The love of my life is using drugs and it’s come between us

[Lm4065]

i am heart broken right now. My partner is using drugs, to cope with chronic depression. I was quite naive at first not having been around much drug use before. This person is the love of my life but I know deep down I have to end things, but I feel like I can’t it’s too painful. I don’t know what to do. I have spoken about the issue a couple of times but I havnt been firm enough and really explained the impact on me, which is my fault. But from the little I have said I have worked out that my partner is in denial a bit. They think the drugs help them and when I talk about side effects and long term negative effects they just say well there is no conclusive evidence of that. Even when I highlight studies and scientific facts. I’m wondering whether it’s worth having a full and frank conversation to see if anything would help. I would be willing to help them find a psychiatrist for recomendations on medication and therapy if they were open to it and plan on telling them this. Ironically this person things antidepressants are too harmful.

these are the points I’m hoping to raise to try get them to wake up and see the impact of what they are doing.
How your drugs affect me

• makes you ill, so we have less time together, less sex
• Makes you tired, so we have less awake time together and less sex
• You being overly ill and tired makes me sad because I care about you
• You get mood swings and can be irritable. This impacts me as I sometimes feel like I’m walking on egg shells and having to ‘look after’ you in some ways. This makes communication difficult and can be stressful for me.
• Living with someone and their being drugs in the house would make me stressed about getting into trouble. Is it fair for me to live with that stress?
• Can’t have children when there are drugs in the house. I would constantly be worrying about them finding things. This could have disastrous consequences. This would be Very stressful and not fair on me.
• Cannot leave children with someone who is under the influence of drugs. I would have to do everything in terms of childcare. Not fair.
• Makes me really sad that you have to do drugs to have fun. Makes me even more sad that the only time you are emotionally open with me and express your feelings about me is when you are on drugs. Are these feelings even real if you have to be high to say them? Sad for me.
• You are not emotionally supportive to me. Being emotionally supportive is a bare minimum of being in a relationship.
• You are often on drugs, so do I even know the real you? This feels lonely.
• I worry about the long term impact on your health. Who will be there to have to pick up the pieces and watch you suffer? Me. That’s not fair or a very nice prospect.
• Every time we go on holiday abroad I have to be stressed about potentially getting caught for you having drugs on you. I could get in trouble by implication. Even if you don’t get caught the thought of having that stress every time we go on holiday takes away from some of the good things about going on holiday.
• You are in denial. You think the drugs are helping you when they are causing you problems. You say you use mushrooms to help with depression and that they are going to be used more commonly now. But the way you are using them is not in line with the recommended protocols for these trials (eg they do not recommend using them every day).
• What happens next? When you build up a tolerance because you are using them every day. Not a very nice prospect for me and the future.

These are things most people would find hard, not just me. You are going to struggle to find anyone to be in a serious long term relationship with if you continue like this.

Being with you has actually made me more anti drugs than I was before I met you. They do ruin lives and it breaks my heart that you can’t see it. You say you do them for fun. This doesn’t look very fun.

You say you want a relationship but your behaviour makes it so hard for someone to be with you even when they love you. I don’t think you are in the right space for a relationship.

thank you for reading if you got this far. I’m really out of my depth here and don’t know if this is even the best way to approach things? Does anyone have any insight or has anyone been in this situation before? 💔

Just to clarify it’s not just mushrooms they take. These are just the ones they take every day. They take harder stuff every couple of weeks.

No words of advice other than that sounds a good summary of the impact on you. Whether they are prepared to listen depends on whether your relationship is worth fighting for as much as their drug addiction

In the kindest possible way, there is no happiness in staying with this man. Putting up with depression is bad enough but you have a depressed addict who literally thinks street drugs and mushrooms are safer than prescribed medicines and is apparently totally ready for you to be dragged into his troubled life. Not to put too fine a point on it, he doesn't sound overbright. You can't reason an addict out of taking drugs - they have to want to stop and he obviously doesn't want to stop. You might think he is the love of your life but drugs are the love of his life. I would start packing.

Can’t see any reference to whether a man or woman.

I assumed a man as most posters are female on Mumsnet but the same advice applies if they are a female or any other gender identity for that matter.

After reading your list, I would say that you are not with the ‘love of your life’. They won’t turn into the person you would like them to be. The love of your life is a supportive partner, who isn’t a drug addict and is someone you can have a family with. I would go and find them.

You've been incredibly clear here, and by the sounds of it, you've already made your decision. Your partner isn't going to suddenly change or stop using them, so I'd be making plans to end things and go your separate ways.

If your partner genuinely wants to use drugs like mushrooms for their depression and believes it helps (trials suggest it can), would a compromise be to say all the things you’ve put in your OP but that if they change to using the mushrooms under the care of an appropriately qualified psychiatrist with experience in this treatment, that would be ok? Obviously the “hard stuff” would have to stop altogether.

This person may be the closest thing to love you've ever experienced in your life.
They are not the love of your life. Big difference.

You're allowed to expect more.

Exactly.

OP, no one can help an addict unless or until that addict wants to get clean, and even then they’re not usually in the right place for a relationship. Move on and save yourself. There will be others.

This is never going to end well. Sounds like your main problem is that your partner is very selfish. He's only thinking about what is 'fun' and pleasant for him, what he wants, and not how anything affects you. And as you say, you're not even with the real version of your partner, only the version that is on drugs at that particular time. Who would want that. I'd be out in an instant. You're with a stranger every day.

You need to ask yourself why you think this is what you deserve? What inside you is wanting to act as a caregiver or rescuer to someone else? What kind of partner do you really want? Do you not deserve an emotionally healthy partner to have a healthy relationship with? Being single is better than this too.

Sounds like a short and clear ultimatum is required, cut the fluffy stuff. He/She stops or you go.
End of conversation. Keep it direct and definite.

I would walk away from this. You won’t be the first person to have listed the things you have and hoped their partner would stop taking drugs for them. The truth is they don’t care enough about themselves to stop, let alone other people. End it now before you go through the wringer because the end result will be the same anyway, not a positive outcome.

I wouldn't send this list. First, it sounds like you are pleading with him to treat you nicely rather than just having this as an automatic expectation. Secondly, you open yourself up to him arguing each point with you.

I would simply send a message saying I will not be with anyone using drugs. I deserve better. There is nothing to do but say goodbye and wish you well. Don't allow it to become a subject for discussion and negotiation but stick to that simple message. And then get yourself some therapy to work out why your self esteem is so low you've been accepting this even for a day.

It's always open to him to clean up his act, get the help that he needs, and come back to you later and ask for another chance. Hint - he won't.

Don't accept this for your one precious life.

This.

"If you don't stop using drugs, our relationship is over."

You can't help an addict. You need to leave. They have to work it out for themselves and that means hitting rock bottom.

The only evidence about benefits of mushroom use for mental illness is about micro dosing. This doesn't sound like micro dosing if it is making them ill. Plus other drugs in the mix too.

This is a selfish person who won't try the things that might actually help, like antidepressants. That is a choice.

The list you shared reads like a list of reasons why this relationship is not for you.

This person is putting their desire to take recreational drugs over their relationship with you and your future. You deserve better.

Anyone who prefers to use street drugs and not even try licensed anti depressants is frankly a bit thick. Life is too short to put up with this bollocks.

You're wasting your time. They'd rather be high.