I discovered my ‘ordinary’ husband had a depraved secret addiction – and it all unravelled when he accused ME of cheating

I still remember the moment I met Jake: handsome, strong, middle-class Jake.

It was like the scene in a rom-com where the main character meets the man you know she’s going to marry.

He was charming, funny and had an incredible energy that attracted me, while being just plain enough not to come across as a player or a narcissist.

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said he was the man of my dreams.

Our relationship moved quickly – in retrospect, suspiciously quickly. But at that moment I didn’t feel like he was dragging me along; instead it was exciting.

For the first time since I divorced the father of my two sons, aged seven and ten, I felt like I had met someone with whom I could share my life. of.

But this isn’t a rom-com. It’s a horror story.

I didn’t know it when I moved across the country for him, and certainly not when I married him, but Jake was a drug addict.

And he was addicted to the worst kind of drug, the drug that turns normal men, like the one I married, into jealous, depraved, paranoid monsters: meth.

I know you have an image of a typical meth user in your head: that pockmarked, twitching, skinny zombie shuffling onto a bus and yelling at the other passengers.

But my Jake wasn’t like that.

Yes, he was a bit of a party animal and drank cocaine on the weekends – as many young Australian men do – but it wasn’t like he was a junkie when I met him.

But now I realize that the man I fell in love with had secrets; he was a functioning addict, as they are known, and it was only a matter of time before he unraveled.

Before I go any further, let me take you back to when the cracks first appeared.

I am a hairdresser who has always worked for myself. I am independent by nature. So when Jake told me he wanted a fresh start on the other side of the country, I got excited about the idea of ​​leaving everything behind and going on an adventure in a new city.

I picked up my life in Melbourne and we moved to Darwin together.

Looking back, his spontaneous decision to move to the interstate should have been a red flag. What was he running from? How could he drop everything and leave so easily? Of course, I thought it was all terribly romantic at the time.

I was convinced that we were about to build a future full of love, adventure and happiness.

Shortly after we arrived in Darwin, Jake’s secret – his drug addiction, which he had initially kept well hidden – began to surface.

It started with messages from his former friends, people back home who had distanced themselves from him and said they were trying to warn me.

They told me he was on drugs. At first I wasn’t too impressed; many people like to party. Then came the devastating blow. No, he uses ice.

He had started smoking meth after cocaine wasn’t exciting enough for him. It was so terrible that I didn’t want to believe it.

I confronted Jake. “Have you ever used ice?” Incredibly, he didn’t deny it; It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. But he assured me he was clean (“clean?” isn’t that a word only addicts use?) and insisted it was all in the past.

The truth didn’t hit me like an avalanche until weeks later. Jake’s drug use was not a thing of the past; it was about to consume his entire life – and mine.

The downward spiral

After that first confrontation, I tried to forget it all. Finally he said it was over.

But then I started noticing alarming changes in his behavior. He lost his temper over nothing and accused me of things that didn’t make sense, like talking to people I’d never met or spending time in places I’d never been.

Most worrying of all, he disappeared for hours and didn’t answer his phone.

I thought it was the stress of the move, that he needed time to adjust, but I know better now. Confronting him had stressed him out, which only accelerated his ice use.

It got worse. Jake’s drug use, I later discovered, was not sporadic or a stress response. It happened regularly, dangerously and escalatingly.

And it wasn’t just the meth I was warned about. He drank excessively – at home and in pubs and clubs. And he was a problem gambler.

Ice cream, booze and gambling – the three most destructive addictions, all wrapped up in a man who I thought was my future and safe haven.

In my desperation, I contacted the same former friends who had first raised the alarm. They told me that Jake had been using long before we met and that his downward spiral was already in full swing during our whirlwind courtship and marriage.

How could I have missed it? I must have been blinded by love – or he must have been a highly skilled liar.

Meanwhile, his erratic behavior, mood swings and paranoia – all the product of the hell-ice wreaking havoc on his mind – continued to worsen.

He started accusing me of cheating. His terrible accusations hit me like a knife in my heart, because I was the one who was betrayed.

He accused me in front of others, even on Facebook. It was humiliating.

His obsession with me being with other men – and it was always multiple men – was unhinged. He came up with scenarios that weren’t even plausible.

Now I suspect his mind has been poisoned by pornography, which ice cream addicts consume for hours while under the influence of the stimulant drug.

By now, my phone was no longer my personal property; he always searched through it and i was too scared to stand up to him.

His paranoia while being questioned about my imaginary affairs was so intense that nothing I said or did could calm him down.

Despite all the warning signs, I convinced myself it was temporary. That maybe if I loved Jake enough, I could help him.

But I was shockingly naive. I didn’t understand the ice cream addiction, nor did I understand how it consumed us both. Jake didn’t just battle drugs; his mind was deteriorating before my eyes and I was powerless to stop it.

Now that I was firmly convinced that I was cheating on him with every man I saw, he disappeared for days without any explanation – I suspect he had ‘revenge affairs’ – smoking ice and blowing what little money was left slot machines.

The specifics of his drug use – who he would buy it from, where he would use it – were initially a mystery to me.

But through my own sleuthing, I discovered that he was in contact with people he met at parties – to which I was clearly not invited – and through other shady connections.

Some evenings he did it alone, in our house. He thought I wouldn’t notice.

I still tried to help him, but every conversation ended in a fight. He accused me of trying to control him, and his paranoia would kick in again.

After a confrontation that left me in tears, he swore up and down that he would quit – but nothing changed.

I even thought about staging an intervention or involving his family, but by then I was too exhausted to keep trying.

Homeless and alone

There came a time when I knew I had to leave. It wasn’t just the drugs; it was the constant threat of violence that comes when ice poisons a relationship.

He never physically hit me, but the constant threat, the fear of what he would do next, became too much for me to bear.

The last straw was when he lashed out in front of our children one evening during a visit. His paranoia was off the charts. I knew I couldn’t do this to my boys.

So I left, packed a bag with what little I could and caught a plane back to Melbourne.

I had no plan, no money and no safety net. I left everything behind: my car, my furniture, the life I had built with Jake.

I was homeless, stuck on the couch among Airbnbs, and staying with my brother until I got it all together.

It was humiliating, especially since my brother had his own family to worry about. I felt like a burden to him, but I had no choice.

The reality of addiction

Addiction is a beast. It turns people into someone you don’t recognize, someone they don’t even recognize. But the hardest thing for me was realizing that I couldn’t save Jake.

No amount of love, support or patience could make him stop using drugs. Jake needed professional help, but he wasn’t ready to seek it.

If I could share one piece of advice with anyone else going through this, it would be this: You can’t change someone who isn’t willing to change themselves.

No matter how much you love them or how hard you try, the addiction is bigger than all of us. It’s something that requires professional support, not just a partner trying to hold it all together.

Seeing me cry every night and lock my bedroom door because I was so afraid of him wasn’t enough to shame Jake into changing his behavior.

And that’s the problem with addicts: they have no shame. You can shame and embarrass them to death, but it’s still hopeless.

Leaving Jake was the hardest thing I had ever done. But it was also the most important thing.

I had to save myself. I could no longer be carried away by his addiction, by the constant accusations, paranoia, manipulation and threats of violence.

It’s easy to lose yourself in that toxicity, to question your own sanity. I had to constantly remind myself that I wasn’t the problem, it was his addiction.

Taking my life back

Somehow I am in a better place today.

I have a job I love, my own home, and most importantly, peace of mind. I think about Jake sometimes, hoping he gets the help he needs.

But I know I made the right choice, for me and my children. It’s heartbreaking to watch someone you love become addicted, but I deserved a life free from the chaos of ice.

As for Jake, what happens to him now is up to him.

As told to Ali Daher