You Stuck By Them Through Their Addiction, and Now They Decide To Leave You 😠🤬

So this situation came up in one of our groups recently. Somebody posted about how their boyfriend of, like, five years just up and left them for another girl, and now he's sober and they're together, and this person is left feeling like, what does she have that I don't have? Of course, it always, always hurts if somebody breaks up with you or leaves a relationship. Heck, it even hurts when someone breaks up with you if you didn't even like them. So it really digs in when someone that you've literally put up with all of their crap for giving a million times, stood by their side, had their back, fixed their problems. It is like a jab in the heart when this person leaves you, because not only does the loss hurt, but the pure rejection of it feels massive. So I want you to understand how and why that happens. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your family and your life back on track. Get back out there and live the life that you want to live. I want you to know you are not powerless. You do not have to hit rock bottom. And there are many things you can do to help an addicted loved one. If you want to be back in control of your life, subscribe to this channel, and I'll make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. The thing of it is this. Their addiction has been wanting to get rid of you for a long time because you're the one standing in the way between them and the addiction. Think I'm insulted? What? You can't. No, this isn't right. You can't do this now. In most cases, someone's addiction will trigger you to act crazy, be in the bad guy, roll, yell, scream, threaten, nag, throw out, ultimatums and all that kind of stuff. And while all that's happening, you've got the addiction over here, which solves all their problems, makes them feel wonderful, and then there's you, who. Who makes them feel terrible and crappy and is keeping them from what they really want. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm the good guy here. I know that is a completely unfair characterization. I'm just saying, looking at it through that lens, that's sort of the picture that they see. Not accurate, but it's what they see. But even if you watch all my videos and you work really hard not to be in the bad guy role, that person probably associates you with feeling Bad and guilty and shameful. They're projecting our own personal fears and anxieties the national stage people don't like. So just being around you prompts up all of those negative feelings of anger, resentment, hurt, shame, guilt, pressure. So sometimes when an addictive person leaves the relationship, it's just because their addiction has won. And they. And that addiction has wanted to push you out for a really long time. Because once you're out, it has complete control of this other person. Like, you're the last thing standing in the way. They want you out. You know that. And the other time when an addicted person will leave a relationship is when they've met someone else. Now, it can be one of two ways. It can be that this someone else is also addicted. And that meeting someone else thing can be a couple of different scenarios. Maybe that someone else also engages in whatever addictive behavior that your partner or spouse engages in. And so being around that person makes them feel less bad about it. In fact, makes them feel great about it. And now they have a using buddy. And totally not a fair competition, but it is what it is. But even in this situation that came from my group, where somebody leaves the relationship, gets with someone else, and then gets sober, I know it makes you really mad, because at least if they're gonna leave the relationship, I mean, you have that secret part of you that's like, well, I hope it's, like, terrible and crappy and you learn your lesson. But if they get sober and they're with this other person, that just really sucks, right? But the truth is, sometimes a new relationship is actually an addiction in and of itself. So instead of being like, what does this person have that I don't have? You really need to understand is that they've traded one addiction for another addiction. And you got to ask yourself, what's going to happen when the addictive part of that relationship wears off? Because eventually the newness and the novelty and the excitement is going to go away. And then that other person is also going to have frustrations and expectations of them at that point. A lot of times the pink cloud burst. And usually they're going to find themselves in the very same situation with the new person as they did with you. Some sort of grasses are always greener on the other side of the fence thing, because there's actually a pretty high chance that their other addiction is going to come back eventually. And when that addiction comes back, guess what that other person is going to do? They're going to respond to it exactly the same way you responded to it, because that's what anyone would do. It's a natural response to be upset, to try to get the person to stop. All of that is normal and natural. So as much as it hurts and as painful as it is, I want you to know, as far as they're concerned, the grass isn't greener. It may even look temporarily like they're having this. Happy, wonderful. They're living it up, they're doing everything they wanted to do. But I promise you, that won't last. And the biggest thing I want you to know, as painful as it is, kind of let you off the hook here because it's really hard for you to leave a relationship with the addictive person because you constantly feel guilty. You feel like, maybe I should have supported them more, maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe I should have been more positive about it. Because you feel really bad for leaving them in a bad state. So I know this doesn't make you feel better, but at least you don't have to carry the guilt for the situation now. The more deeply you really understand addiction and how it works and how it changes someone's brain and how it changes the way they see things, I think it's really going to help you feel at least a little bit better about the situation. So I want you to watch these videos next, because sometimes making sense of something does give us that little bit of closure that we're looking for.