So here I am. It's ten o'clock at night on Wednesday, a time I would normally either be texting my alcoholic ex goodnight or just leaving his house. Sometimes, I feel lost.

It's only been a few days that I've wandered various support sites, including this one. I've read quite a few stories, some more dramatic than others, but all running along the same themes. If you care to hear it, here's mine.

I met this guy about a year and a half ago. For his sake, I'll call him J. I'd broken up up with my abusive/borderline narcissistic ex boyfriend two years before that, and had vowed to stay single until I met somebody worth my time. Alot of people say that there are warning signs and signals, but for me-aside from meeting him at a bar, which in itself should have been bad news-there were none. He woke up everyday and went to work. He texted me things like,"Good morning, most beautiful girl int he world," every single day when I was waking up for work. He was cute, funny, smart, and had a lot of friends. He would have done anything for me, like take time off work so I could get my wisdom teeth pulled. His dad and step-mom ( I would later learn that he has an almost non existent relationship with his birth mom) were the nicest, most accepting, most seemingly normal people. Nether of them were big drinkers. There was really nothing about him that screamed alcoholic. We mainly drank on the weekends...or so I thought.

Sometime about the six or seventh month, things started to get weird. I started catching him lies-small, stupid ones, like what he planned to do that day or whether or not he went fishing with his cousin. Soon, those became about how much he drank that day or that he was going to sleep when he was really staying . Our sex life, which had been what you would expect being a newer couple, took a nosedive and sometimes he either couldn't perform or would lose the ability during the act. He started getting angry with me over unimportant things. Once, we went to a drive though to get some food and when we got to my house, I asked,"I thought you were coming in to eat with me?" And he flipped out, even throwing his food on the ground. He actually went so far one day as throw all of my belongings onto the front lawn. Little did I know, he was drunk.

This is when the signs started appearing. I let him use my car one morning (mine was nicer and did better on gas than his) and found an empty beer can thrown in the backseat long after I'd been driving around running errands that same day. Once, we'd gone out for the night and were expecting to meet some friends to see a local band. We couldn't find our friends, so we went to another bar. He said he was feeling sick, and we left. When we got to his house, I overheard him telling a friend who had stopped by,"I'm so drunk! I've had, like, ten drinks." We had only been to two bars and had had two drinks each, so I think we know where this is going...the thing is, he not only lied and said he'd only had a couple before we left, but he was driving us around wasted and also putting other people's lives at risk. I didn't even have a clue. This was when I knew things were bad. Confronting him about the lies and drinking only made things worse, and he continually blamed me for his anger: YOU pushed me into getting mad; YOU wouldn't leave me alone; YOU were riding my @$$; YOU are selfish; YOU, YOU, YOU....and I believed him. I did. Making me out to be the crazy one took its toll on me.

Ten months in, he broke up with me via text over something stupid (a Facebook post!) and I managed to get on with my life. Among his break up tactics were blowing up my phone with name calling (c-word, idiot, f-you, immature, doormat, etc) and one time he dared to call me the n-word (he's Hispanic.)  I had to hide his Facebook posts and messages because he started posting a bunch of weird stuff that I know were directed towards me. I knew he was drunk all of these times and ignored the texts and phone calls. I managed to get on with my life, but he did come back about 3 months later to say he was sorry for everything he put me through and wanted to stop drinking so much. He admitted that he'd also been using cocaine and that was why he'd become so irrational midway through the relationship. He said he would only drink with me, since I don't drink much, so he wasn't drinking every day anymore. I foolishly believed that would work; I realize now that this was just a form of me trying to control his drinking, which I've learned I can't do.

Just like all of the stories that I've read on here, it didn't happen that way. I think in some way he wanted to be sober; I remember him calling me saying that he had the shakes. But it only lasted a few days, and of course, one day I said something he didn't like and it was the old J all over again. Judging by his Instagram, he'd stopped by his parents house that morning to let their dog out and helped himself to their alcohol. He called me slurring the next day and told me that I'm nothing but a pain in the @$$, the sex had dwindled because of me, he didn't want to be with me and it wasn't going to work, and to F-off. That was the last time we spoke; I rehid his FB posts so I don't even know if he's on my list. I want to call him all the time to see if he's OK, but I don't know which version of him I will get, and because of that, I would rather just leave him alone.

That was three weeks ago. I don't doubt that he loves me. He does. Before the drinking got out of control, he was the best boyfriend I could ask for. I keep clinging on to this memory of the person he was when I met him, but I'm learning from reading others' posts that this is useless. The person he turned out to be is who he was all along, I just didn't know. But it's been so hard to let go. I guess because part of me still thinks that it's my fault the relationship didn't work. What stings the most is the fact that he came back on his knees, only to turn around and hurt me again. 

I always thought that girls who stayed with men who drink too much are foolish, and wondered what they saw in them and what kind of girl would be with a guy "like that."  I never thought he was one of those guys. And I never thought I'd be one of those girls, chasing after the memory of a beautiful person turned monster. I have a good job, good looks, a good education. I'm the good girl. I typically would never put up with lies or disrespect. I've always thought that I could do better than some guy who drinks all day long and treats me like garbage when he feels like it. Maybe I am foolish, too. Maybe I'm not so different from those girls, after all.