Dear Lea:

I am glad you chose to post here and I hope it will be helpful to you.

* Regarding his drug use, the kinds of drugs he used in the past and the kinds he still uses may be relevant. Does he swallow/smoke/snort/inject those drugs; alone or together with others, in social settings?

You wrote about “a blow up in a party a few months ago. My words were harsh and disrespectful..” that unfortunately, is most likely in the way now and in the future, in the way of him feeling safe discussing his drug usage with you. My experience with people who use alcohol/drugs and are sensitive to negative criticism is that once you clearly express negative criticism of their use, they are… almost forever reluctant to open up to you about their use.

* Regarding conflicts escalating, his win/lose (enemies) attitude to conflict resolution and your win/win (friends) attitude to conflict resolution, and then your crying, both of you distressed, overwhelmed and unable to resolve the conflict- this can be resolved if the two of you attend a few sessions of couple counseling just for this purpose: learn and practice, in the therapist’s office, to resolve conflicts (one at a time, in the office), using skills, for a win-win resolution. This can be taught, without involving insight necessarily into past issues, simply as a set of skills put into use.

If you’d like to give more details regarding the kinds of drugs and methods (see the beginning of my reply), and if you’d like to share your thoughts and feelings about what I replied so far, please do, and we can communicate further.

anita