Hi Mamyth
Thank you for filling me in with details – it helps.
Knowing he is safe and working must be a relief for you, even though it has left you feeling confused and alone.
If your husband has put the strategies you describe into place to protect you then I think you can be assured he knew the capabilities of his addiction and that he loves you but he still believes his addiction is the answer to his happiness. In my opinion he almost certainly believes that you cannot and do not understand him and there is nothing you can do to change that – he will feel misunderstood whatever you say.
The best thing you can do for yourself (and ultimately your husband), is to put you first because if you allow the addiction to destroy ‘you’ then it has won another unwitting victim. Crushed by it, with self-esteem, confidence, friendships, hobbies gone, you can’t support anybody including your CG. I appreciate this is a message that doesn’t seem to offer much hope for a broken relationship but when a relationship is struggling anyway nothing will change unless someone does something different. You cannot change your husband, you cannot save him – but you can save you and ensure that you are not a piece of the wreckage of his addiction.
Of course I cannot predict what will happen to your husband but I do know that if you are strong and in control of your life you are in a better position to be the rock for him to turn to, when, hopefully, he has finally had enough of being controlled by his addiction.
Please don’t beat yourself up thinking what you could have said or whether your reaction to the lodger wasn’t right in his eyes. I spent 25 years doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons so I know it is impossible to deal logically and rationally with an addiction that has no logic or rationale. It is good to know that your husband did, for a time, accept he has an addiction although he wasn’t ready at that time to accept it in his heart. He had a seed of doubt and hopefully that seed will grow – how much better for him, and for you, that you have stood firm and regained your self-esteem and confidence.
I think you are doing incredibly well and if there is anything else you want to talk about, or ask, I hope you will keep posting. There is a Friends and Family group on Tuesdays 20.00 -21.00 hours UK time – it would great to talk to you in real time, nothing said in the group appears on the forum, you would be very welcome.
Velvet
