Feels like abuse cycles, but doesn’t look like abuse? Help!

[Suspicious1]

I used to visit here regularly around two to three years ago as my husband digitally stalked me, and I got lots and lots of help from the forum. We’re now divorced, and for the past year I’ve been living with my new partner.

I met my current partner through online dating. He’s very different from my ex husband – respects my independence and privacy, supports me in what I want to do, isn’t at all controlling etc. However…

When we met, he told me he had been a cocaine addict in the past, but had gone to rehab and had stopped using around six months previously. I have never taken drugs so I don’t know what cocaine is like or what affect it has on behaviour, apart from what I can pick up about it from information online. He told me he had moved on from that life, so I didn’t pay much attention.

A few months into the relationship, he disappeared for [detail removed by moderator]. When he turned up, he said he’d “relapsed” and that it was part of the recovery process. He said it sometimes happened. He said that since he went to rehab he hadn’t had a regular Dealer and refused to get one as that would be admitting defeat. Therefore when he relapsed, he had to find a source of the drug elsewhere. He would go to a phonebox in London to find a prostitute’s card, and call her to ask if she had any drugs. He said they always did, no matter who he called. She would then give him her address, where she would arrange a delivery of cocaine. He wouldn’t have sex with her, he said, because cocaine made him impotent (I’ve looked this up and it does appear to be a side-effect of the drug, so I hope I’m not being naive in believing him) but they might do other stuff that didn’t involve intercourse. He said the two things – drugs and sexual aspect – enhanced each other, but that his main focus was the drugs. He’d tell himself he could just have one or two lines, but as soon as he touched it he had no choice but to keep going till the money ran out and he was asked to leave.

I suppose the question of whether or not this is abusive behaviour in itself depends on whether you think drug addiction is a free choice or a disease, and that’s an ongoing debate. Other than hating the fact that it leaves us in tricky financial situations and that I feel it’s a betrayal of trust, there are these things about it that mimic abuse cycles:

– it’s cyclical. He binge-uses around every [detail removed by moderator] months. I can feel the tension building and then he cracks and goes missing for [detail removed by moderator]
– it happens often when I’m at my most vulnerable. He’s abandoned me during dates to go and use drugs, or when I’ve needed his support because me or people in my family have been ill.
– the financial impact means we sometimes struggle to pay back the amount he’s spent. He’s handed control of his bank accounts to me so he can’t spend all our money, but he always finds a way – using a credit card for example, or transferring money directly.
– in the days immediately after a binge, he’s like an angel – full of apologies, can’t do enough for me, sweet as anything, but then:
– he goes through immense mood swings in the months after a binge. He becomes paranoid, as if he’s a victim of life, suspicious that I might be treating my own children better than I treat his, and more sulky than I ever thought anyone could be. He comes home with a face like thunder, and crashes around doing housework as if he’s angry he has to do it himself. At those times I keep the children away because I don’t want him snapping at them. He gets impatient at me if I don’t know the answers to questions or if I haven’t done something I should have done. It’s like walking on eggshells.
– although he bashes around, slamming doors etc, he hasn’t been physical towards me, except the other week we had an argument about going on holiday, and he punched the sofa I was sitting on, inches away from where I was.
– the awful moods peak around four weeks after the binge, then dissipate until around week 10 when he is who I think of as the real him, or the person he’d be if he didn’t take drugs. He seems stable and happy and positive, good humoured, everything he isn’t in the recovery period. But then I know it’s just building up for another binge, and so far he’s cracked at around week 12 and off he goes again.

He’s trying to get better. He’s been on rehab programmes, gone to CA, had counselling, now has some very expensive psychologist he goes to regularly. He seems to want to beat it. And yet it beats him every time, and I have to deal with the fall out.

I can’t leave. I often want to leave, either when he’s away binging on drugs and prostitutes, or when he’s at home in a black mood. Both are intolerable. The problem is I have nowhere to go and no money to go with. I can’t rent a house as I haven’t had paid employment since my eldest was born [detail removed by moderator] years ago, and I can’t get on a council house list as I need to have lived in this area for at least three years to do so, and I only moved here [detail removed by moderator] months ago. My mother is terminally ill so I can’t go home to my parents, or burden them with my issues. I have two primary school aged children to care for.

I’ve told him I dislike his behaviour in between binges, and he listens and does try to improve. I have genuinely seen improvement in his behaviour. However we’re still living in these cycles and it’s shutting down trust and intimacy. I feel trapped.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

[Ayanna]

Hi Suspicious1! I want to be honest: the best thing for you to do is to get away from him.
He is a full blown drug addict and there is no beautification of the situation from my side.
He goes on rehab, but the rehab does not help… He has all possible help, but no success.
He is a danger to your children and he could be a danger to you. Maybe he will never become physical, maybe he will become physical when he has his cocaine next time. His fist was already close to you.
Well, of course he will do things with the prostitutes …
I need to be honest with you here too: you could catch HIV, because he does anything when he is on drugs and he will transmit that to you.
I do not want to scare you.
You need to speak to social services. If no other option, you need to go homeless into a B&B with your children.
I am sorry I cannot tell you anything positive.
Drug addiction is a big NO when children are around. Your responsibility as a mother must always come first.
What if the kids find drugs on him and try them one day? For many people one line of cocaine taken out of curiosity means addiction lifelong.
Please keep posting and keep talking to us.
You need to get away from him for your children’s and your own sake.
Big hugs! x*x

[Author]

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