There’s a kind of heartbreak that’s hard to explain.
It doesn’t come from being with someone who doesn’t love you—
It comes from being with someone who does love you… but still can’t show up for you.
Someone who cares deeply, but whose addiction makes them unable to give that love in a consistent, healthy, or safe way.

I’ve now loved two addicts.
One drank. The other used porn and disconnection.
And though their addictions looked different on the outside, the pattern was exactly the same.

Addicts in Relationships: What It Actually Looks Like

Addicts don’t enter relationships to build.
They enter them to hide.
To comfort themselves.
To be held without ever having to hold someone else.

Here’s what I’ve seen—both in my ex-husband Ray, and in Mark, the man I married after him:

Addicts in relationships often:

• Seek emotional comfort but offer no emotional depth
• Want a partner to carry the load—but call it “peace”
• Expect loyalty and love while giving the bare minimum
• Avoid hard conversations, vulnerability, or real accountability
• Substitute connection with their addiction—alcohol, porn, fantasy, avoidance
• Stay in relationships as long as the conditions allow them to keep their addiction

The moment you ask for more?
The moment you say “This isn’t enough” or “I need you to meet me emotionally”— They start checking out.

Because they didn’t sign up for growth.
They signed up for relief.

Mark & Ray: Different Men, Same Pattern

Ray was an alcoholic who blamed, deflected, and never got better—even after a mini-stroke.
He still drinks daily.
He says he’s looking for a “quality woman,” but what he really wants is someone like me—
emotionally available, financially independent, generous, and self-carrying.

But he’s not willing to become the kind of man a woman like that would choose.
So he’s stuck in a loop of broken women, and he’s bitter that none of them are me.

Mark? Same trajectory.
He used porn instead of alcohol.
He wanted love, but not intimacy.
He married me for emotional and financial security, not because he was ready to build something real.
He would’ve stayed forever if I was okay with:

• A dead bedroom
• Lies and secrecy
• The numbness of addiction
• A surface-level “roommate” dynamic

But when I said I needed more?
When I said I wanted depth, not just presence?

He folded. Just like Ray.

This Is the Playbook

“Please keep loving me, but don’t ask me to be better.”

That is the heart of how addicts show up in relationships.

And when you finally realize that?
It stops being personal.
You stop internalizing the rejection.
You stop blaming yourself for their emotional poverty.

Because the truth is:
They weren’t in a relationship with you.
They were in a relationship with their addiction.

And there is no space for you in that dynamic.

Why They’ll Struggle to Find Someone Else

People like Ray and Mark might find new partners, but they won’t find someone like me.
They’re not looking for love—they’re looking for a comfortable setup that doesn’t require change.
And most healthy women? They’ll sniff that out immediately.

They’ll either end up with another emotionally broken woman…
or with someone who tolerates them but doesn’t love them.
Or worse: they’ll be alone, still convinced the problem is everyone else.

Because they are not builders.
They are consumers.
And consumers don’t create—they take.

The Lesson? It Was Never About Me.

That’s the healing moment:
When you realize you were never the problem.
You were the exception—the one who gave more, loved deeper, held longer.

But they didn’t value it because they had no capacity to hold something so beautiful.
And now?
I no longer grieve it.

I see it.
I understand it.
I feel indifferent.

Because when you truly understand how addiction distorts love,
you stop waiting for people to become what they can’t even name.

Final Truth?

Ray won’t find her.
Mark won’t either.

But I already have.

She’s me.
And one day soon, the right man—the one who has already done the work—
will find her too.