Was I drunk my entire relationship every time?

Since I’ve been sober I’m realizing more and more that I was only in the relationship I was in because I was drunk and needy and now
I’m sober and self sufficient and I don’t think I want to be with my girlfriend but I feel kind of obligated because she stuck by me through my drinking and my getting sober. Is this familiar to anyone else?

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Hi Mike, glad you’re here and sober!
They say give it time. I don’t know how long you’ve drank and how long you’ve been with your gf but it’s not adviced to radically change your circumstances in early sobriety, up to a year or two depending on who you ask.
Now, the best thing to do in your situation is to educate yourself: use the magnifying glass up top and search relationship, boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse etc. You’ll find a lot of posts in a similar vain and the advices they got.
Sobriety changes everything in ourselves and our relationship. You’re not alone with your feelings.

Again, a warm welcome! :blossom::slight_smile:

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That’s deep about sobriety changing everything about our feelings. Deep yet exciting. I’ve been a drunk my whole life so I honestly sorta feel like a kid again committing to being sober.

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Thank you so much. I appreciate your feedback and your warm welcome. I drank heavily for around 15 years and I’ve been in my current relationship only about 3 years.

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@Jim27 absolutely feel you on the kid thing. We all are going through this: learning from the absolute basics again how to go through life, how to do anything, and how to even get to know ourselves, sometimes for the first time. It’s a beautiful process but also hard and requires a lot of work and honesty with ourselves. And time.

@thisismyusername you’re welcome :slight_smile: don’t stress yourself on not having all the answers right now, it is not required and not necessary or possible. Your abilities and self-knowledge to trust yourself and feel more certain about how you feel and what you want have been eroded over all the years of your drinking (btw no judgement here, I also drank 1/2 my life). It’ll take time, work and being patient with yourself to get those growing again. But they will if you nourish yourself and safeguard your sobriety.
Are you working a program? It is not mandatory of course, but connection in some form (can be here, can be AA, so many options) is a big building block of successful sobriety. So is working on yourself, which can take many forms of course. For example reaching out here.

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Unfortunately that sounds familiair. I had an unhealthy relationship with some vey caring person. The relationship some how maintained my drinking in some kind of way. But that’s a very long story, but not uncommon. The relationship was full off co-dependency and other unhealthy dynamics. Now sober I don’t feel the need for a caring person, we tried. But She forgot/forgets herself and stays in the caring mode. Which annoys me when sober, that’s her part she needs to work on. At least I hope she does. Bit dating now, but happy single now :blush:

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Thank you again I really appreciate you taking the time to give me some advice on this. I’m not currently in a program which has a lot to do with my lack of sober connections. I do a lot of reading and listening to podcasts and browsing message boards regarding sobriety. Today is my first time reaching out and posting. I’ve been reading for awhile here and finally today felt comfortable enough to make my own profile and post here.

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That’s grand Mike! I did the very same, reading and podcasts, found this place about 3months sober I think. It’s great here. And become quite important for me. :slight_smile:
Have you read the Recovering by Leslie Jamison, it was my favourite. There’s book threads on here as well. Enjoy! :tulip::sun_behind_large_cloud:

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I haven’t read that yet but I have read about it. I will definitely check that out.

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Oooh. Thats tough. My heart goes out to you both.

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The Recovering is a great read, and doesn’t get mentioned as much as other quit lit does!

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I’m not sure but I guess if I have to even ask myself that then the answer is probably not enough.

Sometimes I think whether I’d be happier with her if I drank again :roll_eyes:

Then I realise I’m staying sober for me :grinning: don’t want to knock everything down I’ve built up. One drink is all it’ll take for us to split up so sometimes it’s temping, can you tell we’ve had a massive argument today :rofl::rofl: