Loving a Ghost: My Experience with An Addict, Manipulation, and the Illusion of Change

I never imagined that love could feel like abandonment, or that loyalty could turn into a prison. But that’s exactly what happened during my relationship with someone battling addiction, mental health struggles, and a life of deception.

At first, I believed in his potential—the charming man who promised me the world. Who said I was meant more to him that anything. Who cried as he expressed his deep rare love for me. The man who referred me as his queen, divine, and expressed many times he just couldn't live without me. I stood by him through his darkest moments, not just as a partner but as a caretaker. I helped him through his withdrawals, cleaned up after drug binges, and nursed him back to health when his body was shutting down from the toll of cocaine. I cooked for him, massaged him after long days of work, and tried to be a safe place for him when his mental health was spiraling. Led him to God, taught him a new way of life, a healthy one.

I didn’t just love him—I poured myself into trying to save him.

But beneath the surface of our relationship was a cycle of drug abuse, manipulation, and emotional chaos that slowly chipped away at my sense of reality and sense of self.

It started with the little things: his phone “dying” constantly, his location suddenly turned off, the most odd events and situations he claimed he was in, hours passing without a word from him. When I’d express concern, I was met with gaslighting. “You’re too controlling,” “You’re overreacting,” “Just trust me.” But deep down, I knew he was hiding—hiding his drug use, hiding his gambling, hiding things I didn’t even know about yet.

He’d avoid FaceTime when he was high because he didn’t want me to see his face. He guilt-tripped me into silence, manipulated my empathy, and used my love as a shield to cover his actions.

He accused me of the very things he was doing—cheating, lying, being sneaky. His projections became a constant storm I tried to weather by offering reassurance, peace, and understanding. I gave and gave, hoping it would be enough to keep him grounded. But love can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to be honest with themselves.

And somehow, when I finally reacted—when the mistrust, lies, and betrayal pushed me to my breaking point—I became the problem. He made me feel like I was a bad person for having normal emotional responses to the chaos he created. He twisted the narrative so well that I began to question if maybe I was too emotional, too needy, too much, to unreasonable. But the truth is, I was just trying to survive a relationship built on dishonesty and dysfunction.

Sometimes he’d take accountability. Other times he’d gaslight me until I questioned my own memory and reality. He’d promise change—sometimes even show it for a few days—but it never lasted. The temporary improvements were just enough to keep me hoping, only to revert back to the same destructive patterns: drug dealing, gambling, cheating, and hiding his double life.

And when things got hard, or when I stopped accepting the bare minimum, he’d ghost me. Discard me. Come back when he missed the comfort I gave him—not because he loved me enough to change, but because he loved not being alone in the chaos he created.

But the damage didn’t stop with me—it reached my children. He got close to them, played the role of someone stable, even loving at times. But every time he disappeared, lied, or fell back into his addictions, it wasn’t just me who felt the impact—it was my kids too. They watched me suffer. They experienced the instability. I began pulling away from them emotionally, consumed by the effort of trying to hold everything together. I was too busy putting out fires in my relationship to give them the version of me they deserved. That’s a pain I still carry, and a connection I’m working hard to rebuild.

And then there was her. His ex—the one who never truly left the picture. Her shadow was in our relationship from the beginning. He painted her as someone toxic, someone who used him, someone he repeatedly stated he didn't love but only went to out of familiarity and convenience but also someone “easier to deal with.” She enabled him, did drugs with him, never held him accountable, gave him sex when he wanted it, and let him be whoever he wanted without resistance. And somehow, that became the comparison I was held against.

I tried looking out for her at first, even warning her out of compassion. But he twisted that, turned her against me, and suddenly it was like I was fighting for space in a relationship that was never just mine to begin with. There was always a competition—silent, cruel, degrading. I felt worthless. Discardable. As if no matter how much I loved him, how much I sacrificed, I would never be enough because I had expectations. Because I saw through him. Because I didn’t enable the destruction.

And looking back now, I realize—I ignored the red flags from the very start. Within the first month, there were already stories—warnings from exes who had lived through the same emotional destruction I was about to endure. They spoke about being cheated on, lied to, manipulated. One ex in particular—the one who always lingered in the shadows—was a constant in his life despite everything. Their stories resembled mine so closely it’s haunting. And yet, I stayed. I thought I could be the one who finally got through to him. I believed I was different, that our connection meant something deeper. But his patterns weren’t new. They were just repeated—with new victims, new promises, new damage.

Loving him broke me in ways I'm still healing from. I lost myself completely - my identity, my peace, even my will to live at times. There were moments where the pain was so deep, the emotional torture so unbearable, that I didn't want to be here anymore. Not because I wanted to die, but because I couldn't survive one more day of being gaslit, betrayed and emotionally starved while giving everything I had to someone who couldn't give anything real in return. I was a partner, a nurse, a therapist, a cheerleader, and a punching bag—depending on what he needed that day.

I was trauma bonded. That invisible cord pulled tight by moments of affection and glimpses of who he used to be, or maybe who he pretended to be. I couldn't let go. He wasn't just my partner - he was my best friend, my comfort, my twin flame. Or so I believed. That made it even harder to walk away. I held onto the highs, the good times, the deep laughs and soft nights, even as they were buried under mountains of deceit, abuse and destruction.

But this is what I now know: being loyal to someone who is disloyal to you, to their promises, and to their own healing is not love—it’s self-abandonment. Love that costs your sanity isn't love. Love that destroys your soul, isolates you from your friends and children and makes you feel worthless is not a soul connection- it's trauma disguised as destiny.

If you’re reading this and it sounds familiar, please know you’re not alone. You’re not weak for staying. You’re not crazy for loving someone who hurt you. And most of all, you deserve a love that doesn’t make you question your worth, your sanity, or your place in someone’s life.

If I could talk to my future self to spare the absolute and immense pain that has come from this experience I would have said this:

Your gut isn't lying to you.

The confusion you feel isn't love - its a warning.

The constant second-guessing, the anxiety, the walking on eggshells... those are red flags waving in plain sight.

When someone shows you they are selfish, manipulative, or incapable of change, believe them the first time.

Whether they are wrapped in addiction or narcassism, the pain they cause doesn't come by accident - it's a pattern. And unless they are willing to get the help to stop this pattern, you have to walk away.

You don't need to fix them.

You don't need to stay to prove your loyalty.

You don't owe them your peace, your time, or your soul.

Listen to your intuition.

Honor your inner voice.

Leave before it breaks you.

You are worthy of calm, of peace, of clarity, of love that doesn't hurt.

And now, I choose me. I choose life. I choose peace. I choose to heal, to rebuild, and to never again lose myself in someone who was never truly there or mine in the first place. Real love doesn’t come at the cost of your soul—or your children’s peace.