and how an accident like his could easily happen to my A. It made me ask whether I'm willing to endure this roller coaster relationship until something like this happens where he may become totally dependent on me. It made me ask myself what benefits I'm getting out of the relationship. It's made me think about my own goals and if being with my A is somewhat restricting me from achieving them. It made me ask myself am I willing to live with an unfinished life, a life where I don't meet even a fifth of my goals? Am I willing to live with someone I can't trust and who may steal from me again? Am I willing to stay with a man who knows I have chronic illness and the stressful unpaid job of being a caretaker to a brain damaged parent yet has the nerve to tell me that I am selfish and I don't ever do anything for anyone else? Am I willing to stay until he accepts responsibility for himself, something which may never happen? I work p/t and I also volunteer to help the needy in my area aside from caretaking. I hardly ever talk about my illness because I'm managing it well with the help of my doc & I have support outside my family for it. I suffer from a muscle condition that restricts my movements and energy levels and at present time there is no cure for it so I just take it day by day and suck up the pain. I require leg braces to walk and get fatigued really easily later in the day. My A has psorasis and if I make the mistake of even mentioning that I'm in any sort of pain he dismisses it and goes into a rant about how much worse of he is with his skin condition. A condition where he was given medical treatment that he refuses to follow. That makes me so mad..when he's comparing something I have no treatment for with something where there is medical treatment. He forgets that he is blessed with choice! I'm also sick of my A putting down my dad when he knows that my dad is brain injured with no understanding of his disability and very little memory of who he was before the accident. My A doesn't see that the words he uses to put down my dad are the same words that have been used to describe himself. My A doesn't see that his behaviour now is not much different than how my dad used to treat my mom. He says all the time how he empathizes with my mom but can't see the connection - maybe admitting that he's a monster to me would cause more shameful feelings. I think part of the reason he attacks my dad now is because my dad isn't drinking anymore...his mom is and so is he...in some way I think he liked it when my dad was just as sick as he is. Now he's the only A in my household and he stands out like a sore thumb.

I think I will always love my A. But it's been a painful awakening period this year and I've come to realize that in some relationships love isn't enough. The trust has drifted too far. The balance is too uneven to right. The respect I had for him has dwindled to almost none. The communication is lacking. In other words we may love each other at some level but at this time in our lives we don't have the other ingredients required to have a healthy relationship together. I need to move on from him so I can live a life I can be proud of. This is definitely one of the hardest times of my life in regards to decision making. I've broken up with people before but usually it's when I don't care for them anymore. This is different, I still care and love my A. It's going to be hard but this is something I want and need to do to save myself. He will call it selfish. I will call it self perservation.

-- Edited by loves2read at 13:55, 2007-12-18