After I got divorced, the only communication I ever had with my exhusband was one email he sent a few days after we went to court. In it, he wrote, “I’m sorry I couldn’t fix you.” To this day, I think it is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me. However, if I really take all of the emotion out of what happened between us, I can kind of understand what he meant (granted it has been ten years since we got divorced, so it is easier to look at things more objectively now). I had a really bad anxiety disorder, bordering on agoraphobia, and I now I think he did not know how to help me. He took an entirely “tough love” approach, which was the opposite of what I really needed. In his mind, he felt like he tried everything to help me (not true AT ALL), but I think he honestly believed that. Perhaps what he was trying to say is that he was sorry that he was not able to HELP me (or I am giving him too much credit and he really was just that much of a dick).
In my current situation with my exboyfriend, I can sort of relate a little more to the notion of wanting to fix someone. I can honestly say, and I truly believe most people would agree with me, that I tried everything to help him. I learned the hard way that you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped and you get very hurt loving someone who does not love themself. I was still speaking to him until he made the final decision to not go to an inpatient rehab. It was solely his decision, but I strongly disagreed with him. I told him that he made his choice and that I had to make the choice that was best for me, which was entirely cutting off all communication, for good this time. I just knew I could not support him anymore if he wasn’t 100% committed to getting help, I couldn’t just stand by and watch him slowly kill himself, and that I was greatly hindering my own well-being by keeping an olive branch constantly extended to him. He also told me that I was a “trigger” for his drinking, which might be true, but I was not comfortable with feeling like he was using me as an excuse to drink. Tomorrow will be one full week that I have not spoken or responded to him. He has tried to reach out a few times, but I literally just ignore him and have him blocked on social media.
It is really hard. The part of me that loves him and has always taken care of him wants to talk to him. I miss the good parts of our relationship, I miss him. I don’t miss his drinking or walking on eggshells in my own house. In some ways, it is a relief to not speak with him, because it lessens the responsibility that I feel for him (I know I shouldn’t feel ANY responsibility for him, but I just do…he’s completely alone). He insists in his voicemails and when he occasionally texts with my sister that he is staying sober and attending AA meetings. I just don’t believe anything he says. My sister and he were very close and she basically told him she could only support him and text with him if he is sober.
Today on her way home from work, my sister saw him walking into a liquor store. She waited a few minutes and then went in. She stood silently behind him as he paid for his vodka and when he turned around, she asked him if he wanted to talk. They sat on a bench for a half hour together. My sister is such a caring person and she has been very worried about him dying (they were very close, he is the godfather to her two year old daughter). She told me most of their conversation and it just made me really sad. I feel like I can’t get MORE sad, but I somehow do. He told her how lonely he is, but she caught him in several lies about his drinking. He told her that he misses me and drives by my house several times a day. He told her that he knows how badly he hurt me, especially over the past two years and the recent events in the past six months.
I doubt that. One of the last things I said to him before I cut him off was that when he felt the urge to drink he should look at the photos of himself in the hospital when he was in the coma. I figured seeing himself so close to death, on life support with a breathing tube, with his arms restrained and tied down to the bed, would deter him from drinking. He responded that the photos didn’t really affect him, that he couldn’t remember any of it and that when he sees himself like that, he feels disconnected and it doesn’t seem like it is really him. Meanwhile, I look at the photos and feel like I am going to vomit. The memories instantly come flooding back: the image of the giant green succulent mural painted above his bed, the bitter smell of the hospital disinfectant, the swishing sound every time I moved in the mandatory plastic gown, the endless beeping of all the machines hooked up to his body, constantly glancing at his blood pressure numbers and temperature on the monitor. I will NEVER forget a second of those 28 days.
I feel so much loss and pain. It seems so deep inside of me and so permanent. I am forever changed. I can’t help or “fix” him. I used to believe if I cared about him enough, he would start to care about himself. I used to believe all of his good qualities outweighed the bad.
I used to love succulents.
Anxious ACOA 