Spiraling
I recently found out that my partner of six years has a secret heroin addiction. I found out because he left his 2 gram bag in my bathroom. I didn’t even know what it was at first. Im such a naive idiot, I thought it was candy - like a bag of fucking fundip. There was just no way it would be drugs or would be his. There’s no way. He’d never do that. I kept repeating this in my head over and over.
Turns out he would do that. And has been, longer than I’ve known him. The second I questioned it, he broke down and told me everything - although I did see him briefly look like he was going to deny it.
My brain started piecing it all together. The time I had surgery and he could just not wake up to bring me to the hospital, or take care of me after. The time I crashed my bike and was bleeding from the head and he wouldn’t answer his phone so a couple of strangers brought me home. All the times I thought he was bi polar, all the times I had to cover paying - all because he was using.
He’s almost 3 weeks clean now. Lots of energy. Lots of big ideas and wanting to go places and do things. Lots of wanting to make up for lost time…he has the energy I had when we met, that is long gone. My energy that he wasted.
In our lost time, I lived so much life. In our lost time my dad died. In our lost time I had major surgery twice. In our lost time I was working hard to save for a future together, while he was spending money (sometimes MY money) on heroin and I never knew.
I was working full time and picking up side gigs so we could buy a house. While he was spending money on heroin. And I. Never. Knew.
I don’t know how to proceed. I feel like I’m half asleep all the time. I can’t do my job. I’m dissociating constantly. I’m going through all the motions because I love him and I believe that he wants to be clean, and can be. But I’m pissed and frankly, I want my life back. I want the six wasted years back. I want my fucking money back. I want him to put all the money that he should have been saving with me for a house, into my fucking savings account and I couldn’t give a fuck less about going on a trip with someone who has been actively lying to me ABOUT A HEROIN ADDICTION for almost seven years. It honestly feels like he cheated on me the whole time we were together. I feel insane.
I don’t feel like I can tell him any of this because he is triggered easily right now, and I feel like I’m walking on egg shells. I asked him to go to couples counseling so that I could try to get some of this off my chest without him becoming defensive or triggered, and he rolled his eyes and said he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t see a point. My feelings don’t matter right now. The focus is his sobriety. The girlfriend doesn’t matter in these situations, and she’s often the scapegoat. If he relapses and OD’s, whose fault is it that she wasn’t willing to drug test him as a weekly part of their relationship? Why didn’t she make him go to NA? They lived together for a year, how did she not know this was going on? Why didn’t she know?? Why didn’t she do anything?? Why did she stay with him?? It’s always the girlfriend’s fault.
I look, and feel, like a fucking fool. And he did that to me.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I love him, but I’m so fucking angry. I love him, but the cognitive dissonance of loving him and wanting to charge forward full speed, and the anger and distrust I have for him now is driving me mad. I’ve been thinking about dying all week…not that I’d ever kill myself, just that dying seems a lot easier than holding these feelings.
I understand that I don’t understand addiction, and I carry a lot of stigma about heroin usage and opiates in general…but I feel like this man standing in front of me is a stranger to me and it’s unnerving.
This is long. I’m sorry. I’m spiraling.