Ended the relationship last week

I posted in here last week about being on the verge of a break-up. It hurt, but I ended it on Thursday. We were together for 8.5 years. He went to treatment 5 times in the last 2 years. I saw visible change with every round but he always relapsed quickly, including on the same day as getting discharged at least once. He volunteered to breathalyze himself at one point, which he did for several weeks while attending an IOP, until the program caught him and he admitted to having a workaround for the breathalyzer. I moved out a year ago when he went back to treatment for the last time, but we continued to date with the hope of him moving back in at some point.

My breaking point was him lashing out at me verbally for the second time in a month before running off to another state in his mom’s car, whom he was supposed to be caring for after a hospitalization. In part, he blamed me for dropping the ball on a couple logistical things over the course of the last year, and claimed to have never ignored his responsibilities even at his worst. He has not reacted well, insisting that he should still have a key to my place so he can see our cats (that I’ve provided the bulk of their care for) when I’m out.

I’m feeling bad about already starting to talk to someone new, whom I know I don’t want to start anything serious with but just enjoy spending time with. But I’m also realizing how lonely I’ve been over the last couple years. We hadn’t had sex in almost two years. In the meager time that he was at home or staying at my place, rather than in treatment or sober living or elsewhere, he almost never came to bed, just slept on the couch. There were a lot of things like birthdays that he wasn’t able to be home for and he hasn’t joined me for most of social life, even when invited and among other sober people. I’ve spent a lot of time second guessing myself for leaving when this behavior wasn’t typical, and so much milder than a lot of the horror stories I’ve heard. But I’ve been thinking about how I didn’t have to wait for worse things to happen before I stopped drinking two years ago, and I don’t have to wait for worse in my relationship either; I think the lying would have been reason enough for a lot of people.