Hi Crystal welcome to Miracles in Progress, I am sorry that you are feeling so lost and abandoned. Glad that you reached out here and connected.

Not quite sure if you're partner is an alcoholic, but I would like to point out that the disease of alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful. We who live with or try to cope with the disease, are negatively affected by the behavior of the alcoholic and need a program of recovery of our own.

Al-Anon is that program. Face-to-face meetings are held in most communities and the hotline number is found in the white pages. It is here that I learned how to keep the focus on myself, live one day at a time, not projecting to the future or dwell in the past and trusting a God of my understanding with the outcomes. Please keep coming back you're not alone

Hi, Crystal, I'm glad you have found us.  There is a lot of wisdom here.

One thing to think about is that after three months there can be a lot of strong emotion, but we can't actually know another person that well - there just isn't time.  They may feel as if they're our soulmate, but that's about the strength of our feelings, not about what we can know that early.  When they leave us abruptly, that's another thing about them that we didn't know - it's not that they're wonderful, and then there's that one extra thing.  That extra thing is also part of who they are.  So maybe it felt like they had the potential to be wonderful, but it didn't turn out that they were.  That's a hard truth to accept, often.  When I sometimes found out how imperfect my adored ones were, it felt like someone had died.

The other truth is that someone who drinks as hard as you describe your friend drinking, is not really available to be in a free relationship with another person.  The alcohol always comes first.  It's very frequently the case that the alcohol has numbed them and kept them from growing up, so their ways of handling difficulty are immature and unhelpful.  They're not easy to be in a relationship with - many times almost impossible to be in a relationship with.

It also sounds as if alcohol has been a factor in some things that went on on your side too.  We generally are resentful when drinking produces unpleasant consequences - like "Hey! That's not fair!  Drinking is supposed to be fun!"  But after a certain point it does produce unpleasant consequences.  When we take those on board instead of writing them off, that's when we can start living more serene lives.

I hope you'll read the threads on this site, find a good meeting, get the tools, and start heading towards a more peaceful life.  And keep coming back.  I know it's not easy.  That's why we're here for each other.  Hugs.

Mattie,

Thank you so much for your insight.  You have a beautiful way of articulating your words.  I know it seemed like a rather short time we were together.  That is another concern of mine.  I just want to heal; Yes!  For myself and my child.  My son does not deserve to see his mother paining over lost love.  I am trying to reach a point of serenity and peace within myself.  I also would like to reach that point, because I love this man very much and if and when he ever returns I would like to stand firm in my convictions and help him through his alcoholism.  You see, abandonment at a very young age, causes an extreme amount of immensible pain.  Pain that can never be quite healed within you.  This pain, leads to fears: fears of abandonment as an adult from those you love or try to love you, fear of rejection, and the fear of being alone.  This fear is triggered by anyone or anything that poses a threat to our life or life's journey.  We immediately retaliate with no remorse, and or lack of empathy.  Our natural instinct is to hurt and to cause the same fearful pain we have been running from all our lives.  I know this, because I was abandoned as a young girl by my biological father, and so was he.  We both have spent years running from our pasts and never have had the opportunity to heal that hurt nor the pain.  We yearn deep down inside for someone to rescue us from the tragedy, because when we were young no one ever did.  We hold onto that yearning hope for so long.  Because we don't have the strength to find it within ourselves or even know where to begin.  No one knows how to rescue us from that fear; not even us, because we were such young children to have to endure such trauma at such a young age.  We've stuffed, and dealt with, and continued to stuff our emotions along the way.  Never once have we been given the opportunity to address or face those emotions and we don't know how.  Nor do others around us, such as our parents and or loved ones, who can't even relate to our experience.  Because they've never had an experience similar to ours or even close to it.  Therefore, we play a part.  A very deep, pleasing, passionate, part.  All the while, we are starving for true love, true emotion, true happiness, true peace and joy in our hearts.  We're forced to be strong, play a part as the survivor, and try not to let it get us down.  Yet, because all we've ever known is to "stuff our emotions" and "deal with it."  We don't know how to save ourselves, or how to even address what we're feeling deep down inside the storm, we are moving through.  A storm of pain, fear, rejection, frustration and disappointment.  From someone we loved so much and gave all our hearts too.  The one(s) who pained us as a child. 

I am praying for restoration and true healing within my heart and soul.  Because I believe God brought us together for a reason.  My ex never asked for the life he was given; he was simply placed in that horrible situation, just like me.  So, I pray that through this, God will heal him, save him and restore in him a new light.  I am working to give all the Glory to God and because of my Faith and the faith that I have in my Heavenly Father; I believe in restoration! 

Thank you for such beautiful words of affirmation.  You are truly a kindred spirit.  Thank you.

-- Edited by cherrin872 on Friday 1st of May 2015 05:04:41 PM

Skorpi,

Tyfsharing as well. I look forward to my Al-Anon meeting next week!

I am going to be taking up AA as well, and I am simply giving it all to God.  I pray that he will restore in my ex; restoration and bring him to a point where he faces this ugly addiction and kicks it in the bootie once and for all.  Addiction alone is so destructive and deserves no control over our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  My ex and I are so strong to have survived our childhood and to have lived successful lives thus far.  We deserve a good life, gods grace and a chance!  Therefore, please join me in praying for him as well.  Thank you again, for reaffirming in my heart that I'm not alone! 

God Bless you!

-- Edited by cherrin872 on Friday 1st of May 2015 05:05:53 PM

I imagine a number of us here have experienced that deep abandonment in childhood.  Not to write off the pain of it in any way - I mean I think you have found a group of people who have a deep experience of the kind of pain you've experienced.  We do try many ways of making up for that pain and filling that hole.  One of those ways is to find someone who kind of reminds us of the person who abandoned us - someone who seems like they have the potential to love us (as our parent had that potential) but who isn't able to give it to us just yet (the same kind of feeling we got from our parent).  It feels like a "do-over" except this time we can get it right.  When that person disappears on us, that triggers us to pursue them even more energetically.  The abandonment brings back all the old feelings.  And they will abandon us - because part of the reason we've become so devoted to them is their unavailability, which feels so much like our childhood.

There are some important differences, though.  In childhood, it feels life-or-death to be abandoned, and to some extent it is.  If a little child is abandoned by all her caregivers, she literally will die.  So we're given the energy and the terror to motivate us to find that parent again.  To save our lives.

But when we're grown up, we can take care of ourselves.  We can work, we can cook, we know how to operate in the adult world.  We won't die if one person or the other person isn't there.  But because the situation reminds us so much of our childhood situation, it sometimes feels like we're going to die.  That's a leftover feeling.  It's not a real fear about our real adult situation. 

We're also driven by this ancient pain to try to find a person who will save us. In the 12-Step groups they call it "filling a God-shaped hole."  The thing is that no human, no matter how perfect, can fill that hole.  That's a hole for the Higher Power, and treating a person as our Higher Power always ends in pain and disappointment.  We need to see people as people, as who they are, not as gods who can rescue us - but who will ultimately fail us, because they're human.

I know that feeling of want to rescue someone else - because they obviously have a need, and it would be wonderful to be able to do something that valuable for someone, and once they're rescued then they can be there for me.  The trouble with alcoholics is that they don't want to be rescued.  They want to continue on with their alcoholism (which also involves self-absorption, selfishness, deception, and chaos).  We try to convince them till we're blue in the face, how much they need rescuing.  We can divert ourselves from our own pain for a long time, trying to make them see the light.  But ultimately we're left again with our own pain and a chaotic alcoholic.

I hope you'll keep coming back, learning about the tools, and taking good care of yourself.