Grieving my alcoholic ex has been complicated. There were good times, but his addiction erased his goodness & replaced it with a monstrous version of himself.
What is hard is: grieving the loss of what I expected him to be (sober) instead of accepting the reality of who he had become as an addict.

spending the week at the beach healed me a bit

Me when I have to explain the trauma timeline I had to endure in order to become who I am now.