I CAN'T cope.

[It'sTooLate]

New to this forum, and newly breaking up. I don't know where to start..

 

We'd been together for 15 yrs, not married... for a long time, I said forget it, I don't want to get married, been there, done that, barely got out with the t-shirt, and he didn't seem to want to get married either, since he'd been there, done that too.

 

But in the back of my mind, I always thought that maybe, just maybe we would get married. I always thought of him as my husband even if we weren't LEGALLY married, and when talking about him referred to him as DH, even tho he always referred to me as his GF.

 

Looking back, tho, I guess it never really was what I thought, tho he said he loved me many times, just out of the blue he'd say he loved me, or "have I told you how much I love you lately? I really love you."

 

Then the past few years, I just felt things changing... he drank more.. a LOT more. I worried about it, and told him it scared me when he was going out, staying out all night not telling me he'd be gone all night, I just couldn't get a good night's sleep worrying that he was in an accident or something. And then 2 yrs ago, a call from the police saying he'd been arrested for DUI, 2 times the legal limit.

 

I thought that would be a wake up call for him to stop drinking, or even cut down... but no, he was still going out once a week, sometimes more, drinking till the wee hours of the morning, and catching cabs home.

 

About six months ago he was home drinking all night long, and I woke up cos he had the stereo on full blast. I came downstairs, and he was passed out drunk with the stereo on. I turned it off, and all of a sudden he was wide awake and screaming at me about how I had ruined his life, was driving us into debt with this business venture, how he'd paid out more than $40K in the past year for it, and on and on. Truth of the matter was, when I went over everything it wasn't even CLOSE to 40K, it was closer to maybe $8K.

 

And from that time on, once a month he'd go ballistic over something. I had sprayed some cleaner around, he came home in a cab and walked in, and started screaming how he hated this place, I always had it smelling bad, and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't live like this, on and on. He slept in the car that night.

 

The next month it was another staggering in drunk, and being totally nasty to me (before all this, we NEVER fought, NEVER raised our voices at each other, we talked things out, we were civil human beings! ) and going on and on about nonsense. I said that's it, I'm done, we're through. He did not remember a THING the next day (as it had been with the previous times, he had NO CLUE why I was mad the next day, and had no clue what he'd said or done!).

 

Then one night he comes home plastered and asked me to marry him. This was just last month. Kept going on and on about how he loved me and we should get married. And of course, wanting sex. I'd already told him I won't have sex with him when he comes home plastered... which seemed like the only time he wanted sex lately anyhow...after he'd been at the bar. He kept saying he meant it, he really loved me, he wanted to get married. I said no, I'm not going to marry you, and I'm not going to say yes if you are asking me when you're DRUNK. Ask me when you're sober. I really considered saying yes if he DID ask when he was sober... but of course, he did not. He did bring up the marriage thing again once when he was drinking lightly, and I said show me the ring and then we'll talk...

 

Well, last week he did it again... he called and told me he was on his way home. That was at 6 pm. At 3 am, a cab rolled up to the front and he poured out of it. I didn't bother talking to him, since he was going to be blitzed anyhow and not remember anything the next day.

 

Morning came, and he wasn't awake yet... yeah, work days too when he is pulling this crap, and with his company doing layoffs right and left! I woke him up, and said enough is enough, I told you the last time NEVER again, and you did it. He said he didn't remember me saying that... yeah, cos you were drunk then too!

 

He made it to work somehow, and I just happened to be around the area (in another town) where the bar was that he hung out at. I didn't know where it was and then saw his friend's car there... it's not a bar, it's a freaking strip joint! Yeah, there's the $40K loss right there, he's been going twice a week, every week for four years to a STRIP CLUB. Not "just a bar". I never asked the name of the bar before, never asked where it exactly was, or anything about it...because I thought I knew him, and that he wouldn't go to strip clubs (especially not on a regular basis like this!) because he KNEW how I felt about them...demeaning to women, and I already have low self esteem as it is, I didn't like it that someone would go to look at better bodies than myself (i'm terribly thin and a little on the flat side... but gee, with the money those chicks got from him, I could have had implants several times over!)

 

When he got home that night, I lost it. I stood by my earlier statement that morning, that's it, we're through.

 

And then he wanted to talk things out all week long, but I couldn't do it, I could not get myself to even talk to him about anything. The other night he sidelined me with all kinds of things, and again I tried to make the point that I felt horrible about myself, that he only wanted sex with me when he came home good and drunk after spending a night at a strip club, and I just couldn't live like that. Then he lets me in on another secret... that all the times he said he was "stopping off for one" on weekends (he had said it was at a "sports bar" up by where he was rafting) he was really at ANOTHER strip joint that has been busted several times for drugs and prostitution, and that he was doing drugs then.

 

This just made me sick to my stomach, and I had to go to bed just to get him to shut up and not tell me any more, I couldn't take it.

 

I finally asked him WHY he chose to tell me about THAT particular place and doing drugs, he said (ready for THIS ONE? Tell me where the hell the logic is in it!) "to show you we had moved past the bad part" WHAT? WHAT? how did WE move past a bad part? I didn't EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT! How did *I* move past it? Now I have to try to move past it.

 

This really sucks cos I have not worked for several years due to a disability (and now I have to APPLY for disability payments), and we have exotic livestock that I have to sell in order to move, and since I don't own anything (everything is in his name, house, farmette, trucks, car, everything...) I HAVE to sell them to be able to leave, and all I do is start getting sick to my stomach and feeling like I was hit all over again when I think about having to give up my pets, and animals.

 

He's gone for the weekend, and his parting shot when he left is that he is going to move into an apartment, and when I'm out of here, he'll sell the house. Which is good, cos I can't stand to be in the same house with him.

 

I don't know where I am going to go, I'm scared to death, and thinking about it and how I am ever going to move is making me sick. I haven't eaten in two days cos it just comes back up again. I can't stop crying, and I think I'd be better off dead than having to face this pain of letting my pets go,and everytime I try to even write an ad to sell them it hits me again, and I feel like I can't do it, I just cannot go on.

 

I am so sick over all this. I can't believe he lied by omission for so many years. He actually had the nerve to say he thought I KNEW where he went was a strip club. I said yeah, right if I had KNOWN would I really have said "ok have fun".

 

I can't get over this, it keeps replaying in my mind all the years over and over and over.

 

I'm just ill over this... and I have a health problem that is going to end up killing me without my meds, which I cannot afford right now... I think I might be better off dead, let him deal with the sales of everything.

 

I can't do it... I can't go on. How DO you cope when it's too much all at once?

[soheartbroken]

Educate yourself (books, internet, and check the "separation and divorce" LoveShack forum). Get a counselor ASAP. Look for a divorce/separation support group in your area. You will probably need a lawyer/legal aid soon too. You probably have rights as a cohabiting couple.

 

Can you move in with a friend or a family member?

 

Not eating, not sleeping, and suicidal thoughts are par for the course. Talk to a counselor ASAP, and keep posting.

[BW007]

He is imploding and it should not make you give up hope and be suicidal..

First, talk to a lawyer about common law marriage in your state because you were in a defacto marriage. Don't focus on the loss of your pets, you may have to sell the exotics for survival, and sorry but you are more important to take care of right now and that is something that can be rebuilt. Is this guy determined to screw you over? Could he be persuaded to come to some sort of separation agreement to divide some assets of the relationship, even though they are in his name? Moving elsewhere is not the end of your life. It is a new page. Do you have any support systems besides this failing one? Family and friends could be important right now. Talk to them.

Change is a bitch sometimes but you have to sometimes. You will be ok.

[It'sTooLate]

There's no common law in this state at all. I had checked before because I was once covered under his health insurance until they decided you had to be legally married, or same sex domestic partnerships to be covered.

 

I have no friends here. Sad but true fact, this is the first time in my life I've lived somewhere where I never made friends, there's not one friendly person around. My family (grown kids) live on the other side of the country where I moved from. And I hate bothering them with the fact that hey guess what girls, your mom really is a wreck this time. They have their own lives and can't really be bothered, and they just say what they think might help, but I can hear it in their voices that they don't want me coming there to them for help.

 

For all of two hours today I actually did kind of feel excited about taking on a new challenge in a new place, but then reality hit. Where will I go and how will I get there, and it just hit me big time again a bit ago, went outside and stood in the rain and screamed.

 

I've thrown a ton of stuff away, I freecycled a bunch of stuff, even things I didn't think I could live without...gone now. I just keep finding reminders that I thought we were happy... that I thought he was different. I thought he loved me. I think he did, till he started hitting the bottle heavy, spending hundreds every night at the strip club supporting the girls there and not supporting me emotionally when I needed him most.

 

And the thing I keep screaming to the sky is WHY? WHY WHY WHY? I don't get it, and that is killing me.

 

We live too far away to go to any counseling or Al-Anon meetings (I had looked for them before thinking maybe Al-Anon could help.) I can't find any free or cheap counselors, I just can't deal with any of this, and each time I try to even THINK about it, I freak out.

 

I don't remember it ever hurting this much before going thru a breakup, but then again I didn't have 15 yrs invested in a relationship before either.

[soheartbroken]

What about educating yourself? Books on divorce/separation, and living with an alcoholic? What about going to a legal aid clinic just to confirm that you are entitled to nothing?

 

I'm not going to tell you that you're better off without him etc. Because the more immediate issue is you needing support. What about a church? Perhaps you need to move right away to a place where you can get free counseling and a job...a job with health benefits. OR, if you can't work due to the disability, then get the application process under way. Once you are on disability will it cover your meds?

 

There seems to be so much going on with you right now. Tell me what your priority is right now? Is it moving? If you have no friends or support in the city you are in right now, then you are free to move somewhere where you can get support, disability benefits etc.

[Violetta]

It seems to me that turning to your kids for help is a step forward that you should not rule out.

Of course they would rather you were not in such a fix , but when they know how hard it is for you now, I woud have thought that out of their natural affection for you they will lend a helping hand. You have been in this relationship for 15 years. It is not as if you are turning to them to bail you out of a different relationship every 6 months.