Hi All, This is day 9 and I am feeling very very hopeful today. It has been a hard week on one hand but the best week I have had in a long time. My senses to life are heightened more so than when I have ever stopped drinking before.
I had been in a horrible relationship for this past eight yrs. He is a very sick man who is addicted to sex with pedofile tendencies. He lied to me in all of it even though he did admit things about himself and then seek help through sex addiction therapists countless times.
He then would tell me that he had said things to me to "just" abuse me. I got very confused and he left hundreds of times when I put down boundary lines and I now know it was to go binge in hotels and to seek people out to objectify and use in his mind.
He was very controlling and manipulating and even though I kept my own head and worked hard in therapy to not allow him to bring me down I did get brought down by it all and drank a lot at the very end.
I do not blame him as I talk about his addiction and behaviors. I am taking full responsibility for allowing all of it. I was very confused by his behaviors and in denial.
I talked to his first (17 yrs married to him) and second wife (married two months) about 6 months into this relationship, 7 1/2 yrs ago (we were not married) and they both had been abused by him. His sex addiction became apparent to his second wife and he confessed many awful things to her but she did not divulge them to me back then and only said he was perverted.
I thought she meant toward women in general. And felt that to be awful. I had him leave my home and get help to be with me. And that happened time and again as he admitted and then lied constantly.
I realized how sick he is back a year ago and we went to a retreat for him to get help and then to yet another therapist this past year Feb and March of 07. He manipulated yet again and I gave up and drank all this year (I take responsibility for that). I could have chose different but I was very ill from it all at this point and felt hopeless.
He left this past March 15th and I went down hill because he left in denial and blaming me totally. I called his second wife a couple of months after he left and she and I talked for 12 hours on the phone. It had been eight yrs since they broke up this past spring in April. I met him in July of the same year. She said it took two years to get over being with him.
And even after eight yrs she still hates him. She finally told me things that he told me but denied and more. About young kids and men. He told me he had rape fantasies and other awful vile things that scared me to death and I would make him get help for. He was in a sex addiction clinic while with his second wife.
He also beat me up to the point I had to have several surgeries to correct the problems. I am doing real good now on those.
Anyway I wanted to give you an idea of some of my history and that I have been in a world of confusion and feeling shameful for being with someone like him. And very angry that he would use and abuse me like he did and take advantage of me. It has taken its toll on me.
But I am ready to face it all and feel that this week has helped free me from a lot already concerning him. I had reported him to a detective in St Augustine Florida where my ex said he went to practice his addiction and now lives.
The detective put his photo up in schools and also warned the buses there and the college. He alerted all the police to watch out for his vehicle at play grounds also. That is one of the things he likes doing is to sit outside of schools and play grounds plus go into public places to objectify and sit in his vehicle that he has tinted windows and do his thing.
Walmart is his big thing and other stores also to do this in and sidewalks. The TV and every where and anywhere he can view people and kids. He lost a 24 yr career to this addiction.
I am getting this out to you all. I hope I did not offend anyone. I know I have to let this go completely and I feel I did all I could for him to get help so he would not keep practicing this addiction and alerting the detective is all I can do.
I pray for all the victims he will come across. There are many many vile things he has done including standing naked in windows in my home where I caught him and exposing himself in my yard. He is a danger to society. What I have described here is nothing.
I have been traumatized by this and have been fighting my way out of it all.
I thank my higher power (God) for you all.
So on this day 9 I am very grateful and I vow to live the rest of my life without this evil in my life in any way shape and form. Even the memories of it all. And the anger and worry that have plagued me.
Rosie((hugs)) congratulations on day 9, good to read your share, I am sure you feel better for releasing it. I have been abused physically by two different people and I understand the trama and shame and pain. I am so happy that you have stepped out of the unhealthy relationship and are here posting with us.
I left a very unhealthy relationship 16 months ago to get sober. I knew that soberity had to come first and that I would not be able to get sober if I stayed in the relationship I was in. I even spoke to him about it and he said, nope I want to keep partying and I don't want to be with someone in recovery, his choice. I am so happy for the choice I made.
I am 16 months sober and by working the program, the awful shame I had inside has been released through working the steps, step 5, helped so much, just like you writing these thoughts today. After I told someone what I had done, myself(my part) and what I had allowed myself to live with, i started to feel better, not overnight, but slowly. And to be honest, I didn't even know at the time that I did step 5 just how good the results would be, it was months later, when i realized how I didn't feel the shame anymore, thanks to my Higher Power for releasing it.
Thanks to you and everyone who posts and shares their ES&H Deb
Hi Deb, I am so glad you made it out of that relationship. It is painful but the best thing you could do for yourself. I know the freedom I have now is wonderful. And I know also that if I had stayed in the relationship I could not get what I need to stop drinking. I just had a hard time to keep trying to utilize the tools I had from getting sober for the 4 yrs before I started drinking again.
It was that I would do a lot of work on me and come home to him and he would do all he could to tear me down and work on me even offering to get me beer when I was upset. And I would refuse and tell him I needed his help and not to push that on me. He said he could not handle my upset and it was due to him telling me vile things he was thinking with his sex addiction.
He was sober 20 yrs or so last year when he kept offering to get beer and if we went to eat he was all for me having a drink or ten. I just gave up and drank. I would get up from bed and call people for help and he would get mad at me.
I know it was my choice to drink and I could have done something else but without my serenity and being able to work my program I went down for the count.
That is why I know that I need to work a program and keep taking the "medicine" that this forum lends and to get in touch with someone in person to help me.
I feel that if I could stay sober with a living hell like that then I can stay sober now for sure. And because of that I appreciate life so much more now and to drink now with my freedom is a disgrace because my life is wonderful.
I feel the shame is not on me but it is on him for being so cruel and not taking the help he had time and again to get well. But the shame of drinking is mine. But I feel no shame in that and feel I am blessed to have gone through it all and be able to come out with a lot of appreciation toward life.
