Anyone else living with a drug user?

[magicgirl79]

From my past posts you will know my H is a cannabis user, not just the occasional smoker but everyday, regularly.

I do not and have no interest in drugs but I have noticed now this is bothering me more and more.

He can be moody and sulky in between the high stages and just want to see if there is anyone else in this situation and how it effects their everyday life. Or if this situation has caused you to split?

There's quite literally no comparison. I was so desperate and hopeful and confused - the thought of leaving was just terrifying as my confidence was at such a low ebb. He very nearly dragged me down with him.

I finally managed to get him out of the house when DD was just under two years old. Since then he's improved and then fallen off the wagon several times. Watching from a distance, I can see my life would have been an endless cycle of abuse and abject misery, trying to help someone who had no real interest in changing.

He hasn't maintained regular contact with DD although he does go through phases of seeing her each week for a while before it tapers off again. He claims benefits while working but dropped contact with DD to avoid paying any maintenance. Last week she asked to phone him after only seeing him twice in the last year so he'll no doubt be on the scene again for a bit now.

He's still superior, arrogant and selfish but he doesn't bother with dressing it up for sympathy now and is just openly hostile, as though I'm in the wrong for having walked away from him.

He's onto his next victim now, who actually looks a bit like me!

Bottom line, he's still the same selfish, exploitative prick he always was.

I now have a lovely new man and had DD2 in December! We've been together nearly five years and I've simply never felt that daily anxiety and exhaustion I felt when I was with XP. I was under such incredible stress, but almost didn't even realise it because I was in constant survival mode, emotionally and in terms of trying to keep everything going. All the time I was just succeeding in concealing his disgusting behaviour - I wish I hadn't bothered!!

It's clear to me now that he just didn't have any respect for me at all and he was a nasty abusive man. Despite the agony and uncertainty at the time, the best thing I ever did was to give up on him and move on.

That sounds like you have a whole different and new life altogether.

DD and I spent a day together alone today and it was lovely. I kind of sink when he steps in the door.

I know I have to find the balls to make the change, but at the moment im terrified.

Hi Magicgirl, I do. I could never have believed at the time that life could have been so much more worth living. He'd really sucked the joy out of everything.... even becoming a mother, which is an awful thing to acknowledge. I still feel very bitter towards him for stealing my energy and happiness during my beautiful DD's first months.

Sounds like you had a lovely day with the most important person in your world! Just think - every day could be like that, without someone working against you both.

I remember acutely driving into our street one day while i was pregnant and having a familiar breathlessness wash over me. And then suddenly realising I was actually experiencing a panic attack. I'd become so used to feeling anxious about what kind of mood he'd be in that it had become almost imperceptibly normal for me to panic before seeing him. Makes me shudder to think of those days.

In the end, it was for my own sanity and for DDs sake and safety that I got out of it.

"We've been together nearly five years and I've simply never felt that daily anxiety and exhaustion I felt when I was with XP. I was under such incredible stress, but almost didn't even realise it because I was in constant survival mode, emotionally and in terms of trying to keep everything going. All the time I was just succeeding in concealing his disgusting behaviour - I wish I hadn't bothered!!

It's clear to me now that he just didn't have any respect for me at all and he was a nasty abusive man. Despite the agony and uncertainty at the time, the best thing I ever did was to give up on him and move on.
He'd really sucked the joy out of everything.... even becoming a mother, which is an awful thing to acknowledge.

I still feel very bitter towards him for stealing my energy and happiness during my beautiful DD's first months.
In the end, it was for my own sanity and for DDs sake and safety that I got out of it.

It's clear to me now that he just didn't have any respect for me at all and he was a nasty abusive man. Despite the agony and uncertainty at the time, the best thing I ever did was to give up on him and move on."

Littlejessie - thank you for posting these words - I am 7 weeks out of an EA relationship - made little bits of progress day by day - but having a big wobble after he pulled another stunt that I wasnt ready for which has really thown me back into FOG and thinking of taking him back. But I need to detach and resist and recognise that I am only feeling this was because he has wrecked the confidence I built of the passed 7 weeks. Your words have focused my mind.

Magic - sorry did not want to hijack - but hope it helps to see that it is not a straight line - it is a process with lots of doubt (fog) along the way that may derail you.

Well done mylife - it's not easy but believe me, things do get better! We are all worth so much more than people who pull us down.

Cannabis used over a period of time can cause various mental health issues. Paranoia, mood swings, depression, schizophrenia, thats just the tip of the iceberg. Drugs do change people

Magic, I am a bit late to this thread but as soon as I read it, I wanted to post.

My BFF was in your position. She met her DH when they were both in their early 20s and both weed smokers. Over the years, she stopped smoking, but he never did. By the time she hit 40, his tolerance was so high, he was daily smoking skunk that was so strong it would give normal smokers something similar to a psychotic break.

After nearly 20 years, she kicked him out ... and it was only then that she realised how devastating his habit had been.

He had spent upwards of £6,000 a year on drugs for nearly 20 years.
As pp have said, he would never leave the country on holiday because he couldn't take his "weed" with him.
He stopped socialising or wanting to go anywhere because it would be an evening where he couldn't smoke weed.
She used to end up trapped in the kitchen in the evening because the sitting room was impossible to sit in due to the sheer level of psychoactive smoke in the air.
There were massive issues with his work etc.

But ... the thing that she realised that really shocked her was that he couldn't remember anything about their lives from one day to the next. Those twenty years were, more or less, just a haze for him because he was stoned every single evening.

She used to get very confused because they would have a conversation and agree on something, or something would happen, and the next time she brought it up, he would declare it had never occurred. She started to think he was gaslighting her, but the reality was ... as he was always stoned when she spoke to him or they did something, he couldn't never then remember it at a later point.

He couldn't remember conversations, plans, events, agreements, special memories, where he had left anything ... he was permanently in the moment with scant recollection of the near, medium or distant past and no grasp of the future whatsoever. And you just can't live with someone like that; it's like living with someone with self-induced anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

And the reason why I wanted to mention this to you is that ... well ... how much of your DC's childhood so far can your DH actually remember? If you sat him down and asked him how much he remembers of your DC's fifth birthday, would he remember anything at all? What about what happened last weekend? If he is constantly smoking, how much of DC's childhood is he actually mentally present for?

The thing is ... if he is pretty much constantly stoned, he 'aint present. He might as well be a ghost trapped in some different existential dimension. How can this be a "relationship" when he probably can't remember the majority of what you say to him from day to day?

GREAT POST!

worksallhours - yes excellent post.

Instead of how much does he remember - I would also ask how much does your DD remember - actually more - how does she feel 24/7 thru her childhood?

Just bumping for you magicgirl, wondering how you're doing?

Littlejessie ~ Im ok thank you. Everything is much the same really, im not brave enough to make a move, im scared I will regret it as he does have some good bits, but its the moods and sulks, it has eaten away at me and not sure I can feel what I once had for him back.

I desperately don't want my D to think that any kind of drugs use is acceptable and that is a hard enough job in this day and age with out seeing her dad at it.

He is happiest when he is smoking Cannabis, im not sure he gets stoned anymore as he has down this for 20+ yrs ( he is late 40s) but he is chilled, relaxed etc, which most would say is fine but not so if you are living with it.

Im not sure how to be brave and do something, he isn't even someone I can approach about it as this would cause moods and silences which in turn makes me anxious. x

I think it's way past approaching him and hoping he will change.

I hope you find the strength to do what needs to be done.

There are so many people here who will support you.

even if he tells you he has stopped,dont believe him.youll find evidence but not the truth from him.it happened to me and is still happening.

He will not change. Do not even try to discuss it.

Keep talking here - have you anyone in RL you can confide in?

Can you join an AA/NA/CA type group?

If you were to separate what practical steps would you need to take .. you move out? move him out etc? Explore all of these options online - look at houses etc. How would your life for you an DD be different - holidays abroad? More money? More nice quality time with her? Build your new fantasy life in your head and on line - and it will happen.

Decide if you want the rest of your life as A or B

A) Increasing moods, increasing tension bitterness and stress for you and your DD. DD anxious and self esteem robbed by unpredictable Dad and enabling Mum. She repeats this pattern. No money, holidays or joy. Then she leaves home and what is there left for you?

B) Detach - short pain initially - but long gain - free from the prison of his moods which enslave you 24/7 -- knowing that you are giving your DD the very best childhood and working to repair the damage to date.

SquallyShowersButSunshineAhead ~ Thank you, it does put things into prospectus.

I cant see me going on much longer, I have already emotionally detached and I think even if he did change, I have nothing left to give, which I feel sad about as I thought he was "the one" but from the early 20s when I met him, I have become a mum and grown up significantly.

I am still very scared about this feelings and the change and I reckon he would be devastated, but the moods which my D now speaks about will not change that I can see.

I have a fantasy life in my head, it is when to put it to reality.

Keep dreaming and planning our lovely new life for your DD- it will just happen one day soon - something will trigger it - not sure he will be devastated....will have the weed to mask the pain.

Magicgirl, when I was trying my hardest not to lose hope, and XP was attacking me for being unsupportive , I attended a drugs counselling service that he was going to, which offered support for partners of addicts.

Despite feeling pretty resentful and uncomfortable about going, the upshot is that the counsellor I saw was an absolutely fantastic woman who helped me see through the crap and confusion, to recognise my false hope and to be brave and reach out for a better life. One that DD and I deserved.

Do you know, that man had me so low that while I was detaching emotionally from him, he was accusing me of having PND. This sharp, astute lady helped me to recognise that he was shifting the focus of the problem away from himself and onto me, as a way of detracting from his hideous, selfish behaviour. She told me clearly that I didn't have PND and that I was simply struggling to cope in what anyone would find an intolerable situation, and that the problem was not mine to own.

For my part, once I'd lost respect for him there was no way back. Despite my hope and commitment, my feelings changed, and once that had happened I couldn't have lived with him a moment longer. He became pretty unpleasant at that point, which just highlighted how controlling and subversive he'd been until that point. Almost as though the ruse was up.

Basically, everything was ok with him while he was stoned, and I was like a cat on hot bricks when he wasn't as I never knew when his mood would just turn. Sometimes he wouldn't speak to me for days at a time, or would just act like some kind of thundercloud in the house - he really felt a malevolent presence at times. This was confusingly countered with affection and a weird Mr Chilled persona - which always felt edgy because I knew it was simulated and not real. Ugh, it honestly makes me shudder to think of those days. I'm so glad they are behind me.

When you think about it, I'd been plugging financial holes, tidying up his endless, awful chaotic mess every day, keeping him fed and getting his washing done.... Essentially I'd been covering it all up for him and keeping things going single handedly. He didn't love me or DD - if he had he'd have lifted his lazy, self indulgent carcass off the sofa and he'd have worked to make himself a decent partner and father.

littlejessie~

"Basically, everything was ok with him while he was stoned, and I was like a cat on hot bricks when he wasn't as I never knew when his mood would just turn. Sometimes he wouldn't speak to me for days at a time, or would just act like some kind of thundercloud in the house - he really felt a malevolent presence at times. This was confusingly countered with affection and a weird Mr Chilled persona - which always felt edgy because I knew it was simulated and not real. Ugh, it honestly makes me shudder to think of those days. I'm so glad they are behind me."

This exactly sums up my days, he can be foul, moody, silent, huffing and puffing and silent, when he hasn't smoked for more that 2- 3 hours, then he goes to be extra nice, loving and full of compliments, on the floor playing with D etc.

I have been reminding myself the whole time now that the nice man is not real, it is simulated, that's very hard when that realisation kicks in.

Sorry I've not been back sooner Magicgirl. I've been thinking about you though as this thread has really struck a chord with me.

If I could travel back in time I'd haul myself out of the situation I was in! With hindsight, I was so worried about being a lone parent and the uncertainties of new circumstances that I stayed far longer then I should have, in a miserable, poisonous and depressing situation. Honestly, I was so confused and bewildered by him a lot of the time that I couldn't really think objectively.

It's hard. I think people with addictions often do seek out people who persevere, try to 'help' them, and who do have hope. That's probably what you're struggling with to an extent.

Have you imagined DD's future? Have you thought about what you want for her, and what you would say to her if she were to end up in your situation? This thought forced me to develop a bit of clarity and is ultimately what prompted me to make some moves!