stuck
I am stuck in a place with a new boyfriend. I have been quite the successful nomad in life, and came out here to take a month long work gig and to give the relationship a try on his turf, and to see how he lives when not on vacation, where I met him. I always knew when I came out, that I had an “out” at the end of the month long gig, and could leave and give some space to whatever I found with him. I could leave and not have to be with him if his behavior did not prove to be something I could live with or any other reason.
I knew he had a problem with alcohol before coming out, or at least that he was quite the consumer and that I am not. During our time living apart for the second half of 2019 after our first steamy month together when both on vacation, he went through some pre-come to Jesus moments, and told me he had not been drinking or smoking, everything under control. As time has passed and I have been here, and then Coronavirus was here too- and lockdown set in; along with some of the realities of moving past honeymoon phase, I am seeing how I yet again have put someone to the test whom I pretty much knew would fail.
My summer job will most likely not happen, and my April trip to work in my hometown across the country is not happening. I have no home except where the heart is, and now I am stuck. In heart and mind, and also physically.
Now I face a smelly man, a smelly apartment (alcohol and cigarette smell), a sense of fear for my future, and the disappointment. Like clockwork the addiction pattern and denial has arrived, though it was nowhere around for the first month I was here, and there seemed no specter of it. Micro abuses accompany the predicted pattern, nothing too bad, and I mean that, as he is a good person. This is a good lesson to see that I can’t just “try on” a dangerous situation and see if I can maybe come out ahead. It’s like my addiction- oh I can take this drug a time or two and can leave it behind.. I know the pattern of alcohol abuse, as my dad went from just beers when I was a child, to later in life a maximum abuser, almost to his death. Now he is in a care facility because he burnt all of his bridges multiple times, is dysfunctional on his own, and the alcohol induced dementia makes its presence increasingly known. I am a hot mess, confused at what I want. I think I may be trying to squeeze gold from aluminum with him, trying even now that I write and seek help, to rationalize and stay and think it will be ok. In truth I just don’t know yet. Maybe the relationship will be ok, but I must know that I am not the decider on whether he seeks treatment or his own steely abstinence. I can only control myself. So, giddyup to that. Please help.