Need advice: fiancée's addiction/relapses

[xolady]

Actually you have been doing this quite a while. JMO For some reason you seem to keep making excuses for your and her behavior. Get some help stop feeding the addictions and honey I have no doubt your adding to her problems. AGAIN JMO.

[victorluvzamy]

Originally Posted by xolady

Actually you have been doing this quite a while. JMO For some reason you seem to keep making excuses for your and her behavior. Get some help stop feeding the addictions and honey I have no doubt your adding to her problems. AGAIN JMO.

You're implying that I'm enabling her or keeping her addicted? Maybe just by not letting her go sooner. But I don't encourage her to use or stop her from wanting to go into recovery. That's all I've been begging her to do.

[yourself]

Originally Posted by victorluvzamy

You're implying that I'm enabling her or keeping her addicted? Maybe just by not letting her go sooner. But I don't encourage her to use or stop her from wanting to go into recovery. That's all I've been begging her to do.

Enabling isn't keeping a person addicted. An addict is going to stay addicted no matter what, until they bottom out. Everybody has their own bottom, and a lot of times, there is no bottom. An addict is going to go to the place and circumstances where the addiction can flourish easiest. You give an addict money, the addict doesn't have to find money for a fix. If you don't give an addict money, that addict is still going to find money and get a fix - it's just going to take a bit more effort, and maybe a theft or two. If you give an addict a safe place to use, that addict is going to use. Take that safe place away, the addict is still going to use, but that place is going to change from someplace with central air, electric, functioning plumbing, to a place where she's going to have to pay for those luxuries or a place that doesn't have those luxuries. Ever find a needle on a hiking path or in a gas station restroom? Yeah, they will find a place to use, they will find their drug of choice, and they will get high.

letting her go isn't for her, though it will help (I bet she'll find somebody else to sponge off of - they are really good at that, especially with a personality disorder that frequently goes along with domestic violence). Letting her go is to help YOU. Victims of domestic violence need that space to heal themselves. People dealing with loved ones with addiction NEED to get some space so that the addiction doesn't control their whole world.

The more you beg her to go to rehab and the more she refuses, the more you know you need to get some space and heal yourself.

Connect with your family and friends. Use them to help you get that space. Lean on people who will help you and not manipulate you. Lean on people who will help you repair your life and your professional reputation.

Let her go for YOU.

Glad you're suing precautions cleaning up her physical mess. Stay healthy. Get mentally and emotionally healthy. Start learning as much as you can - hit the AlAnon website and start reading as much as you can.

There are also domestic violence websites, even a few aimed at men. Read. Educate yourself. Put gloves over your heart and mind so that when you deal with her you can deal with her, not her addiction or her cycle of violence.

[victorluvzamy]

You are very helpful and I greatly appreciate you explaining this and caring enough to take this great deal of time. I've learned way more than I could ever imagine just from you. And I've heard pretty much all this from my family. But that's family. It's sorta easy to think that they just don't like this person for me. Almost opionated in a certain way. But you telling me all this not even knowing me is just blowing me away. Thanks again for your direction and advice. I will take heed and do what I think I need to do for myself and we'll being.

[yourself]

Originally Posted by victorluvzamy

You are very helpful and I greatly appreciate you explaining this and caring enough to take this great deal of time. I've learned way more than I could ever imagine just from you. And I've heard pretty much all this from my family. But that's family. It's sorta easy to think that they just don't like this person for me. Almost opionated in a certain way. But you telling me all this not even knowing me is just blowing me away. Thanks again for your direction and advice. I will take heed and do what I think I need to do for myself and we'll being.

I've been where you are. I've seen others where you are. I've represented people where your gf is. This is all lived experience. These are all things we all have to learn when we are on the receiving end of addiction and abuse.

It is not fun. If your family is still there for you, take their help. You don't need to do this alone.

(And yes, my little brother, not the addict, can't hear a word I say. I've resolved to get another person to tell him important things, or talk to him through his wife. I'm sure I'm deaf with them in certain subjects - it's part of family. Annoying, but once you know your deaf spots, you can work on it, or work around it)