I met this guy, Jake, 4 years ago. At the time I was 26 and he was 20, and that age difference felt pretty uncomfortable for me on principle. But he was handsome, and he had this kind of swagger and effortless charm about him. I assumed he was a bit of a ladies man fuck-boy kind of guy. I wasn’t looking for more than a good time and Jake wasn’t either. It seemed harmless. Well we both had (have) insanely high sex drives and were both excellent in bed so… that’s pretty much all we did with our free time. It wasn’t until about week 3 I realized we were accidentally living together. I wanted to pull back, so we would for a bit but we just kept drifting back together again. Like… gravity. It became easier to just let go so finally I did, and holy shit did we crash into each other.
We got lost in each other. It was heaven-on-earth spiritual-awakening type love. Then COVID started and we got even more inseparable. Jake and I, both extroverts, wound up living in two different chosen-family-of-friends type roommate situations. The first one got really tense and we bounced after Jake turned 21. We both developed a bit of a drinking problem through that. The second living arrangement was a bit different. There were more of us and we were all pretty close. Most of us were party people and I lovingly called us the “merry band of misfits”.
Jake’s drinking got worse. A lot worse. And then he got weird. He’d be bouncing off the walls, sometimes literally. He never blacked out but sometimes he would talk excitedly without saying anything coherent. He’d see things that weren’t there (shadow people he called them). He saw a psychiatrist and a therapist. This is when we developed a toxic codependency. I helped him stay on top of his medicine. I kept our space clean, while also being the only one working. I tried a million ways to get him to stop drinking but he just wouldn’t. He leaned on me hard and I loved him so much… I just kept bending and bending. It took me a long time to break.
Leaving him was one of the hardest things I ever did. I really didn’t want to. I knew he would crash and burn without me there. I knew it was coming but I just kept putting it off and it’s like our break up happened in slow motion, over months.
He’s not dumb, he felt it coming too. It made the drinking even worse. He was really hurting himself and I think that’s what finally gave me the courage to end it. We both spiraled hard after that. To satisfy the rules we dated a year and a half.
Years went by. I had a couple relationships and I told myself I was over him. I really believed I was, but looking back the signs were there that I hadn’t moved on. I asked about him all the time but the band of misfits broke up and he drifted away. Shortly after my last breakup I reached out to ask how he was. I was deep in denial and really not prepared for it to come flooding back.
The day I reached out we talked for 7 hours until the sun came up. I almost didn’t recognize his voice. He speaks slower and his voice is deeper and gravely now. He was diagnosed with bipolar 1. He’s medicated properly and sober. He told me about his rock bottom and his multiple(!!!) close calls with death. I cried a lot, and I hugged him so tight and thanked god he was okay. The second time we saw each other the sparks were really flying, and by the third time I felt I had to address the obvious. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. We made love that night.
We’ve been talking about it at great length and both of us feel exactly the same… torn in half.
On the one hand, we are intensely, profoundly, madly in love… the kind of love most people never get to experience. I am tempted to go on for paragraphs about how beautiful and spiritual it is but poets and musicians have been doing that for centuries. I have loved people before, plenty of people, but never half as much as this. I’m sure I never will.
On the other hand, it’s absolutely madness. It’s an addiction. We’re both looking at each other extremely concerned because we have the potential to shatter each other into a million pieces. We have before. It almost killed Jake and at this point I’m not sure I’d be far behind.
So we definitely can’t let go and just free-fall into this feeling. I don’t feel like shaking hands, agreeing to never talk again, and settling elsewhere less fulfilled is the right call either. So what do we do?
TL;DR Is it possible to make a life with someone when we’re addicted to each other? Can we turn codependency into something sustainable? How?
2 comments
They say love is akin to insanity. They’re right in a way in that when you’re in love you find it hard to make rational decisions. If you’ve been in love this long, why aren’t you two together? Give it a try. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
Stick to the rules of sobriety. Perhaps you might not like to drink either? Not sure if you have a problem there too but would be great to support Jake by not doing so.
Take it slow. Date. Don’t move in together for awhile.
Go for it. Love each other. Good luck.