Need advice boyfriend sober a year now and needs time apart

**twilightstar** · 02-01-2010 12:05 AM

can someone please give me advice,to cut a long story short ive been with my fiance for 10 yrs in those yrs he was drinking on and off and i supported him as best as i could i always kept telling him that he would get there in the end and one time he was very sick in ICU. Anyway thank god he came good a year ago and has been going to AA meeting everyday since sometimes 2 a day and he looks great now, but last week he told me that for the passed 10 yrs he has been helped along by me and this parents,(he lives at home in his parents and sometimes with me only reason he didnt live with me was i put my foot down and said utill he gave up drinking i couldnt live with him and he was 100% fine with that),and up untill Christmas things where great I was talking to him about the possibility now of him moving in with me,but he said to me Monday last that he needs time to himself now to take responsibility for himself i.e. paying his own rent,food,bills. He said at the minute his head is all over the place that he loves me but feels at the minute he is not in love with me, I am since heart broking Im staying at his parents house for a couple of weeks at minute cause my home was flooding.I did ask him was there someone else he met and he said no. I just dont understand how he could suddenly turn like this i said to him that he hasnt been on a proper programe cause he has been with his sponcer now for must be 6 months and are not meeting up enough and he said as soon as his sponcer is back for holiday they are knuckling down to it. I need your advice please im heart broken.

**CHANDLERS WISH** · 02-01-2010 12:47 AM

Welcome to the Forum

How did you feel, being engaged, and spending 10 years with a man, in hope that things would eventuate and you would marry this man?

That must have been very hard, but also that's a long time to hope isn't it?

I am sure you supported him, emotionally but also you segregated him by telling him that he would not, could not ever live with you until he kicked it.

Alcoholics "don't" kick it. They do get to a stage whereby the are sober, but they can fall at any time. He knows this from AAA meetings. Therefore, he knows that if he lived with you and he fell, you would kick him out.

10 years is a long time, but it's also a time that he is reflecting on what he wants and I guess he wants someone whom can understand Alcholics and that they can fail and that he will fail if he even thinks about moving in with you, thereby his comments, because you will kick him out and he will end up with a drink and back to square one.

May I suggest you attend a few AAA meeting for the other half, the one that has held people's hands through this and see what they have gone through and how they can assist their partner.

This is about your "non" understanding and only what you would like out of it, .. and his fear.

CW

**newhere808** · 02-01-2010 01:13 AM

There may also be an outside chance that he feels that your being there for him through his alchoholism for so long has defined your relationship with eachother, and he wants to be sure that your connection to eachother is based on more than that.

I think CW's suggestion of going to one of his meetings is a great one, and perhaps even meeting his sponsor with him.