Just a few squares and I will leave the rest for after dinner.  oops.  just finished the chocolate bar.  Damn, wish I could stop when I wanted to.

But I know that if there were someone here I would share it with them.  I would not steal it from another.  Addiction to a substance is very real but there are checks and balances.  I would not like to eat chocolate at the expense of another person.  I limit the amount I keep in the pantry so I don't eat too much but sometimes I get it wrong and I have run out when I am really craving it - I don't stop caring about the feelings of other people in the midst of a craving for chocolate, even a bad one.

Say I was in the middle of a park, green grass to walk over all around and no chocolate in sight.  The three year old wants the last piece and so do I.  What am I going to do?  I am going to share it and we will both have fun eating it.

It's hard to understand how a person can be so uncaring because it is foreign to your nature.

My ex had an addiction going to the thrill of tricking people.  The more hurt they felt in their bewildered consternation,  the more it thrilled him.  There we are getting divorced and he is boasting to me of how he kept a tele-marketer on the phone for 45 minutes believing he would buy the product.  what fun, eh!

 

I simply can not believe that you thought I was making excuses for him.  There are no excuses and will never be.  However, we are all human beings and while there are no excuses for betrayal and theft of my life there are ways that things like this happen.  One of them is that I wasn't paying attention.  All the signs were there - a fifty something man who had NEVER lived with a woman???  Hello???  Homosexual?, not my darling.  We had an active and satisfying (at least to me) sex life.  Sex EVERY night and sometimes twice.  How did I rate this and it was GOOD sex.  Then I got breast cancer, stage three.  He was supportive loving and helpful.  Chemo, two surgeries, radiation and then estrogen blocking drugs.  The sex life went to hell. I wasn't in any condition and my body would not cooperate.  The predatory queens were lining up and he took the bait.  He hasn't told me any of this and I suspect never will but I recall now how it was.  We talked about health insurance and he said "I should probably look into it."  I said "why, you are very healthy?"  His answer "What if I get aids".  Not, I could have a heart attack or get cancer myself or even a bad accident, noooooo,  ir was "What if I get aids?"  I STILL did not catch on.  Then there was a tenant who applied for one of his apartments.  I showed the apt and my partner showed up when I did this.  The young man left and  my partner asked me in a very eager way "Do you think he is gay?"  Ding, ding, ding, flashing red lights, more flashing red lights - not MY darling.   I screened the tenants and recommeded againist this one - he had been evicted from his last rewntal for non-payment.  My partner over rode my objections and rented to him anyway.  The YOUNG man lived in the apartment for a YEAR while he might have paid three months rent..  There is more -  a long list of more.  But, upon the 70th birthday he began being very, very blatant about it.  Hard to explain but it seemed that he was trying to tell me WITHOUT telling me.  Since then every thing has gone down hill.  There is NO intimacy, NO affection, NO concern for my wishes or feelings.  So, I did not want to believe and I wasn't REALLY paying attention.  But., there comes a day of reckoning and it has arrived.  I do not see a way forward or back so there is only up or down and I'm NOT going down.  My life and brain are in chaos and it seems there is quick sand beneath my feet - ALL THE TIME!  My options are slim and not very hopeful.  It is late in the game for me.