[Suckerforjessica]

Hi,
I am really confused about what to do with this girl I’ve been seeing for 2 months, and have no one to talk to about it since a lot of it is pretty heavy. I sort of needed the anonymity the Internet provides and am just looking for advice.
I started seeing a girl in December who I had worked with over the summer but who had been dating someone else. I had a huge crush on her, she’s beautiful and the whole “you always want what you can’t have” thing probably came into play. I stopped working there to go back to school, and while I was home for break she randomly talked to me and told me she had broken up with her boyfriend. So I seized the opportunity and asked her out.
The first time we hung out things went like I could only have dreamed of. We hit it off, had a few beers and talked for a couple of hours before making our way to her bed where we had great sex.
We started hanging out more and more often, and she started to really grow on me as a person. We are kindred spirits. She isn’t like normal girls; she’s almost like a girl version of me. But as we started to get more comfortable with each other she began to reveal a whole bunch of baggage to me.
She has been addicted to narcotic painkillers for 6 years. I’m 21 years old and she’s 20. That is a long time for someone my age to have this sort of problem. She revealed to me that the reason she broke up with her boyfriend, however was because she was trying to be clean and he wasn’t; and that had that not been an issue they probably would still be together. I won’t lie, I am a recreational drug user, and believe that everything is ok in moderation, but when the girl you are giving your heart to tells you her second favorite thing in the world is Percocet it raises some eyebrows.
She also told me that she had already once been engaged. While this didn’t bother me at first, the fact that she still talks to this guy and I’ve heard her tell him she loves him… It kind of got to me. She assures me it’s completely platonic and that they are best friends, but when she leaves the room to go and talk to him on the phone for 45 minutes while I sit in bed twiddling my thumbs it makes me sort of uneasy. I don’t want to get in between her and her best friend but I also don’t want to have to compete with another guy for her attention when I’m in her bed.
Moreover, she just got out of a relationship with another guy (not her ex fiance) that lasted a year. Now I understand that people take time to get over their exes. But I’ve seen her practically every day for two months and we’ve only had sex 4 times. It’s gotten to the point where I am legitimately scared to ask her to have sex with me because it upsets her or makes her feel bad. I’m a 21 year old guy. My sex drive is at its peak and to go to bed almost every night next to a beautiful girl kills me. I mean sex once or twice a week isn’t asking all that much is it?
I almost forgot to mention the fact that I have been bending over backwards for this girl. I’m pretty crazy about her, and I don’t really know why. I had a relationship end really badly a few years back and have avoided them and commitment ever since; something about this girl, when she smiles, it just melts my heart. I have found it practically impossible to say no to anything she asks me, and have been doing way more than what she asks. She recently moved and I must have packed up 70% of her things while she was at work (I was on break) and even Cinderella scrubbed animal pee off the carpets in her old apartment for hours. A lot of things she asks me not to do, but she has been struggling a lot with school and with her family and with her ex and with the fact that she has to be sober. I’ve been more than happy to help, but a lot of the time I feel used. I’m spending more money than I should taking her out to eat and on things for her. A lot of the time she’s really snappy with me, and it feels like she barely cares how much I’ve done for her. I just wish more of the effort I put into our relationship would be reciprocated.
Am I asking too much of a girl who just broke up with her boyfriend, who’s just starting to go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, who is going through a lot right now? Or am I crazy for even trying to be with this girl? I’m really confused. All I know is that I can’t think of a place I’d rather be than next to her in bed, but I know I’ll be in the other room awake all night thinking.
Ok psyche she just came in because she realized I wasn’t there. But still. Help.
Matt

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The answer to your main question, Is it worth it?, is no. Here’s why:

1. Drug addicts put their drugs first. Ahead of their relationships with people. You will never be number one if she’s addicted to drugs. (The fact that at age 20 she’s on her sixth year of addiction means that she started as a young teenager, and that indicates her family life is probably going to be less than normal — a harbinger of future problems for any relationship she’s in.)

2. She’s not that into you. 😳 She’s not interested in having much sex with you, and she’s interested in other men. If she were someone worth competing for, I’d suggest that you understand that dating is competitive and you need to bring your A game, but this woman isn’t worth competing for because she’s not available for what you want — a healthy, committed relationship.

If you continue to try to win over the heart of an addict who’s not that into you to begin with…. you’re setting yourself up for misery. And honestly, it sounds like you’re attracted to her physique, but not her character or personality. You said she’s a female version of you. 😯 Frankly, I don’t see it. 😕

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[Suckerforjessica]

I think I sort of conveyed the wrong message last night in a panic due to circumstances having nothing to do with her.
She is definitely into me. I am someone that matters to her. When we’re out she’ll take me by the hand, sometimes steal a kiss. I sleep in her bed and we fall asleep in each others’ arms.
She isn’t dating anyone else. She just talks to her ex fiancé and from what I’ve overheard of their conversations they are just friends. I heard her tell him she loves him while I was sitting next to her in her car about to go and support her while she went to her first NA meeting. So she was definitely scared. Looking back on it I overreacted.
The thing is, April, if I were only attracted to her physique I would have been gone after that first night. The relationship that I was in before was purely based on sex and sexual desires and it practically destroyed me as a person. I am attracted to her both physically and emotionally. Saying she was a girl version of me probably wasn’t the best way to put it; what I meant to say was we have a TON in common. This is the first girl I’ve dated whose car I can sit in and not have my ears bleed from gross music. She understands my sense of humor and I hers, and we laugh a ton together. We both are crazy sugar glider people. We just have similar tastes is all I meant by that.
My question was more is it worth it to stand by this girl and give her a chance to get clean? I don’t want to date an addict, but I am less concerned about dating a recovering addict. At least she has the desire to stop using. And should I be worried about her ex fiancé who lives states away? Is two months a normal grieving period for her last ex even though we’ve been sleeping together a ton?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

[quote]My question was more is it worth it to stand by this girl and give her a chance to get clean? I don’t want to date an addict, but I am less concerned about dating a recovering addict. At least she has the desire to stop using?[/quote]

Addiction is very tough to live with, and while she may have the desire to stop using, that’s a far cry from not using and getting clean. It’s great she’s started going to meetings, but remember, she’s dealing with a six year addiction that started as a young teenager. Her recovery isn’t just about getting off the drugs — it’s about psychological and physiological impetuses for her addiction. And…. when people get clean, they often experience personality changes. In other words, you can try sticking around, but the odds that this will work aren’t in your favor. 😳

[quote]And should I be worried about her ex fiancé who lives states away?[/quote]

You wrote that she talks to him and you heard her tell him she loves him. 😕 Yes. He’s competition.

[quote] Is two months a normal grieving period for her last ex even though we’ve been sleeping together a ton?[/quote]

Hmmmm…. Now you say you’ve been sleeping together “a ton” and just early you wrote that you’re really upset because you only had sex four times. 😯 Here’s what you wrote:

[quote]But I’ve seen her practically every day for two months and we’ve only had sex 4 times. It’s gotten to the point where I am legitimately scared to ask her to have sex with me because it upsets her or makes her feel bad. I’m a 21 year old guy. My sex drive is at its peak and to go to bed almost every night next to a beautiful girl kills me. I mean sex once or twice a week isn’t asking all that much is it?[/quote]

That, coupled with you writing that she’s told her ex-fiance she loves him, and talking to him and her drug dealer ex…. doesn’t sound like things are really going that well. 😳 It sounds like you’re trying to talk yourself (and me) into this. 😕

The best thing you can do is to be [i]honest[/i] with yourself about what you want, what she wants, who you both are. It really sounds like you’re not ready to let go, but you have reservations, and nothing I say will change your mind — now. 😉

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[Suckerforjessica]

I meant sleeping together like falling asleep in a bed together not like sex. We have only had sex 4 times.
Are you sure her ex fiancé is competition if she has assured me time and time again that they’re just friends? I have ex girlfriends who are friends, but I never tell them I love them. I don’t know. I want to believe her but I am really skeptical.
I have had the talk with her about sex which I haven’t mentioned in any of my posts. We’ve talked about why she’s so reluctant, and it’s not really because she’s not into me. As far as I can tell during the few times we’ve had sex she’s really enjoyed herself. She’s gone so far as to say “I can count on one hand the men I’ve enjoyed myself with”. The sex is great, it’s just sparse. She attributes this to the fact that she only broke up with her ex of a year a few months ago, and she was very faithful during that period. She lived with him, slept with him (like go to bed) every night, and she hadn’t had sex with anyone else. It was weird for her to let someone new into her life, and she was afraid she was going too fast. She cares about me which means sex with me is different than if she just had a one night thing where it would disappear after the sex and it would just be sex for sex.
You’re right I am probably trying to convince myself that it will work. Looking at it objectively I probably shouldn’t waste my time since there are plenty of girls out there who would fall for a handsome man like myself 😎 . The thing is I’m almost incapable of looking at it objectively. If I left now I feel like I’d be abandoning her in her time of need, especially since she’s really trying to keep clean. I have made it abundantly clear that I don’t want a part in getting addicted to narcotics, and that I don’t want her around me high and she has respected that. She’s been going weeks at a time without using and when she does it isn’t nearly as much as she used to, she’s weaning herself off. She applied to be in an intensive outpatient program and got in, but the deductible for her insurance is obscene and there’s no way she can afford it.
I know none of this should be my problem but I have a big heart. She’s making an effort to be clean and I’ll probably stick by her unless she really relapses and goes back to Dr House levels of pk abuse. Her parents live across the country and she literally has no one but a few close friends and now me. I know that if I were in her shoes I’d want someone that believes in me, that believes I could quit instead of someone who leaves. I feel like that would make her stray off the right path and I’d hold myself responsible for her relapse even though I shouldn’t. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. God damn my huge heart.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re pulling the wool over your own eyes. 😳

[i]If you actually had a big heart, you’d do what’s best [u]for her[/u][/i] [i]and tell her that you’ll date her when she’s clean. [/i]Instead you’re enabling her. 😕

She needs professional help since she obviously can’t do this herself — and there is plenty of free help that she refuses to get because she doesn’t want it. There are plenty of free Narcotics Anonymous meetings that she can attend daily and get a sponsor. But she won’t.

For you to think that you, at age 21, with no professional health-care experience, that you can help a drug addict, is inflating your own ego. Sorry to be so harsh with you, but you’re doing such a good job of pretending to be her savior, that you need to get out of that habit. You’re not. And if you’re someone who needs to be with a person who is so damaged, in order to make yourself feel better about yourself, then that’s a problem that you can work on. 😉 Alone. The kindest thing you can do for HER is to walk away and tell her that you’re doing it because you don’t want to date a drug addict. And if you want to really help, another thing you can do that is in HER best interest is to report her drug dealer to the police, or call her physician and report her addiction.

And as for her ex-fiance being competition, again, you’re pulling the wool over your own eyes, again. Drug addicts are not known for being truthful. They say what they say to get what they want. She may be telling you one thing, but you’ve already told me you heard her tell him she loves him.

I can’t help you any more. I’m sorry. Good luck!

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[Suckerforjessica]

I don’t really think I’m her savior or an enabler. I fell for this girl without knowing that she was an addict; she sat me down one day probably a month ago and told me she had been addicted to drugs for a long time and that she’s been reaching out for help for the past few months. She left her ex because she couldn’t get clean around him, and that was the only reason. She is really trying to turn her life around, or at least it seems that way.
Her and that ex don’t speak anymore. But she still stands by the fact that her ex fiancé is her best friend. I’ve told my best friend I love him a million times. The guy lives 10 hours away by car so it’s not like they see each other ever… And she told me she tried cutting him out of her life for the past year and it made her unhappy. They dated for 5 years and were engaged; I know the girl I dated for 4 years knows me better than anyone else, and I’m hoping it’s something similar to that. But we ended on bad terms and even thinking about her breaks my heart. Their breakup was mutual. I may just be naive but I still have no reason not to trust her (besides the fact that she’s an addict)
Look, she could have TOTALLY hidden this from me. I would have had no idea she was addicted to drugs. She hides it really, really well. But she was up front and honest with me about that, and as far as I know has never lied to me.
I went with her to her first NA meeting last week and I can’t imagine her being in a better environment. I thought I was going to be surrounded by crazy heroin addicts and toothless meth heads, but the two hours I spent there with her were really positive. She even spoke for five minutes on her first ever NA meeting. She bought the NA book and has been reading it in bed next to me nightly. She has barely even let go of the “just for today” keychain they gave her. I think she’s taking all the right steps, and while recovery is a lifelong process you have to start somewhere. For me to abandon her now…I don’t know. It just wouldn’t sit right with me.
Thank you for your advice. You’re telling me exactly the right thing to do but I’ve never been the best listener. Talking to someone about this and sorting out all my feelings has been really helpful. Now I’m prepared for heartbreak should it come and I’ll probably put up more of a barrier between us. But that comes with giving your heart to anyone, including addicts. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re very welcome. 🙂

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