Living With an Addict - Part 1

This is my story... a story that is in the past, but will forever be the reason I am the person I am today.  I do not regret or want to change my life where it was at this time.  It was scary and horrifying at times, but it made me a stronger person and for that I am grateful.  . 

Living With an Addict - Part 1

Waking up every night and finding your husband has disappeared again can feel awful. 

I am not sure when this behavior began during our marriage, but I do know when it ended.  It was a day from hell and it took a long time after that day to move on with my life. 

My husband was addicted to illegal and legal drugs.  He used Meth, Heroin, Cocaine, Oxycontin, Lora-tabs and to top it all off just for fun, Marijuana.  I am sure he used other ones as well, but those are the only ones he admitted to or that I caught him with.

We got married in September 1998.  I was only twenty-one and so VERY naive. 

This was his second marriage.

He had two children with his first wife, but he did not see them any more.  He had chosen to give up his rights to them.  He gave me every song and dance about why he had done it and I believed him.  It was not until later I found out the truth.

Our first year of marriage was easy.  I was so in love and he made me feel protected.  However, life with him began to get complicated and scary. 

I remember one night a couple of months into our marriage when his behavior changed.  He kept receiving phone calls from “some guy” he knew and I went to grab his phone to tell the “guy” to stop calling. 

He freaked out.  It was so unlike him.  I was not scared, but I felt like something was very wrong at that moment.  He did what he did best and smoothed it over with me.  He was an excellent sales man and I being so naive fell for all his stories.  Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe there was something going on. 

Some times I really think the latter was true.

One day during our first year of marriage, I noticed him placing something small up above the cupboards.  It gave me chills when I saw it, so I waited until he was gone and I took a look at what he was hiding.  It turned out to be cocaine.  I did not know what it was when I first saw it, but I knew a friend who would know.  She is the one who told me what it was.  I was worried at that point.  What to do?  I was pregnant and only married for a short time.  You would think everything would be going along so smoothly. 

My blissful marriage was slowly turning into a lie.

I confronted him about the drugs.  He had a story to tell me.  Something about taking them from a friend and keeping them away from him.  I knew it sounded fishy, but I chose to believe him. 

These two incidents happened in the first 9 months of our marriage.  He also started disappearing 1-2 times a week in the middle of the night.  I am not sure how far into the marriage I began to notice his disappearances, but I do know they scared me. 

He would always have an excuse... heard a noise outside and decided to follow it, a friend had a flat tire, he could not sleep so he took a walk, etc. etc. etc. 

I listened to them all and not wanting to argue I let him feed me full of these lies.  I wanted the perfect marriage and if by ignoring his faults would get me that, well... I was willing and ready.  I mean, how bad could it really be. 

Those crazy stories only happen in the movies, right?!?!?

Some time during the summer before our first anniversary we bought a house.  I was so happy.  It was 3400 square feet and all the room I felt I needed. 

We had to come up with ten grand to get it... do you think we had that lying around?  HAHAHA!  Nope.  Some how he was able to get it.  He said he made extra big sales with his business.  I believed him!  I wanted that house so bad.  I did not care how he got the money as long as I got my house. 

I was so naive and blissfully stupid.  The joke was on me, entirely. 

After we got the house, life just blew up in my face.

We had given birth to a beautiful red headed girl, who was our pride and joy.  We bought this fabulous house where she could grow up in and have security and happiness.  Boy was I fooled.  Life became an absolute mess!

He began disappearing 4-6 times a week during the middle of the night.  When it first started getting this bad I would wake up scared and ticked off.  I would storm downstairs to make sure he was really gone (which was 99% of the case) and I would then call him on his cell phone.  Some times he would answer and once again feed me full of baloney and other times he would completely ignore me. 

On top of all this, he began bringing around strange people.  He claimed they were working with him, but I found that extremely odd when I would find them in our house in the middle of the night as well. 

I cannot describe how worried, frightened and lost I felt.  I did not tell anyone what was going on.  I did not want anyone to think our marriage was a sham.  I wanted the perfect marriage, but I was quickly losing the battle.

The first time I caught him with drugs was when he was smoking marijuana with one of these strange guys he worked with.  I was over the top angry.  I did not care it was only marijuana.  It did not matter what drug it was.  He was doing drugs on our property with a baby in the house.  It made me sick to think about.  What else was he lying to me about? 

I felt like an idiot for believing his lies.

Just on a side note, my ex-husband was self-employed.  He owned an online business where he built personal/business websites.  He was really good at it and was an excellent sales man.  He had a lot of great customers and I enjoyed being a part of it.  His customers were always very nice to me, even after he conned them out of their money. 

They called me when they found out their websites were not being constructed.  I did not have an answer for them. I did not know he WAS NOT building them.  I felt like someone had just pulled the rug out from underneath me. 

We had USED their money. 

We had taken our commission and then we had USED the rest to BUILD the websites. 

Where was all this money?  What was I supposed to do? 

He never told the truth.  I could not trust my own husband and I definitely could not trust all these strange folks who seemed to think they owned my house!

So, why did he need all these out of the ordinary people to work with him?  Ding ding ding... they did not work with him.  They did drugs with him and stole and conned with him. 

It was all just one big lie.

Well, I don’t want to make this into a novel.  I really just want to get my story out there.  It was a bitter sweet experience and I am grateful I went through it.  I am even more grateful I made it through it! 

Life just got worse and worse.  The marijuana was just the beginning.  It quickly went really, really bad from there.

To be continued....