Letters to the Editor
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Elaboration
I just want to elaborate on my point that you should leave regardless of whether or not she is an addict. Imagine I found evidence which suggested my husband was cheating. Now, if I felt, along with the devastation, an emotion akin to "Thank God! Now I have a really good excuse to get out of this relationship! I can finally admit that it sucks!" and I later found out that he wasn't really cheating, I still think listening to those feelings of really wanting to leave is something that I should do. You want to leave. You're happy to have a reason that you consider "legitimate". Please believe me when I say that your desire to be out of the relationship is as legitimate as any other reason. Honestly, if it's been that bad that having your partner arrested is a relief on any level, you gotta go.
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Vows
Do not be roped in by what another poster said about those "in sickness and in health" vows. It's a classic trap. If indeed your ceremony was like a hetero marriage, then she promised to love, honor, and cherish you. She did not hold up her end of the bargain, now did she?
As for those who talk about AA being a religion that doesn't work and all that - some people find it very useful and life-saving. Just because a lot of folks aren't willing to work the program doesn't mean it's worthless. I have seen the miracle of my ex, Mr. Three DWIs, becoming sober through AA. I have a lot of respect for the program now despite all the flaws that others like to harp on. It saves lives.
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DUMP THE LOSER
Yes, dump the loser, immediately. Take anything of value to you and get yourself free, please. (Yes, yes, you can 'remain friends', you can 'be supportive'.) But please, dump. the. loser. addict. Please.
You will never ever be as important to her as dope. Dope will be the driving force of the rest of her life. She will live for it. Not you, not a relationship with any human, nothing else will matter to her but drugs.
Please, please see this and get yourself free. Rehab doesn't work, except temporarily because they're enrolled in a 30 day program. As soon as they're out, all bets are off.
DUMP THE LOSER DRUGGIE! Please.
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DUMP THE LOSER
Yes, dump the loser, immediately. Take anything of value to you and get yourself free, please. (Yes, yes, you can 'remain friends', you can 'be supportive'.) But please, dump. the. loser. addict. Please.
You will never ever be as important to her as dope. Dope will be the driving force of the rest of her life. She will live for it. Not you, not a relationship with any human, nothing else will matter to her but drugs.
Please, please see this and get yourself free. Rehab doesn't work, except temporarily because they're enrolled in a 30 day program. As soon as they're out, all bets are off.
DUMP THE LOSER DRUGGIE! Please.
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A good time to leave...
Boy oh boy what a perfect storm of toubles.
This might be a good opportunity for both of the members of the 'partnership' to correct not only the addiction, but the general disorder that caused the lesbian thing. I mean, when you start with that, who knows what kind of pathologies can follow??
When we formalize a perversion, the entire brain, the wholelifestyle gets out of whack. Right?
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Plenty of heteros
have heroin problems, too.
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a twist
I'm with the other 99% of commenters who think the LW is sane to leave her marriage to an addict whom the LW seems to have fallen out of love with. I chose the other path - staying together with my addicted partner - and it was hell.
But, having had that experience, I offer a twist that goes against the general concensus here. Some codependents are really good at looking blameless and emotionally healthy from the outside, but the LW's partner's addiction did not form in a vacuum. They'd been together eight years. The LW is not to blame for the partner's poor choices about drugs, however, the LW won't come out of a home and business environment that fostered her partner's addiction without some issues of her own.
I won't suggest that the LW join Al-Anon, because it didn't help me either. But, for the LW's own sake, and the sake of her child, some therapy might be in order. Martyrdom is a form of codependency, and I can recognize it in the LW because I've got it too. I see a bit of grandiosity, too (again, it takes one to know one). Although the LW says she wants her partner to recover, the letter has a general feel of being "better-than-thou". Those things will come back to bite the LW in her next relationship if she continues to feel blameless and doesn't seek help for herself. I wish both her and her ex-partner the best of luck.
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@saltypup
Is it fun being a bigoted, self-righteous judgemental troll?
How very right-wing conservative Christian of you.
Perhaps you should see someone about your own mental disorder(s).
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Cary, I commend you
"I might be an addict in recovery, but I don't think using drugs is wrong, and I don't think that everybody who gets caught with heroin is an addict. And I especially don't think that you and I can decide for somebody else when it's time for rehab."
"And of course everybody assumes right off that she's an addict, that she has a disease, that she has to be cured. That's the current religion."
When I first saw the headline on this, I thought to myself "oh know, here comes the moralizing, the calls for rehab, the assumptions of addiction."
But your statements, quoted above, have shown me that there are some intelligent, thoughtful, non-control freaks who understand that not all use is abuse, that there is nothing inherently "wrong" about using drugs, and that those who choose to use them don't deserve the many punishments, masquerading as compassion, heaped upon them by society.
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Time to go
You're not evil. You're not mean. You're done with this relationship. If you have the power to take your child and leave, then I would leave. Your child does not deserve to be stuck with this woman as the child's custodial parent. Even if she means well, it's going to take her some time to get her shit together enough to be a parent.
Trying to stay in a relationship with an addict out of duty, rather than love, is a recipe for disaster. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to you. Once some things are broken, they can't be fixed.
Be as kind as you can about the divorce, but get the divorce.