I wanted to check some of your posts to see a bit more and found your boyfriend is working on recovery for a long-time Heroin habit. That's a tough habit and he has had relapses in the past too.

You, on the other hand, are dealing with a codependency habit and not drug addiction.

I'm uncomfortable that he trouble being honest and further was unable to be truthful with you and failed to tell you of his latests relapse when he was involved with you. It makes you become less of an equal in the relationshp and that's bad. Communication and trust , I believe, are at the heart of good relationships. I feel like he violated both of those and trust in particular is hard to get back and in doing so, he made you less of an equal in the relationshp. If he has had trouble with the truth all along and then will lie about a relapse, he will lie about other things too. This is not a good basis for any sturdy relationship to build solid ground.

I believe your gut feelings are correct and you would do better in another relationship and look for one that is based in communications and trust and one where you will be an equal.

I have to agree. When there is no trust there is no relationship, in my opinion. I, for one, wouldn't want to feel the need to check up on my significant other all the time to make sure he's doing what he says he is. That is a recipe for relationship disaster. I believe you would do better to end this relationship and focus on yourself for a while. Then seek out a relationship with someone who doesn't push your code triggers.

Hi try2,

The Man hiding his relapse and even denying it is really a healthy thing for him because it means that he felt ashamed of his relapse.

It was not his trouble at being honest, as that was a part of his own life and his own recovery work, and so it was your self that went to far.

Even if you two were legally married and living together then you need to give him his own space concerning his own life, because it is your codependency which wants to get too closely enmeshed with his life when you need to back off (just a little back off).

Him being openly honest then he might come to you and tell you that he had a relapse which he regretted, but when you find evidence in the trash and then you confront him and he denies it then that is a far different equation.

From the given info then it sounds to me like he is very sincere about his own recovery, and it is horrible hard for any person to kick an addiction, so relapses do happen, and if he was not ashamed of it then he would not be hiding it.

You really need to trust him at face value - and NOT by things found in the trash.

It is okay (IMO) for you to find the stuff in the trash or in other places, but when you find such things then it becomes your secret being shared with him, and it is crossing the boundary line to confront him about such a secret.

If you find drugs in his coat pocket then yes confront him, but in the trash - no.

Just my perspective based on my experiences.

I believe it all goes back to trust. You don't trust him, and you can't because he has proven to you that he can't be trusted. Can you exist in a relationship where there is no trust? Only you can answer that. I could not.

Hello try2loveme!

First of all, awesome job for being in therapy and going to your meetings. It sounds like both you and this man are trying really hard to work on your issues. Just like with any addiction, codependency is hard because you often relapse and try to change the another person or try and control situations that you don't have any control over. It is also difficult though, because there is the added confusion of trying to figure out a good boundary between caring for someone you love and taking care of yourself and having good boundaries. It seems as though you have strong feelings for someone who is working hard on there problems but is having a difficult time facing them. Most likely he is afraid, as fear, shame, guilt are often the reasons behind why one has issues to begin with, right?Lieing is not good and it does a lot of damage in relationships, however, sometimes we lie because we are afraid not because we don't want to change or be decieving. and then there are those who lie, because it is just convienant and aren't really looking for real change. But what is important here is what you are doing and how you are taking care of yourself. One of the things I feel would be good to remember is that you can only change yourself, remember the serenity prayer, god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. If you find yourself obsessing over what this other person in your life is doing and how he is doing and what changes he is makeing all of that time could be being spent by letting go and doing something that makes you feel good. If you need to put a little space in between you and this other man, I'd do it, honestly it doesnt mean that you to stop loving or caring about someone by letting go of there recovery. You have you to focus on. His problems start to affect you and the relationship when - either you notice he is not trying to change anymore, stopping therapy or going to meetings, and or his relapses are hurting you in someway like crossing the boundaries you have for yourself and or your relationship boundaries, figuring out what those boundaries are would be good to talk to your therapist about,. then youd need to figure out how much space you need to take from him or the situation. whether that is not living together, leaving for a weekend by yourself, taking more time by yourself, or leaving the relationship completely. In my opinion, it is possible to still be in this relationship without having that steardy foundation of trust for a while because you both have issues that make it diffuclt to build upon. But if you take care of yourself and take space and focus on you, and try and let go of his recovery work ,as long as you see him working on it, I think it's possible for you two to be able to be together in a trusting relationship again someday. For now I don't think much is going to change because the road to recovery is a slow process but what can change is how you handle the situation and how you take care of yourself and don't allow his problems to become your problems. Trust will start to be rebuilt I think once you see a bumpy but steady progress of change from him and from yourself. Over times i think it is possible to feel safer with him as long as he continues to do the work, and you continue to let go. Good luck, either way take care of yourself and focus on you!

Hi Try: With his past relapses (plural) of both heroin and telling the truth, I think you're doing the right thing for you. Many hugs.

Thank you all so much for your comments, it really helps to have words of encouragement, all great suggestions on how to make sure I know how to take care of me, the road is long for recovery especially when you have spent so many years unaware, his addiction is no more dangerous then mine, both are slow deaths and both can affect all loved ones involved, my addiction is just seemingly more socially acceptable. The said instance happened a couple months ago and since then we have chosen to really do the work, when i have moments of doubt i think its because i have no control, only with myself and even that is something i have to be careful with, serenity prayer is exactly what I need to remember in all of this, what's meant to be will be and in the end if I do the work, ill see the results, patience and prayer and just continue tapping into my purpose, because while I never experienced the despair of drug use, I have experienced the despair of feeling lost and not worthy, ill keep you all posted on the journey, thank you for being on this with me

Here is what I learned about trust, in that trust can be a strange thing, because to trust our self makes so then there is no need to trust anyone else, so then it is easy to trust people who are not trust worthy.

That is the purpose of personal boundaries, by controlling our own emotions and controlling our own feelings, THEN then those boundaries make so that we can trust our self to handle any problems or any difficulties - instead of giving away our powerful and vulnerable trust to other people who will always fail or come up short in some such way.

There is a renowned old movie that demonstrates this and it is called "Camelot" (1967) telling of love and loyalty and friendship. It is a wonderful musical showing both Guinevere and Lancelot betraying King Arther and Arther wants vengeance against them both, but then King Arther creates a new personal boundary (of course they do not use that word) and he defines the new boundary by this famous affirmation when Arther declares that = "Compassion is not weakness, and violence is not strength" - and THEN then in that movie King Arther must defend his new personal boundary against everyone around him who try to violate his boundary, including all the Knights of the round table and even against his own son who all try to break the King's resolve (his boundary) being his loyalty to his loved ones.

Everyone betrayed him while he stood firm as the trustworthy one.

That movie is an inspiration to people because it does get personal.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061439/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Richard Harris was an excellent actor and especially so in this musical of Camelot. Musicals are not real life.

The true story of Guinevere and Lancelot isn't pretty. See the link below and both were on trial for being romatically involved with each other. They caused great pain to a King and ultimately their misdeeds brought about circumstances that caused the King's death.

http://www.historyandwomen.com/2010/10/love-story-of-lancelot-and-guinevere.html

Further, both were actually caught in bed with each other which makes their deeds usually life ending. They also are credited with bringing an end to the round table. Eventually Lancelot ended up a hermit and Guinevere ended up a Nun.