Letters to the Editor
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I think you're in a great position
You know what you want, which puts you way ahead of many people in your situation. I can't think of any reason you should stay in this relationship. If you were happy in it, it would probably be worth it to stay and hope and help, but you're not. You're not even having that heart vs mind battle we've all had at one time or another over people that we know aren't good for us, but whom we can't quite put behind us.
You're clear and that's great.
I don't buy that it's selfish. I think it is wrong, wrong, wrong for anyone to expect someone to live in a way that isn't good for them. No one should sacrifice his or her own happiness or satisfaction in life to be vampirized by someone else. The implication behind that is that we are responsible for other people's fulfillment, and that's just not true - trying to make it so is a losing proposition. Happiness isn't selfish - it spreads. It will spread to your child; it will spread to the other people you know; it may give you more energy to do some things in the world that keep making it a better place.
Do what's right for you, and let other people do what they need to do for themselves.
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Cary neglected some odd assertions
Cary is usually pretty perceptive in reading between the lines in these letters. But I think his determination to slam the "addiction recovery industry" may have blinded him to some odd assertions in this letter:
1. The three year old hasn't once asked "where's mommy?" (or whatever name is used in the household) that's a hard one to believe.
2. The partner was abusing Oxy for six months and LW had no idea? That's a real whopper but maybe that's just me.
3. On a more subjective note, roiboos above me noted the tone of over-the-top moral superiority ("Well I never!!!")
as someone who is both a parent of young children and the spouse of a person with addiction issues, I found some holes in this letter that need to be filled.
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CYA
My Dear hurting partner,
IMMEDIATLY go through the house and find all the drugs she had hidden there AND the syringes or whatever she used to get high. Check the toilet tank, behind light switches, cabinets, stored pots and pans and bowls. Child protective services could appear on your doorstep and remove your child! The police could show up with a drug sniffing dog and bust you too! Don't for a minute think she won't rat out someone to help herself with a smaller sentence. If you are the birth mother of the child, keep HANDY a birth certificate. If not, get a custodial assignment . Do it NOW, before she gets out and make this a disaster. Think of the baby and yourself. DO NOT assume that she will leave the relationship meekly. An addict has already learned by being in rehab to say what people want to hear. Protect the property that is legally yours. It's painful, I know, but do it BEFORE a BIG SCENE occurs in front of the child. I am sorry your heart is broken. Share with a good friend and don't let yourself be used. You deserve better.
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Continue on your path, but without forcing a hasty decision...
As others have, I commend you on sounding stronger and much less codependent than so many who persist in dysfunctional relationships far beyond the point they have any positive net value to those involved.
I would only say that you might consider heeding the well worn advice to those in many difficult situations such as being left by a partner through death or other circumstance, to NOT make hasty life changing decisions. Your partner is out of your house. Your child is safe with you. Take one step at a time in putting your life back together for you and your child...that will necessarily include dealing with your partner on some level for 15 years or so as your child's other parent unless she has no legal parental rights, and even if she had no legal rights, I would expect that on behalf of your child, you'd try to maintain some continuity of their relationship, to a degree that was safe for him, as this is his "other mother" we're talking about. Someone said above that now is the time to take advantage of the law's lack of protection for your committed relationship and "just change the locks and be done with her"...I don't agree with that, and would hope that would seem like a hypocritical turnabout to you, to not end the relationship with the same due process and respect that you put into building it and commemorating it through your committment ceremony.
If you end up ending the relationship, that may indeed be the best right decision, and it seems like you're on a fairly direct path to getting there. But I don't know that apart from a feeling of there being unwanted demands on you from your partner's rehab that there is any immediate need to have to come to and announce A Decision right now...make sure you do it when you are authentically ready, as well as heeding Cary's wise words about your own authentic decision.
Practically, and you sound like a practical person, certainly take any steps needed to close joint financial accounts and take your share of joint and business funds away from her access so that if she relapses further you aren't affected.
Best wishes.
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In agreement with Cary and know1uknow
"I also ask you LW, how could you let your child hold the pain of loss of the other mom in silence? Are you as gleeful with the child that she is gone? I can't help but wonder why this child would not tell you how they feel?" - know1uknow's letter
What more is there to say?
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I thought it was just that time of the month?
Yes, of course: the LW should consult a family lawyer, change the locks, get tested for HIV and Hep C, and gently but comprehensively evict the partner from her life ASAP.And she should tell anyone who tells her different to STFU. And not politely, either. But I disagree with all the respondents who have focused on the addiction issue, writing in detail about the intransigence of addicts, the false hope of rehab, the hopelessness of the situation, etc. While all this is perfectly true, it's not really the issue of this letter, which to me, is how disturbingly, even dangerously, out of touch with her emotions the LW is. The partner was using HEROIN and she really, truly, had no clue something major was wrong? She thought that it was just "PMS cycles"?!! Sure we can be honestly deceived by partners, but when it is to this gross extent, some of the dishonesty is being practiced by us upon ourselves. And the child has not even mentioned the absence of the other parent?? Then something has been deeply, very wrong for a long time, and the LW, by not "noticing" it, has been participating in the weirdness. The LW's way of talking about her "relationsihp" is bizarrely abstract, sketchy, and vague. Something is very wrong here--not drug addiction, but the LW's denial. The drugs are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Yes, dump the partner posthaste, but don't, then, think that everything is "fixed" and that the "bad person" has been righteously defeated--that's just more of the same fairytale denial the LW seems to be addicted to herself. For the sake of her child the LW needs to get rid of the "I'm the good one" story she's running on herself and figure out what is going on with herself. Get back to that therapist or better yet get a new one. Do it for the sake of this kid so that evil cycles do not perpetuate themselves.