Having alot of trouble not pulling the trigger right now…

I know I’ve lost perspective. I’m in so much pain. I feel so hopeless and alone that I thought I might try posting the Reader’s Digest version of my story. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just want to stop hurting.

I met my ex-girlfriend 5 years ago. We instantly started falling for each other. We both tried to fight it. But neither of us was able to. She said I was everything she wanted that she never even knew she was looking for. I told her that being with her made me so happy that I had difficulty thinking about anything but her. But I had alot of difficulty trusting her because even though I felt ecstatic whenever I was with her, I never felt safe. She was incredibly nice to everyone, but also incredibly passive. I told my best friend that it felt like if I just spontaneously combusted one day, and she was standing next to one of those fire extinguisher boxes where you just need to break the glass first to get to it, that she would be the first person to start crying because she felt so badly for me that I was on fire, but that she would never be the one to break the glass and put me out. I had just been through a really bad breakup the year before after I found out that my previous girlfriend was cheating on me, and I figure I was just scared to risk my broken heart again. So it took me just over 3 years, but eventually I finally did trust that she wouldn’t betray me too. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but neither was I. Most importantly though, she made me happy. So once I did trust her, I soon found myself repeatedly considering what I would say to her when I would ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. And that’s when she left me for someone else. And my heart ripped apart. And my mind shattered.

After I got to know her, I soon discovered that her life was a mess. Eventually I realized she was an alcoholic. She was making money here and there, but was always on the verge of being broke or homeless, and drinking at least two bottles of wine a night. I was doing better than her financially, but I wasn’t really making much money either. Still, I stuck with her and also helped her out financially as much as I could. Eventually she agreed to get help. She got sober, had some relapses, but eventually got a stable job and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous.

That’s where she met the guy she left me for. I knew that she was frustrated that she hadn’t been able to find a better paying job, and was also disappointed by the fact that I hadn’t proposed yet. She had moved back in with her parents to save money, but hated it. It was a long distance relationship, and the distance part was hard on both of us, but especially her. She wanted me to move her out to where I live and start her own business. The cost of living where I’m from is much higher than where she lived though. Still, I kept trying to save up enough money so that she could do so. But instead my savings kept going into trying to keep her afloat. Although I was open with her about battling my trust issues that were left over from my previous relationship, I was embarrassed that I didn’t feel financially secure enough to move her out here, much less get married. So I didn’t tell her how precarious my own financial situation was.

We had been together for over 2 years and she had been sober for just over a year. The other guy recently started A.A. because he had just lost his job due to his drinking. Still, he had a house and two cars. Sick of living with her parents, she struck a bargain to both get a room from this guy and use of one of his cars for free in exchange for helping him get sober. Like his own private in-patient rehab. When she told me that I got a bad feeling, but just chalked it up to my old trust demons. A month after she moved in I flew out to see her and she told me that she had hit her limit of being in a long distance relationship. So I told her the truth that I simply didn’t have enough money to pull it off by myself yet, and that the only way it was possible is if she could help bear the costs. Understandably, she was upset that I had been hiding my true finances, but when I left we were happy. That’s when I finally felt I could count on her in both bad times and good. A few weeks later she told me that she could no longer trust me and dumped me over the phone. A few weeks after that, she was engaged to the guy she had met in A.A.

I fell apart, and my life with it. The pain was so intense I started having trouble reading. So I couldn’t do my job and lost that too. My family had to support me. I tried to respect her wishes and leave her alone. But a couple times I wrote or called her trying to apologize and seeking to understand how she could go in such a short time from wanting to marry me to wanting to marry him. She almost never responded. I felt like I had caused all of it. She basically told me that I had. I couldn’t stop hurting. I couldn’t stop crying. I was scared to sleep because I had constant nightmares. I started seeing a therapist, but was still imminently suicidal for 6 months. I own a rifle, and a couple times when I was by myself I came very close to putting a bullet through my brain.

Then on New Year’s Eve I was asleep when I was awoken by the sound of fireworks. New Year’s eve is not a good time to have a broken heart and be conscious. Still half-asleep, I ran and grabbed my rifle with the intention of using the fireworks to cover the gunshot and finally end my misery. The only reason I stopped was that I didn’t want to do it with my family right there so I took a bunch of sleeping pills and knocked myself out. The next day I realized I had made up my mind. So I set a date to kill myself and started cleaning up my life so it would be less of a burden on everyone. This was, literally, my deadline. Because I now finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel, I was better able to function.

Over the next year, her relationship with the A.A. guy soured. Turns out he had told her that he was going to bankroll her business and buy her a car as well. But in actuality, he was nearly broke himself. Not only did he lie about his finances, but his sobriety as well. He kept drinking, blamed her for not keeping him sober, and started physically abusing her. She started drinking again and eventually lost her job as well. After she finally had him arrested for domestic violence and left him, she called me and I found all this out. That was in June. She said she was staying on her old roommate’s couch, had made a mistake, realized that she still loved me, and wanted to see me. I still had enough money left to fly out to see her so I did. In the weeks between her leaving him and me flying out there she had decided to go back to him and started working to get the cops to drop the charges.

The few days I spent with her I noticed she was drinking heavily. Nothing happened between us. After unsuccessfully trying to convince her that we should get back together, I tried to tell her that even if she didn’t want to be with me that she still shouldn’t be with someone who beats her. When I saw her fighting so hard to be with a lying, physically abusive, drunk when she barely fought to be with me, I felt completely worthless. The only silver lining was that I finally knew alot of the truth. So I was finally able to understand that not only was she an alcoholic, but co-dependent, and that this sort of behavior was unfortunately common in these situations. So it didn’t feel quite so personal as it did before. When my deadline finally arrived in November, I ultimately decided not to commit suicide, but I was still in alot of pain and it was a close call.

For those of you  in A.A. wondering about whether you should tell someone about infidelity when making amends (the 9th Step)… I will tell you that what hurt the most was her initial refusal to tell me the truth. If she had told me the truth from the beginning I still would have been devastated, but I don’t believe I would’ve gotten to the point of wanting to commit suicide. It really hurts for the person you love to show you that you have less worth to them than someone else. But its infinitely worse for that person to show you that you aren’t even worth words. If you truly love someone, you should respect them enough to give them an informed choice. That’s why I don’t blame her for dumping me when she realized I had been hiding that I didn’t make very much money.

She knew I was planning on killing myself on a specific date, but I had kept the actual date secret because I didn’t want her to lie to me just to keep me from ending it when my deadline approached. She made me promise that I would call her when that date arrived though. In November it did, and I told her that I had decided not to go through with it. She had said that she had recently left the A.A. guy and had just moved back in with her old roommate again and had gotten a dog to make her feel better. She was still drinking, but was working on getting her life back on track. The conversation was relatively short and light. We talked a little about the possibility of getting back together.

A few weeks later I found out that her plan to get her life back on track was by working as a hooker. I crashed again. I immediately called her and she confirmed it. I told her that even though I loved her, there’s no way I could have a relationship with her if she was going to be screwing other guys. She might as well pull the trigger herself. It was either me or being a hooker. Without pause she chose being a hooker.

Everybody (and I mean everybody) tells me that she did me a favor by dumping me and that I dodged a bullet by not marrying her. But I really loved this girl with all my heart and it hurts so bad to know that my love literally had a price tag on it. In the end, I think I confused the feeling of being loved, with actually being loved. Because I can’t understand how one person can actually love another person, but still put them through such hell with apparently so little remorse. Now my trust issues are worse. But I’ve been trying to move on. I’m still extremely unhappy, but I thought this was going to be the first month in 2 years when I wasn’t struggling to find a reason to not kill myself. But the pain never stops! I just want the pain to stop.

Tonight I was really missing what we used to have and just got overwhelmed knowing that she would not only rather be with a drunk that beats her, but even random guys who treat her as nothing more than a living inflatable sex-doll. I know my life is screwed up right now… but good lord, how awful a person am I that out of those options, I’m the worst choice ?!?!

Anyway, I’ll either blow my brains out or I won’t. I just wanted to give this a try.