sistergldnhair

I'm the mom of an addict. I've been off and on here for a bit, but my son's been away in florida for over a year now. I am wondering how many marriages suffer as a result of a child's addiction. We have never been on the same page, but finally the denial curtain lifted from my eyes and i arranged for my son to go to treatment. My husband just feels that he should just stop, and that's it.
I, on the other hand, have spent the past year, learning soooo much about addiction and co-dependency, and understand recovery, and that it is a disease, and been in my own recovery with my meetings and a therapist.
I have now recognized that my own life with my husband was scarred before and this has done us in. We have grown totally apart, barely speak to one another. I now think I do not want to be married anymore.
I'm feeling strong, and know I want to begin my own journey forward, and not stuck with someone who can't move ahead. Just wondering about other families.

URMYEVERYTHING

My RBF's parents are divorced. Partly due to their disagreement on how to treat their son's addiction and partly due to them having issues prior to his addiction.

They never sought marriage therapy and ended in divorce. Perhaps, if he worked on his depression and she worked on her codependency issues, they may have remained together but neither one of them were able to see their own issues because they scapegoated them onto their son and his addiction.

historyteach

Hi, sister,

My marriage didn't make it either. But, I cannot put the blame on my son's addiction. Though it didn't help the marriage, the fact is, our marriage was very, very sick for a long time. The stress and pain caused by the addiction only caused the veneer to crack. Denial on every front only made it worse.

That was my experience. It wasn't easy. And it took years for me to pull myself back together after my world fell apart.

I hope your journey, whatever you decide, is easier.

Shalom!

cherrie1

This can cause so much tension in a marriage. My husband and I often did not see eye to eye when it came to handling things. He travels a lot for work so I found myself not telling him a lot of things that were going on. He wanted to just write my son off and I couldn't. My son is in CA. At one point he told me it's my son or him. We have stayed together but I can certainly see how people can break up over this. I too have read everything about addiction, learning as much as I can. My husband is too busy with work and also I think just tired of all of it so he does not want to think and talk about it. One thing that helped us is we both went to the family program at one of my sons rehabs and my husband got a better understanding that it is a disease.

Chino

Funny you should ask this because it's been the topic of conversation at my recent therapy sessions. I go alone and always have, though my husband always has an open invitation he chooses to ignore. What he doesn't choose to ignore is me, when I share what I've learned. That's the thing I focus on now.

My husband has some codependent and passive/aggressive tendencies, and it's easy for me to recognize them because I have/had them as well. When it happens I point out what's going on and then ask him for clarity. So far it's working. Our communication has never been more clear and it took what it did to get here. Somebody had to make the first move and it had to be me.

Next week will be our 25th anniversary and I can honestly say it's been the best years of my life. I have become a better person with him at my side while I have learned to also detach from him in a very healthy way. Neither one of us needed the additional pressure.

Who knows what will happen next, but thankfully both of us are making the effort we can today