SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Oh dear...

Tay, this one tugs at my heart. My mom was a bad alcoholic for a lot of years. By the grace of her higher power and AA, she celebrated 7 years sober this past January. But here's what I learned in dealing with my own addict for a lot of years.

1. Nothing. NOTHING. N-O-T-H-I-N-G you do or say will make her quit. Her son won't. You won't. Addicts don't quit until they are ready to quit. And the sad reality is that for some that means they don't quit until they are dead.

2. It is NOT your responsibility to 'get her sober' or to monitor her, or to do for her. And all you are doing is hurting yourself if you try.

3. It is so hard to do, but from my experience; my life did not improve with my addict until I said 'when'. My mom's last night of drinking I told her simply that she could drink, or she could have a relationship with me, but she couldn't do both. But here's the sticky part of that - you have to MEAN it. For those of us that love addicts, we too must hit our 'bottom'. You have to get to the point where putting up with it any longer is intolerable.

4. IMHO, her cheating and generally poor boundaries, indeed her drinking too, are all symptoms of her underlying mental illnesses. It's heart-breaking and so hard, but you can't fix her. She needs to be under the care of a competent mental health professional. And more importantly, she has to have the desire to fix herself. If she doesn't then she's white-knuckling and that will only end in tears for you and your son.

5. I would highly recommend you get yourself into IC and also consider joining alanon. For me, I felt so crazy from dealing with my mom's alcoholism. It helped me a lot to know that I wasn't crazy and that a lot of what I was dealing with and feeling was 'normal'. The biggest thing is to know that you didn't cause it, you cannot control it, and you can't change it. Only she can do all those things. And I recognize so much of how I used to be in your writing. Please consider doing some IC/reading about codependency. Your son needs one healthy parent!

6. IMHO, marriage to her now (or really ever tbh) would be ill-advised. And if you do decide to go that route, I would highly recommend an iron-clad prenup.

7. After my turn on the shit merry-go-round of infidelity, if there's one thing I wish I could go back and change it would have been to go absolutely nuclear on him the day after dday. Blow it up to the whole family, kick him out, insist on him meeting conditions for R. I did none of that. I played the pickme123 for months. And then had a second dday. Stand firm on what YOU need and want from her. If she can't or will not meet those requirements, then R is just not possible.

Please know that her cheating has nothing to do with you. Her drinking problem has nothing to do with you. Her FOO and her various dysfunctions have nothing to do with you. Those are her issues alone. Please take care of YOU and your son.

So yes they are crazy and her therapy is primarily based around getting her over her psychotic relationship with her parents before she starts formal therapy. Again, just leaving her in the best setting so that she can possibly be a responsible human being. She clearly has mental issues. I denied it for a long time because I thought it was just a side effect from being in the ICU. Like there is something mixed up in her mind and this type of therapy is directed at that so I am glad I’ve made the choice to support her at the moment. It can only improve my life if she can learn to be an adult and to distance herself from her mother. Taking these steps: staying in contact with lawyer, breathalyzing her at random, she voluntarily signed up for a polygraph test, and she is voluntarily taking an STD test. She is also going to let

me run message recovery on her phone because she wants me to know it really was just a stupid medication/ alcohol induced text that meant nothing. I mean if there was an affair there will be evidence on there. So if she passes std check, polygraph, deleted data search, gets sober and makes a real change then all I know is she was an alcoholic that fixed herself and all she did was send a medication induced nonsense message. I mean it is a disease and if all this turns out to be and she passes all the above (no I dont want to police her but she is doing these things voluntarily) then is it really worth not giving it a few weeks? She has only gone into work for a couple hours a week and intends to do so for the foreseeable future. I mean its just going to be hard NOT to believe her after going through all the above. And then it is just a mental disability that she is getting cured and I’m not sure

I should go full custody until she really has a shot.

Has anyone ever gotten a result and it was denied by the WS

There is at least one that I can recall but I don't remember their name.

It has been more likely that a "parking lot" confession has happened.

That's where the one who is about to get the test confesses more just before the test is administered.

Tay it sounds to me like you are still trying to organize the rodeo here. The point I am trying to make is that you need to care for yourself. You need to care for yourself so much that what she does or doesn't do doesn't matter.

Look man I get it. Loving an addict is so so SO hard. But you have got to separate from the outcome. Because spoiler alert - you have zero control over that part.

Mental exercise for you.

So let's say she does all these things and is 'cured'. And then decides she doesn't need her medication anymore (which a LOT of bipolar people do). And then has another of these 'sex message random guys cus mental illness'. And by that point you're married to her so she owns half your shit, and your child is old enough to be seriously affected by it.

Bottom line is that dealing with mental illness and addiction is not something that can be cured. It an be managed. And that management is a daily thing and will be a daily thing every day forever. But that management has GOT to be her responsibility, not yours.

Tay, I do think you should give it a little time as long as she's behaving, her phone comes back clean, and she passes the polygraph. I doubt that will happen but I hope it does. Too many coincidences. Too many drunken late nights. But postpone the wedding indefinitely. You need to see YEARS of good behavior before putting marriage back on the table. It takes years to R and there's no point in entangling your life with her further when you're still working through this.

Trust me I don’t plan on marrying for awhile. Regardless of addiction the amount of lying has definitely changed my view of her. We actually started to present ourselves as married earlier this year and she got me a ring in March. Definitely not wearing it anymore. She is aware we might not he together after all this and that the goal is for her to get better right now. We are focused on being friends right now.

We are focused on being friends right now.

Oh..for..gawd's..sake…

Again, in order not to be a single unemployed father with no support system who tells his son he can’t see mommy anymore when she is putting in the effort to change doesn’t seem like the right call. Yes she has done awful things to me. Yes she is an addict and mentally disturbed. Yes I don’t think I see a future for us. But I owe it to my son to give it my best shot for him to have a mother and she knows I’m the best person to support her right now. I don’t mind pretending friendly for a few weeks to see if that can happen. I think it will be better for my son if we are friends or atleast he knows I tried.

You have to do what you think is right for you and your son. Be vigilant. I hope for your sake and your son’s sake she can get help with her addictions. Be vigilant. I think you have been given good advice and you know the risks.

Support brother.

Buffer

Again, in order not to be a single unemployed father with no support system

This, TAY, is what you need to address immediately.

Yes, I understand your rationale to watch your partner's actions over the next few weeks. I believe that EllieKMAS has explained perfectly that this is on your girlfriend's shoulders to work through her issues. Your 'helping' her needs to be nothing more than standing back and letting her do the work. Your girlfriend needs to know....and I mean really KNOW....that no matter her progress, you may not be there in the end. If she is trying to get better for any other than reason than her wanting to get healthy FOR HERSELF, she will fail. And even with her best efforts, there are often setbacks along the way.

But right now, you are fully dependent upon her income. You have no support system in place for you or your son. It is an unstable, unhealthy dynamic to continue along. And the lockdown only makes things exponentially more difficult. But it doesn't stop you from actively working on a financial solution. It is just too precarious for you and your son right now.

Get. A. Job!!!

I re read your thread and not once that I saw did you mention her saying that she actually loves you and wants you and no one else.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t move on even if she did.

But does she say anything about how she feels about you? Even selfishly does she say she loves you and you’re the one she wants to be with for the rest of her life? That’s the very least she could say. If she were truly remorseful she’d be worried more about the pain she has caused you than her own.

I understand why you are doing what you are doing in order to be able to coparent with her.

I was just wondering if you haven’t just mentioned what she says to you or if she truly doesn’t tell you anything about her feelings for you.

Thanks.

I've no problem with what you're doing TAY. I understand your thought process. I would recommend that you continue to protect yourself legally, financially, and physically. Hold your ground when it comes to your requirements of her. Don't allow any relaxing of the standards that you've set for her. Work out your strategy in advance of her faltering and/or going back on her word. Go over your options and determine which one is best for your and your son's futures. Fully prepare yourself in advance for a life without her so if she does retract, you have a clear and concise list of actions to take in order to get away from the drama and make a smooth transition to freedom.

I wish the best for you. Take care of yourself.

I am unemployed because I was working a crappy dangerous job for little pay that Im massively overqualified for and my fiancé who has no degree was making 6-7 times as much as I was and one of us needed to stay home with our son when the pandemic shut schools down. Wasn’t really a choice. We got him in a new school for the summer though as of this week and I have been actively looking for something for awhile. Job market is just tough because I was a stay at home Dad for a year and a half and Ive been having trouble getting my career back on track. I have financially supported us for 7 years up until her promotion earlier this year.

Steves-N. Yes she says she is in love with me and only me, wants to spend the rest of her life with me, she is very sorry for what she has done but there was nothing further and she will do anything to be with me. I do not doubt that she wants to be with me. Our relationship is great when its not bad. We have a similar sense of humor and can always make each other laugh. The more I think about it almost every single thing that has been an obstacle in our relationship, every vacation ruined, almost every argument, all the madness was related to drinking or her mother. My parents dont really drink so I always pawned it off as some kind of vitamin deficiency or side effect of all her mold stabilizers or something that turned her crazy when she drank. I don’t know its been a crazy 7 years.

Also the more I read the more I understand this really stems

from her childhood. I know that I cant fix her and have been listening to codependency no more podcast. But she is putting in the work to heal her brain from something her parents broke in it long ago and she acknowledges that now and I want to break the cycle of growing up in chaos for my son.

I mean suppose your SO develops some deadly disease (and this is a disease) and you just take off on them. If shes willing to heal herself I am willing to atleast be her friend.

And by the way. My father has offered to support me temporarily incase I need to take full custody, get a lawyer ect. and just doesn’t want me to take any dangerous jobs right now so it really has nothing to do with the money. He is aware of everything and is very supportive of her getting treatment. He says she really does want to be with me. He grew up in an alcoholic family and knows several recovered.

Side note: He was also at the anniversary party that she got trashed at with the family friend and had driven to her parents behind them before that all happened and they hit a deer. That is what she claims the “cuddles” were about and she was just upset. Everyone was fine. It wasnt a big deal but she called me freaking out. Thats how I know where my son actually was because her parents claimed they took him home and my Dad said that wasnt true and be stayed there. I know this too because I remember asking if my son was in the wreck.

I digress- Its more that I don’t have a support system where we live, would likely have to my child across the country, and try to restart my life while taking care of a toddler 24/7. She is a good mother when she is not drinking and her living here is just where she is happiest. I have no need for her money.

I mean suppose your SO develops some deadly disease (and this is a disease) and you just take off on them. If shes willing to heal herself I am willing to atleast be her friend.

If that disease causes my SO to endanger themselves and others with impaired driving, act cruel and abusively towards me, endanger the stability of my child's home, behave badly in front of my child, and endanger me by exposing me to STDs, then yes I would take off. This is not comparable to something like cancer and if cancer did cause someone's partner to cheat, abuse, and create a dysfunctional home life for their children, I wouldn't blame them for protecting themselves and their family any way they had to either.

Fair point. I mean as far as not giving her a chance to fix herself instead of kicking her out and filing for sole custody immediately. Although our relationship may never be fixed she may be able to fix herself as a parent if she works on her disease.