how do i keep my hope alive?

[trytryagain]

I think a lot of people go through this. It's when people find out no, maybe he was not just an occasional college-aged pothead. He will be a lifetime pothead if he does not QUIT NOW.

thanks for your comments, rr22. i never understood why his IC didn't flat out tell him he should cut back on the smoking or drinking, especially knowing that my H was in self-medication mode. i know a lot of people take a stance that it's not their place to tell their patients what they should and shouldn't do, but it just seems odd to me that his IC wouldn't say, you know, it's probably not the best way to handle the ADHD, and it doesn't really seem to have the best affect on your M, anyway.

i have to say, though...on our first date, my H told me his one vice was that he smoked weed every day. in fact, he called himself a "functional pothead." ha! seems like an oxymoron, but at the age of 27, he held a senior level position at his company and was making a really good salary for someone his age. he is extremely creative and his mind is constantly working on new ideas and projects. his smoking was usually limited to right before bed time as a way to "quiet his mind" so he was never the type of person to sit on the couch all day and smoke the day away.

there's NO WAY i could have put up with that. but now that we're entering our 30s, i find myself less and less ok with the daily smoking. in fact, when we talked about me getting off the pill, we also discussed that he'd have to stop smoking if we wanted to increase our chances of getting pregnant. the day before i was going to get off the pill, he told me he was scared to death of having children right now, and after that, the smoking and the drinking increased significantly.

turning back to those old behaviors to deal with something on his part really put a rift between us. my criticism of those behaviors led him to think i wanted him to be someone else, and that nothing he did was ever good enough. i understand why he would feel that way, but i can't understand why he feels this is beyond fixing.