Broken

By Lisa, from Canada

I was in an emotionally and psychologically abuse marriage for 18 years that ended badly. I did everything I possibly could for those 18 years to try to make my husband happy. The more he abused me the harder I tried. It ended with me finding out that he was having an affair with a co-worker who was trying to be my friend. I fell apart. For 4.5 years I tried to put the pieces of myself back to gether again and just felt so empty and lost inside.

At Christmastime I ran into an old friend that I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Although we went our separate ways I always knew what he was up to as we shared a mutual friend. He knew my ex-husband and knew that we had married. I knew that he had suffered with a cocaine and crack addiction about eight years ago and lost everything he owned but when we reconnected he told me that he was finished with that and putting his life back together again. We went out for brunch the day after meeting and had a great time catching up.

We spent New Years Eve together and our relationship advanced. We talked about my experiences and his and the abuse that we had both suffered. Within two weeks he was telling me how much he loved me, how perfect we were together, how no one had ever understood him like I had and how comfortable he was with me. We had both had tragic things happen to us in our childhood and adult lives and really connected. There was an attraction between us years ago but I was dating my ex at the time.


He spoke openly to me about the drugs that he had done in the past and how much he hated it. He knew that I had never taken drugs and I told him that I wanted no part of that lifestyle. He assured me he would never go back to that and promised me that he would show me how a real man treated a woman. He told me it was fate that we had run into one another again and convinced me that we were meant to be together.


He had a bad electrical accident at work three years prior and was still taking Morphine when I met him. He was honest about that and said he would stop it. I am allergic to it. He stopped taking it and would give me the pills to flush when he picked them up from the pharmacy. He called and texted me every day telling me how awesome I was. He told everyone how much he loved me and that he was going to marry me. He seemed so excited to have me in his life and talked about all the things that we would do together and what a great summer we were going to have.

My son was going to be away for a week and we made plans to spend that whole week together. We were both super excited about it and then three days before our week was to begin, he went out for a drink with friends, called me from the bar to say he loved me and then he disappeared hours later and walked out of my life completely. Three days later when I finally spoke with him he didn’t want to see me, denied we had plans was angry at me because I had been worried about his disappearance.

He had done a complete 360 degree turn. He suddenly claimed we had nothing in common, that I had taken what he said about love and marriage too literally and he was very angry. He said mean things that hurt me terribly. He didn’t want to see me or talk to me. He has completely disconnected from me. He won’t speak with me and sent me a text message asking me to please not contact him again (thank you).

I don’t understand what has happened? Did he ever care about me?Was I just a substitute for his addiction until the novelty wore off? How can someone claim they want to spend the rest of their life with you and tell you how much they love you one day and then walk out of your life and blame and shame you the next? How could he hurt me so badly when he knew the situation I had come out of and promised me so much better? Why would anyone play a mean game with something like this?