My partner is a crystal meth addict. Today is day three of his recovery. We’ve been together for nine years and it feels like we’ve done day three a million times. He gets into this cycle where he just disappears for 2 – 4 consecutive days/nights (he never uses in the house or brings drugs/paraphernalia home) and goes completely off the radar, as in phone off, no contact at all. He usually takes our car, so I’m left without any form of transport, and has at times left me without any access to cash, so I’ve had to rely on friends to buy food to feed our 2yo. Then, he resurfaces, and for the first week he mostly sleeps (so I’m still left raising our daughter alone) and when he is awake he seems to look for things to take digs at me and pick fights over. For the second week he starts to slowly get back to a normal functioning state and we start to live like a normal family again, but somewhere between days 10 and 14 he will disappear again and so the cycle begins again. We’ve been in and out of this cycle in various forms for nine years now. This week I gave him an ultimatum (again) and he seems to be serious about recovering – reading up on his addiction, watching videos of recovered addicts and talking about it. I even made a kind of calendar/timeline of what to expect for him so that he can cross off the days as he goes and see what stage he is at (withdrawals/the honeymoon/the wall, etc). I think this might genuinely be the last time I can do this (especially with our little girl growing up so quickly, I don’t want her to grow up thinking this is normal), but three days in I feel physically, mentally and emotionally drained by it already and we just have so far to go yet. The hardest part for me is that he genuinely doesn’t seem to see how I am affected by his addiction or understand what I go through. Some days I feel so anxious (even when he is around) that I’m unable to do the most basic of things and end up sitting staring at the carpet for goodness know how long, until I can figure out how to get up and do something else. I feel like I’m just in survival mode and only able to function at the lowest level, doing things that absolutely must be done. Some days that means just looking after my little girl (I always have the energy for that) and nothing else, but I know that she isn’t getting the best of me while I’m like this. And everything else goes by the wayside which just gives him more things to get stuck into me over. I honestly don’t even know that I’m doing the right thing anymore. Tonight I just feel like packing my baby and our things into the car and doing a midnight runner but I wouldn’t give his recovery much of a chance by doing that. Am I giving myself too much credit by saying that? Is what I’m feeling really an instinct or is it just exhaustion speaking? Am I doing wrong by my baby by staying? I want her to have her daddy but not at any cost and I feel like it is taking more of me than I actually have. His lack of understanding makes me feel crazy and question whether I am actually useless and whether the decisions I'm making are worthy of my beautiful little girl. I go back and forth and round and round in my head until I'm utterly exhausted and end up just feeling frozen and stuck with indecision. I do love him and when things are good I quickly go back to wanting to keep him happy even if that means not talking about the things that I know need to be talked about. I hope this time is going to be different but I'm feeling so weak and alone right now.
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