Oooh. My sister - in recovery and sober now for ten months - recently sat at the dinner table and announced to her family - who had spent nearly $100k and months of their time and countless hours of handwringing (I think the whole family was in therapy at one time EXCEPT her) helping her get sober that she “doesn’t regret anything - I had a really good time and it was a lot of fun.”
That went over like a lead balloon.
Unfortunately, you need to develop a thicker skin. Not only because she will say things that will hurt you, but because those things could lead you to relapse. Whether what she is saying is wrong or right, resilience is the #1 trait that will guarantee you get through life, and it’s not something you can get from a relationship. You have to get it on your own.
Second, I know it’s a cliché, but give it time. Nothing you say will make a difference because she is waiting for your actions over time to show that you mean it. If you can’t do that, best to be up front about it now. She doesn’t owe you anything, and you owe her bigtime. She’s applied to her family to bail you out of trouble, and she’s given you a second chance.
If you don’t like the way that makes you feel, maybe this isn’t the time to try to tackle your relationship issues and your addiction issues at the same time.
What, exactly, are you confused about?
You have a history of letting her down in a huge, huge way. No, let me rephrase that. You have a history of stomping her trust into the mud, kicking it in the stomach repeatedly, setting it on fire, and then pissing out the flames and taking a dump on the ashes. Do you really expect her to stand on the edge of a muddy patch and hand it back to you to see what happens?
I know that sounds really harsh, but what you did to her was much harsher. You may never fully understand how deeply and fundamentally you let her down. And you certainly won’t understand it as long as you’re talking about how her being out of town sent your use soaring, and how you’ve been totally completely utterly clean (except for using last summer, but that was only a tiny little bit of something pretty innocuous), and how you (singular) bought your (plural) first home last year. All that stuff indicates that you’re not really taking responsibility for your bad actions, and are taking way too much credit for your good actions. In short, I don’t really see any indication that you’ve made the fundamental sort of mental changes that will make the behavioral changes stick long-term.
It’s probably not disgust, per se, that she feels toward you. More like resignation, because until you change your head, it’s just a matter of time till you let her down again.
Or maybe it is disgust. Sometimes you just can’t really process all the negative feelings about some disaster in your life, so you cruise along thinking you’re coping just fine, and then at some point down the road all that grief and anger and pain gang up and just fucking waylay your ass. Leigh may be having some of that going on, and you’ll just have to sit down and shut up and let her work through it for as long as it takes. You owe her that much, and a whole lot more.
Or it’s possible she’s one of these codependents who like taking care of various types of ne’er do well like addicts and the chronically unemployed. The fact that someone isn’t stuffing the rent money up his nose isn’t necessarily a clean bill of psychological health. Sometimes, when the addict in such a relationship gets clean and starts rebuilding his/her life, the relationship falls apart.
Regardless of what she’s really feeling or why, all you can do is to keep on keeping on. Continue the hard work to get totally clean and rebuild your life, not for her or for your relationship, but for you.
I have a friend who did the exact same thing to her husband about 10 years ago. It took her a while to get some long-time clean under her belt. She’s clean for years now, but he still won’t let her near the bills or the checkbook. It’s not up to you to decide when the trust is back…it’s up to the person you burned. You can’t force these things.