Divorce and addiction both affect younger people at a higher rate. The average age of an American who gets a divorce is 30, while those between the ages of 25 and 34 have the highest rates of drug addiction. When examining addiction and divorce statistics, it is easy to see how one spouse’s addiction can strain a marriage. Whether that addiction is to gambling, alcohol, or drugs, addiction and divorce is a serious matter.

• The financial burden of addiction, however, is not the only way it can affect a marriage.
• Seek support from a professional (or download an app if professional help is beyond your budget) to help you learn how to see through the clouds of fear and old conditioning.
• Recovery from substance use disorder can cause many changes in your marriage — not all of them positive.

The decisions you make affect your future, and you want to make the right ones so consult with a lawyer before agreeing to anything. Be sure to see someone with a good amount of experience in couples’ work. Sometimes a therapist with a lack of understanding of relational interactions will help put the nail in the marital coffin. Better yet, you both can try discernment counseling, a type of counseling that focuses solely on helping couples decide whether they want to end their relationship or work on it.

How to help an alcoholic husband – giving another chance

You might find yourself struggling with a variety of emotions and second-guessing yourself. Having loved ones who are willing to listen and show compassion during this process can be incredibly beneficial. But addiction is a disease that tells the addict s/he doesn’t have a disease. Unlike other diseases, such as cancer, that may invoke a patient’s survival instincts, addiction wants its victims dead (but, as the saying goes, it’s content to just make the person miserable). This last group is painfully aware that their indecision is hurting them and perhaps their spouse and children as well, yet they are stuck and cannot seem to move forward. In reality, Laura had no reason to suspect that there was anything more to Mimi’s story that she had kept secret, but it certainly threw a wrench into the relationship.

Because she’s been dealing with a narcissistic ex, she has had to work hard on finding ways to minimize the impact of his cruel and often unpredictable treatment. She knows she will never get it right 100 percent of the time, but what’s so good is that she knows that it’s not about her—and the best part of her healing is that she now knows it never was about her. Couples get divorced every day and I’ve seen countless people go on to heal. Believe it or not, in many situations, these once grief-stricken people actually have a much better life—even when they would never have chosen to end things with their ex. Knowing this will help you to set your expectations of how (and how long) your grief recovery will go. Many people going through divorce fear that they are “going crazy” because they are feeling intense emotions that they have never felt to that degree before.

Considering Leaving Your Marriage? How Likely Are You to Go?

The threat of divorce is not usually enough to get an addict in the throes of their addiction to stop. It’s almost never a function of their love for their mate, rather it is an indication of the level of progression in their addictive illness. While the threat of divorce should never be used if you don’t plan on following through with it, divorce can be a bottom for some addicts and can be the impetus for them to stop using. After divorce after sobriety all, when you are responsible for yourself and living on half of all the assets you once had, it is much harder to maintain an addiction. You have to deal with the person you love behaving irrationally, getting sick, perhaps lying, cheating or any other number of unacceptable behaviors and, on top of that, you are legally bound to this person. That means that you bear the brunt and are on the hook for any damage they may cause.