Hello, my name is Anthony and this is my first time doing this. I just don’t know what to do. I feel sick, hurt, depressed, it’s hard to function. If anyone has advise please share. Thank you. Here goes…

I’m 41 and 4 years ago I met a beautiful 34 year old woman. This was almost exactly 1 year after my 17 year marriage was ended by my ex wife. I started drinking heavily right after my wife left, (functioning alcoholic). After my marriage was over I had no one, I forgot to mention I’m a contractor and I work 10-12 hour days 6 days a week in the summertime. I have no friends some family not close.  So after work I was all alone with just my thoughts. The more I drank the less alone I felt. I started drinking in the morning. After a month the only time I didn’t drink was when I was past out. One night I go to the bar and I wake up in the morning and a number is written on my hand. That night I call it and it’s my future girlfriend that goes on the cruise.  She eventually realizes I’m an alcoholic and I need help, she stays by my side through rehab and I get sober. 3 years into our relationship we start to grow apart and decide we should not live together. Both of us agree to not see other people and if that should change we would let the other know. She stays at my place 5 out of 7 nights of the week. I take her on trips, out to dinner, we are basicly a couple without the GF /BF titles. So a year of this goes by during which she mentionned she might want to see other people, I told her if that is what you want pl;ease just tell me and it never goes any further.  She tells me her sister bought tickets for a cruise for the 2 of them. I tell her have fun, before the cruise we had been getting along better than ever and we were talking about getting back together we were going to go away the weekend after her weekend cruise. So she comes home from the cruise and something is different, I ask if everything is ok she says yes and goes to sleep. Next day and night same thing. I’m confused as to what happened to the person I dropped off at the airport. The next night she starts an arguement and leaves at 11pm. She didn’t come back until the next morning and she tells me she can’t do this anymore and starts packing all of her things. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I ask her to stop and talk to me, she won’t. She leaves and comes back the next evening we talk and she said she didnt’t want to go away this weekend with me because she was going to see her friend in LA, a girlfriend of hers I know as well.  I tell her I was looking forward to the weekend but, if she needs the time away maybe it would be good.  So she goes and only calls one time in 3 days. This is not like her at all I pick her up from the airport and wants to go to her place. I take her and I call the next day no answer. I go to her place and ask her if she will go to dinner with me she agrees. I try talking to herabout what’s going on she tells me she doesn’t know. At this point she took her hand out of mine when i went to hold hers. I was in shock, what did I do? So 3 weeks after her cruise my sister calls me and asks me __________ is in a relationship with ______________ from Florida? I dont understand she said it says that on her Facebook. I don’t have Facebook so I made an account and when I saw that, my heart dropped, I felt physically weak. I could not  believe what I was looking at it was her and it said in a relationship with ____________ since July2018. His hometown Florida, where the cruise shipped out from. My mind puts everything together so fast Im trying to make sense of it, I had to sit down. I call her and ask her who this guy is she is in a relationship with. Her response is, ” Oh it was just a joke” What kind of joke, then I ask her did you meet someone when you were on the cruise? She starts crying and says yes, I can’t explain how I felt. Then I asked did you go to Florida and not LA? She said yes. I dropped my phone I stood there paralyzed. There I was again alone. I talked to her and asked why she didn’t tell me she said because she didn’t want to hurt me and be the cause of me drinking again. This isnt the worst part. A few days later I see a friend of a friend and I tell them what happened and they said she was with ____________ 8 months ago. I call her and ask if we can talk she says yes. I ask her if this is true she says yes again. I ask if there was anyone else she says yes. So in the year living apart but together 5 nights of the week, trips, telling me she is not seeing anyone and has not.  She finds time to get in 2 relationships, 3 counting the cruise. When I ask why not tell me, we talked about it, you lied to my face.  I could of had the chance to date and move on as well, you took that time from me.  Why not tell me so I can decide if I want to sleep with you when yoou are adding sexual partners. Her answer again, she was looking out for me because she did not want me to drink.  I was never ashamed of being an alcoholic and was always proud of myself so for quiting. For the first time since I stopped, I wish I had not. So here I am. Alone but, sober. And how will I ever meet anyone I can’t go to bars, I have no friends< I never really dated since High School. I’m just so hurt everynight, it’s been an agonizing 8 nights since we last talked.I miss her like crazy. For someone who cared so much about me not drinking she has not called once to check on me or see how I was. I just stopped calling her after she wouldnt return calls or texts. I didn’t go through this pain with my ex wife, that was mutual. This felt like I was cheated on and left alone. Nothing has gotten better I drag butt all day at work, it’s hard to get out of bed. I tell myself stop this she’s not worth it. So I don’t know, I know I’ll be able to tough it out. I’ve never even heard of someone doing something like this to someone, so there it is.

Thank you for reading, I feel a little better.