My therapist once said: “If you have family members who are alcoholics, you have no choice but to stand by them. But dating an alcoholic is completely different: You choose to be in a relationship with an alcoholic, and that is one choice I would never recommend.”

I was two years into my relationship when she said this to me, but I wasn’t strong enough to leave until two more.

Thinking back, the evidence that Jake* was an alcoholic was right in front of me. I just didn’t recognize it. The telltale signs, like routinely passing out at 7 p.m. and slurring words on a daily basis, are easily disguised, especially when someone denies their significance. But I also think I didn’t want to see them for what they were at the time.

Friends and family would mention that Jake smelled like alcohol, but I was too busy smelling the roses. Compared to my ex-boyfriend before him — who repeatedly cheated on me — Jake was perfect. He was charming and attentive, and he made me feel like he would never be unfaithful to me.

When I asked him about the alcohol smell, he chalked it up to the scent of his cologne, and I believed him. And when more and more people would ask me about it, I’d repeat his answer, because why would he lie?

As our relationship progressed, people around us felt more comfortable asking me why his eyes always seemed glazed over, and why he often told the same story twice. Why was Jake so clumsy? How did he break his ankle just by walking down the stairs?

When I would repeat those questions to him, he’d shrug his shoulders and say, “That’s just the way I am.”

One night, while we were watching a movie in his bed, I found an empty pint-sized bottle of vodka in with his sheets. He said it must have belonged to his brother, who had watched a movie in his room earlier that day and who was a known alcoholic. Again, I believed him.

I now know I shouldn’t have listened to his simplistic answers. I should have looked past his attempts to placate me and opened my eyes to his illness.

A year into our relationship, we were working a cocktail party together to help out my brother with his catering company. I prepped and served food while Jake tended bar. About halfway through the party, a guest pulled me aside and said, “I thought I should tell you that your bartender is inebriated.”

My heart dropped.

I looked over at Jake. He was leaning on the wall behind the bar; he was so drunk that he couldn’t stand on his own. Hidden amongst all the alcohol bottles, I saw a plastic cup he had been drinking vodka from. My brother and I had to carry him out to the car to put him in the backseat, where he slept for the remainder of the party while we continued to work.

I wanted out right then and there. He was a liar; that’s not what I had signed up for. But after we talked about it, he finally admitted to having a problem, and he promised he could easily get it under control. Everyone deserves a second chance, right?