He touched me.

He touched every centimeter of my body.

He touched my soul and I knew that I was at home when I was in his arms.

He knew every bit of me and touched me lovingly, from the top of my head to the space between my toes. There was no part of me that was unattended, that was uncharted.

His calloused hands worked tirelessly to please the rise of every emotion my body spoke.

I never felt more adored and cherished than I did in his arms.

He consistently made me feel beautiful, and that I was a flawless goddess.

The passion was unmatched.

The connection was not from here or now.

It made no sense.

None of it made ANY sense.

All I knew was that I was like honey and butter in his hands and his hunger fed my desire.

When he would lean his head in and rest his forehead on mine, I would melt into his big blue eyes and connect to something inexplicable. It was timeless. I was his and he was mine.

It took me time, but I came to truly love him, more deeply than I had loved anyone before.

It made no sense…yet it didn’t have to…I loved him.

We had nothing in common but our soul connection.

I would anxiously await his arrival…often much later than he told me to anticipate him.

He would walk in with a bundle of excuses and the lingering scent of smoke and alcohol. Then he would embrace me, and all was lost in his eyes… and his arms… and his mouth.

This may sound like a love story you have heard a thousand times over, but it is not.

This is a story of passionate addiction, of abandonment, of safety. This is a story of hungry ghosts whose existence was denied in the name of passion.

We had different addictions. I used to jokingly say “I have no addictions, except breathing…that was the one I wasn’t willing to let go of”…but truthfully mine was attracting people who were emotionally incapable of holding space for my drive and commitment; thereby, reinforcing my belief that I am, and always will be alone. His addiction was the belief that no matter how much you invest in anything…it WILL always abandon you. Neither addiction was unfounded. Both were based in some form of “not good enough/ not worthy enough”.

We had both chosen our addictions long before we had chosen our mothers and manifested a multitude of situations throughout our separate lives to justify them. They were different, yet the same. I fed mine with hard work and sadness. He fed his with alcohol and pills. My addiction was to him…waiting for him, loving him, desiring him…desiring the love and safety I felt in his arms. He made me feel loved yet I’m not convinced that he loved me…only because he was incapable of loving himself. He self-sabotaged every single situation he was in, to create unconscious victimization and abandonment…then turned to alcohol and pills because “good guys always finish last”. Easy enough…no personal responsibility.

And so, we fed off of each other, off of each other’s passion, off of each other’s abandonment in a cycle that created incomprehensible highs and painful, grievous lows. Each time we created space, I strengthened my painful belief that I would forever be alone on my path, and he his belief, that I had abandoned him. I no longer wanted to be disrespected or hurt by lies and binges, as his coping mechanism.

The disparity between his behavior in sobriety and his behavior under the influence was unbearable.

By remaining with him, I was strengthening the disillusionment for his children that relationships could thrive in that environment, in spite of the drama and detachment that chased the alcoholism.Even worse, I realized that every moment I stayed with him I was giving permission to my sons to behave that way and to my daughter to marry someone who would treat her that way. I couldn’t love him “into sobriety”.

I realized that I had to break my addiction to his passion because the highs were too high, only by comparison to how low the lows were. I had to step into the alone and leave behind the most passionate and loving feeling I had known to date…I could no longer feed that dragon. I’m terrified that I will never feel that loved again, by him or anyone else. I’m mortified at the thought of him sharing that passion with another. I must be vulnerable to the fact that I will need to make changes within myself to attract others who do not thrive on sadness and emotional unavailability…at the risk of never knowing a love so passionately intimate and fulfilling.

I do not have an answer, or a direction, or an inkling of hope that I will ever love like that again…all I know is that I do not want the pain of these addictions or the sadness of waiting indefinitely for him to banish the hungry ghosts that won’t stop gnawing at his soul.