Yep, I'm heading in the direction of Divorce City. I've tried to avoid this scenario for a long, long time...a very tiresome and futile journey. I can honesty say that I tried my best despite the extreme handicaps within the marriage between me and my drug-addicted wayward spouse of nearly thirty years.

I've endured far too many encumbrances resulting from his disease that I have to seek higher and healthier grounds. I cannot and will not succumb to his sickness any longer.

We are separated...which is good, yet I miss what it was very long ago and what I had hoped it would turn out to be. I'm working on being "me" without his baggage. This is my survival, a gift to myself because I'm worth it...despite the way I feel at the moment.

One day at a time....by the grace of God!

I feel the same way... moving on, but looking back at the "good times." My husband drank, when we were dating I drank with him. I thought it was "fun" our weekends together in a long distance relationship. A counselor said after I finally left him and separated that she thinks he may have become an alcoholic or was one before I even married him. I never pictured him as the A word. He drank every night. Drank more in the final year after our baby, I didn't mean to get preg but all he ever did was say he wanted a baby. When I had one he sat in the basement every night drinking and ignoring his family.

I read an AA book finally, it's a "disease" and should be treated as one the AA book said. All of his crying, whining, lying all fit the scenerio of an alcoholic. But I've had men at parks when I've hung out with my boy traveling saying it sounds like it's drugs on top of alcohol. He was fired from several bank jobs, lied to employers, continues to lie although he took a job in another state saying the wife and baby are coming soon. There's no way I'll move for him, a divorce is filed. He's disillusioned, that's a sign of a drinker druggie. You wouldn't know to meet him, he seems like Mr. Nice Guy. He smashed me physically a number of times, the final straw with a baby in my arms.

I left him a year and a half ago. I started finding "me" again, just like your journey to find you. At first it was hard. A man so selfish draws you into this I think, even if you don't drink or do drugs they bring you down, trash your self esteem. I didn't marry until I was 32, I was so independent, a world traveler, ran my own business. He sought to bring me down and hurt me, I'm still coming to grips with that.

But being without him has been an awakening process. A read once that Hollywood stars even look their best after breakups. I'm sure it can go either way in the "real world." But I chose to do it the Hollywood way. I worked out, lost 30 pounds, read books on makeup, hair and bought a whole new wardrobe. Some of it was admittedly shallow but it made me feel better and I had the money from running my own comany so it was "ok". A symbol that I was reinventing myself - or was I finding my old self? I used to care about how I looked, with him I stopped caring about a lot fo things.

Yes, separation and "peace" is a gift to yourself. I'm sure you'll find however, like I did, that you'll feel lonely and you'll miss he good times and him too. Your mind will play games with you. You have to remember you are special and you deserve to be treated "right" and druggies and alcoholics can't treat anyone right. They become selfish users, big babies and they drag anyone and everyone down if they know it or not. I wasn't one to become a "statistic" as you said in your heading but I will NOT ever be treated like that again. I will be a single mom, I'll be broke, lonely, whatever instead of being treated like a second class citizen.

It's true, one day at a time is a good motto. Today was a bad day for me. Tomorrow will be better. If I can get this divorce over life will really "go on" for me and my little boy. I will no longer be an "enabler" as I've been called - and I can't believe that word applies to me - but it's true I didn't set my boundaries (the boundaries period) that a man like this nees - however boundaries with a monster would mean divorce so how could one win?

Best wishes, I hope you can find peace even if it's on an every other day basis like I have...

I, too, traveled this path. My divorce was final last Monday, but I still have no property settlement because XH didn't show up for court. I've read that abuse - and like infidelity, living with an alcoholic/addict is abusive - makes a relationship harder to leave. I guess it's the cycle of bad times followed by honeymoon periods.

I've heard recovering alcoholics say that alcohol (and/or drugs) was their best friend for most of their drinking, until the end, when it finally brought them to their knees. I think alcoholic/addicted relationships are like this, too. There are lots of good memories mixed in with the bad, but by the end, the're almost all bad and we're left with our self-esteem in tatters.

Good luck to both of you. As I've posted before, Al-Anon has been a great help to me.

Geez,

I remember we came about the same time!!!

I am glad to see you are posting once again, I am sorry that you have tried and did not achieve what you wanted.

But as you said you have tried and now you must take care of yourself. How are your kids, you had daughter I remember about the same age as one of mine.

Let us know how you are doing and how we can help you!!!!

Dawn