I’d like to share my experience with you, and I hope that it’s helpful. We all know that active addiction is selfish. What they don’t tell you is that sobriety is selfish, too, especially those early days. My partner relapsed when we were early in our relationship, but we were in love and I decided to stick it out. I wish I hadn’t. We are still together, and I love him deeply, but he was in treatment for a long time. He needed that focus to be solely on his recovery, and I should have taken that time to focus 100% of my energy on my own recovery- learning to let go of the control, not putting myself in a compromising financial position for him, not blocking out weekends in hopes of a chance to visit him for 3 hours. I lost a lot of time and life because I chose to put our relationship and him in front of my own needs. I told myself I wasn’t doing that, but in hindsight I was.

There’s a very valid reason that folks in recovery should not date for at least a year. They need to focus all of their attention on their mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. You cannot do that and be a good partner. Being a good partner requires time, effort, attention, and the ability to sacrifice on occasion. My partner couldn’t do it, and he aced recovery.

If I could go back, I would tell myself to take a step back and let us both heal separately.