Reassure me I'm not being a heartless, witch, please!

19lottie82

sqeeky wrote: »

(btw, I do, as someone has said, prefer having a rough idea of what he is up to, rather than blocking him and never knowing if he's going off on one/I'm going to come home and find him on the doorstep)

OP, I can see your point but still think you should change your number. It will be best in the long run. You need to sever all ties.

If you keep reading all of his pathetic messages you are more likely to "relapse", plus is there not a chance of your answering if he calls from another number that you don't recognise?

Mallotum_X

BugglyB wrote: »

Things are getting to the stage where I would be contacting the police.

What he is doing is harrassment. If you ask someone not to contact you and they do, its harrassment.

Agreed, and contact your phone company that he is pestering you and get his number blocked.

euronorris

Wow OP! You've been through a lot because of this guy, but it looks like you are now becoming stronger and taking back control. Keep at it. I know how hard it can be when someone's pulling out all the stops to make you feel guilty.

As an aside, I assume this behaviour is typical for all forms of drug abuse too? A lot of the behaviour traits and incidents, are so, so similar to a family member who we started to suspect was abusing drugs earlier this year. And as we've told him he can't come visit (at our expense) for Xmas & New Year's, I'm fulling expecting a suicide attempt on Xmas Day. Joy.

Pee

If you believe he will turn up and physically harm you, you need to make sure the Police are aware of this and maybe have a panic button fitted. This has to be a really genuinely held concern.

If I was you I would be considering options like moving elsewhere so he didn't have my adress as well as blocking his telephone calls. If you cut off all contact, he will forget you. By contacting him and allowing him to contact you you are keeing the situation fresh for both of you, which is the last thing he needs - he will see it as hope that he can win you back, and can keep on freeloading from you.

If there is even a hint that you are liking the attention, stop it, because if you don't btreak the cycle here and make it completely over, there are going to be some real problems...

BitterAndTwisted

A hint? The message "Stop contacting me. There is nothing to discuss" sounds fairly unequivocal to me but I'm not an alcoholic controller. Yet.

yesican

Im sorry but IF i were in your shoes and ive told him time and time again to leave me alone and he doesnt-phone the police on him for harrassment and apply for a restraining order!

Change your number and start a fresh!

Start 2012 on a clean note-Life is too short!

londoner1998

sqeeky wrote: »

Usual AE here. I'm posting this to see it in black and white, so I can't hide from reality and can't be convinced, yet again, that I'm being totally unfair and delusional and not trusting of 'a good bloke who would never lie to you'.

I'm sorry it's so long. But I need to see all the bad things in front of me.



Boyfriend of 8 years is a recovered drug addict, decidedly unrecovered alcoholic and heavy smoker. He's 45.

I've done all the usual stuff, visited him in detox, bought him clothes, helped him with various problems - and bitten my tongue when I can't be 100% certain if he is lying or not. And made anonymous calls to the police when he has been drink driving, but they don't seem prepared to do anything about it. He, of course, will deny that he has ever done such a thing. Mind you, if he said it was daytime, you would have to check for yourself as he lies as easily as breathing. So much so, it is rare occaison that I ever caught him out.


He hates me going out - not 'out' out, I mean leaving the house. I can't wear makeup, nice clothes, wear perfume or I am going to find a man. When I'm only wanting tampons. Which he will insist he goes and buys for me. Keeping the change, and taking over an hour to get back from 10 minutes away.


When I started an college course, he was beside himself that I needed to look at a laptop rather than his face 24/7. Constant moaning, whining and distraction (every minute I tried to study, the TV went on full blast, he would start talking at me, he would offer a cup of tea every 5 minutes, say 'YOU ALRIGHT BABE' in between and when I answered in single words 'HELLO? HELLO? IS THERE ANYBODY IN THERE?', etc.

I made it through one unit despite this (but only got a grade 2 pass), but at the 4 day residential (where I had arranged for a neighbour to look after my cat), he convinced her to let him have the key and then holed up in there for a week drinking all day every day. He said I was having an affair and not dissecting leaves and wheat coleoptiles in the lab so I had made him do that by going away. I dropped out the next year because he revved up the hassle and made a bunch of suicide threats, which lost me loads of money.


If I do get out, he gets drunk (but hides the evidence before I get back), whine, moan, whinge, make 'jokes' that I must have trouble sitting down after all those men and on the one occasion he came to a do with me, he threw a strop beforehand that I ignored, he then tried to walk around with his hands on my hips like a conga dancer with superglue on his hands and then went mad because I refused to go home less than an hour later. The people I knew there now avoid me.

He say I should be spending the time with him and because I've got a child, I mustn't go out after dark. The child is 19 and lives her own life in her own home.

When he has been here, he eats everything. A bacon sandwich cannot be a bacon sandwich - it has to be eggs, bacon, sausages, fresh rolls, an ounce of butter, mushrooms, cheese, etc. But he'll most likely chuck it back up again when he has his next fag. And then cook even more food. I hide my purse and bankcards all the time.








Anyway, he's now living with his mum, because I found Special Brew under the driver seat and he said it was just to pour away to show me he wasn't ever going to drink again. When I said I didn't believe him, he shouted for ages how mean I was and messy and old and mad and then took half his stuff and drove off.

He then forgot all about it and gave up his flat then turned up at my door. I think he thought making himself homeless would force me to take him in and put him on the books so he could get dole. So he ended up at his mother's, where, once he failed to get the first flat he viewed, he hasn't bothered doing a thing to help himself since.



He visited last weekend. Didn't ask, told me he was coming. Then didn't bother coming on the Friday because he got drunk. Rather than calling, he turned up Saturday nightoooooo without warning.
He forgot he had told me he was drunk, so said he had a puncture.


Last time he did this, I was ignoring his calls and texts, so he turned up at the door and rang the bell and banged on the windows until I had to open the door because it looked like he was about to break in saying 'I thought you were dead and I was so worried'. The time before that, I was out and came back to my house to find him trying to climb in my bedroom window.

So I was polite to him, offered him a cuppa and, as I came out of the bathroom, found him checking the clean washing pile to see what knickers I had been wearing, as anything other than baggy grey would mean I had been on the pull.

He left after I didn't put out for him. Even sober/withdrawing, he doesn't do it for me anymore, what with nicotine stained fingers, gakky cough and spitting and the frequent coughing, lighting up a fag made from the contents of the ashtray and coughing again until he empties his guts over my patio plants. And he's started doing things that are a bit creepy - trying to nuzzle up like a toddler to its mum and trying to nudge under my arm to rest on my belly or pull his T-shirt up in public when all I've said is something like 'what size shirt are you wearing?' or because he wants to scratch his big belly.



I know that there isn't anything there worth salvaging.



Anyhow, he called today. I have to answer him or he'll keep going until he turns up here again.

'Is that offer of living with you still open?'


Er, no. [thinking: that expired long, long ago]


'Well, I'll live in my car and die of hypothermia, then'

You had a row with your mum, then.

'She expects me to pay her keep and I can't do that when I've no money'

You had money on Friday that you spent on getting wnkrd.

'No I didn't!'

Yes you did, don't deny it because you forgot you told me you did.

'But that was only because she'd been nagging. She's only happy if I'm working in the house fixing stuff'

It wasn't her fault. That was because you chose to drink. No other reason.

'Well, I'm homeless because I told her to stick it and she's told me to f off'

Best get yourself down the council then and present as homeless.

'oh and I've got a spirometry test thing today'


Oh, to check you've not got emphysema/COPD like your Dad.

'No, it's just to check my asthma pump's working'

OK. Well, take a notepad, get them to write stuff down and make an appointment for the council for the morning.


'I'm not going to bother, I'm just going to go there and then they'll have to see me.'

OK then. Good luck. [thinking try not to get arrested]


'So you're telling me I'm going to die and you won't even help me get a flat and I haven't got any money and you are just sitting there saying OK then?'

No, I'm not. Talk to you later, you don't want to be late for your spirometry appointment.



He has been told repeatedly that he can't live here, that he has to help himself, that I won't be doing it for him and that I'm tired of not being trusted and the drinking and the lying. But each time, he goes off and then reappears like nothing has ever happened. I feel sad for him, because underneath it, there used to be a very sweet guy, and whatever happened, he was never, ever violent.




In black and white, I'm well rid. I know I am, even if it means being on my own for the rest of my life, as it's got to be better than being on my own with a great lumpen deadweight hanging round my neck. But I still have this nagging feeling I'm being mean, like kicking a wounded dog. Especially as he is probably going to be told he has COPD - he sounds like a textbook example. I'm even beginning to wonder if he is developing dementia and that would be a really mean thing to do, to get rid just as he meets the consequences of his unreadiness to change.





Ahhhh! Tell me I'm doing the right thing, to get rid of him, to refuse to be there for him anymore, to leave him to kill himself and die in horrible pain and confusion.

Just before Christmas. Which will be my first Christmas totally alone.

And that I'm not an evil, cruel witch who is abandoning him to his fate.

Sweetie, some of what you write sound so similar to the behaviour of my (crack-addited) ex-boyfriend.
YOu kwno the naswer- get out as soon as you can.
Ax

caeler

Hi OP just read your post and I am overwhelmed with what your having to cope with. Stay strong and stick to your plan. Sounds like the fresh start for 2012 is just what you need! I've not been through anything like you but when I've made tough decisions about ending relationships I always worry that I've made a bad decision, that I'll be alone forever, etc and the only thing I can offer is never forget why you don't want to be in that relationship, write it down if you have to so you never regret your decision again! The last time I was on my own for 2.5 years and it was blissful, I've had a short relationship that's now ended so I'm single again, just in time for Christmas :-( and I've finally realised that I'd rather be alone that with the wrong person. Good Luck!

FatVonD

Please shut your cat in somewhere safe when you're out. (Sorry, I always think the worst)

londoner1998

You are doing really, really well. I think you are on your way out, keep going and please don't look back. Every day it will be a little bit easier.
When you said he has never been violent, it reminded me of how my ex, the sweetest man on earth (when not high or on withdrawal), one day after a couple of days on holiday in Spain and not having his drugs available, starting hitting me just because I said I would start making lunch while he had a shower. The next thing I knew, I was pinned against the door, by the neck and with my head being banged repeatedly. He had had a knife on his other hand. I really thought that was it. And then, he wanted to make up, so I had to go along and have sex with him because I was on my own and terrified he might flip again- I understand what you say about the creepy behaviour. To this day, that was the lowest point of my life.

So please, keep going and make sure you are safe. Cut all ties, change your number and tell people you can trust what is going on. And I second the poster who said post his things to his mother: I sent everything on the post to my ex (he left stuff behind and used it as an excuse to come back in touch) and never ever had to hear from him again. Well, I saw him last year near where I live , looking terrible and out on the streets, waiting to score, I guess. I still made me sad...

So no, you are not heartless, you are not a which. You just need to finally cut all ties with him. You can't help him and he can ruin your life.

Good luck, you are very brave.
Axx