One of the things that happens to couples when they’re together is one of the partners
will form an addiction.
All addictions have a destructive pattern and can ruin relationships.
Today on Reaction Reset, we’re talking about how to love your partner through an addiction.
When you get married you may not know your partner’s family history with addictions.
When addictions strike your family, it upsets everything because you weren’t thinking,
you weren’t preparing.
You had no idea.
Addictions aren’t coming strictly from parents or strictly from being in a work crowd that
goes out after work.
Now, addictions have three components.
They have a genetic component, what the family history is if that child was raised with addicts
and how easy it is to attain and get the substance that your partner is using for a vice.
The thing about an addiction is if you find out your partner is over-drinking or overeating
or using drugs, you can’t just ask them to snap out of it because there is no snapping
out of an addiction.
An addiction changes your brain chemistry, the person you love is no longer that person.
They love you, they may still love you but they’re numb to it.
What they really love, what they desire most is the vice for the addiction.
It’s the vice that becomes their god and they can’t see anything else.
So what you need to decide as their partner is number one are you going to be able to
love them through it?
Do you have the ability to get involved with the support part like an “al-anon” mental
health facility and lastly what is going to be your stance.
Everything inside you right now is going to scream, “let’s keep this a secret.
This is shameful.
We go to church.
We’re two good people.
I can’t let anybody know.
She’ll lose her job.”
Do not keep this a secret.
It’s the actual secret that keeps an addiction growing larger.
It’s a secret that makes it so that your marriage will totally crumble.
After this video, if you don’t know anything else it’s that if you’re going to love
your partner through this.
You’re going to open the door to the people that love you most that you trust.
So that you can rely on them to help you love your partner through an addiction.
I’ve cared for semantics, especially with food, sex, and pornography.
This is what I always suggest for clients, so that means you listeners and the viewers
of this YouTube.
If your partner is an addict and it could affect your health, then it’s very important
that you go together to your doctor.
Some addictions become so destructive in that not only are they destroying your relationship.
The very sacredness of your relationship, but they could physically hurt you in the
way of a sexual disorder or a sexual disease that has passed on.
Before you begin anything, go to the doctor with your partner.
This is a very good place to start.
First of all, support but don’t enable.
Let your partner know this is a safe place.
They can talk openly and honestly to you.
You are not their mental health care provider.
They need to be in a facility that is going to actually help them with their addiction-
pornography, sexual addictions, drug addictions are some of the facilities that are available
to help the partner with the addiction as well as a spouse going through it.
This is also a good time to find a mental health care specialist for you.
If you’re the support person, you need to be involved with a support group.
You want to be sure you’re getting the honest story as you can.
If you set up your home to be secure and safe but not a treatment facility, you’re going
to be able to love them through this journey.
Second, be honest with friends and family about what’s going on.
You need your friends and family to help support you as well as the children.
It's important that you not carry any shame with your partner’s addiction.
You’re going to a support group; you're going to a mental health care professional.
It’s nothing to feel ashamed about.
You did not do anything.
This is your partner’s responsibility.
You are going to walk with them as a support person and someone who cares for them.
Thirdly, open up and talk to your children.
Kids know something is wrong.
If parents don’t talk then kids’ anxiety, depression goes way up.
By this I mean, they imagine things depending on their age on what it could be.
This will make them act out more if you don’t talk to them.
Sit them down, one by one in their own place according to their age.
Explain what happened.
Tell them your partner their parents are sick, and they need treatment.
They are going to need to go to treatment.
Tell them the length of time so that they understand and then encourage them to be supportive
but not an enabler.
The children should not feel bad for you or your partner.
This should be something that comes along.
It’s an illness, and how is the whole family going to walk through this without carrying
shame or responsibility but love their parents.
Fourthly, celebrate your partner’s success.
Sobriety is a big deal and I Know many people who still celebrate the first month they were
sober.
This is so important to keep your partner encouraged and feeling like they got a support
team, feeling like they have your love.
They have to walk it alone.
This is not your load to carry, but being there to help support them, help encourage
them, help celebrate them means a lot.
I caution you with this.
If you are married to a food addict, do not bring home a cake to celebrate.
Remember this will tell your partner, the addict, oh my gosh they are trying to sabotage
me.
No!
A much better thing is to celebrate with a walk.
Celebrate with a movie.
Celebrate with something that will symbolize your encouragement but that you’re not enabling
them with their bodies.
The best thing you can do for yourself and any partner you ever marry is to know your
family’s history of addictions.
Most people don’t understand addictions any more than a spouse of an addict which
just starts happening.
If you know your personal history and you can safeguard yourself from using those vices
forever.
You’re gonna into your marriage knowing that you assume the responsibility for staying
sober.
If you decide to love your partner through an addiction.
There’s many sacrifices you’re going to have to make.
Your life is going to have to change forever.
It can change from better.
It doesn't have to end your marriage.
It is going to change.
You cannot continue on the path you’re on.
A friend of mine told me she had decided during a counseling insight that it was better for
her to fight and work to keep her marriage intact while her husband dealt with the addiction.
She said the therapist told her, “Listen, if you divorce him, then what’s going to
happen when your children are with him?
They’re exposed to everything he’s doing while he’s under the addiction.”
She thought about how dangerous and scary that would be for her kids so she decided
that fighting for her marriage would encourage his sobriety, getting her husband back and
also giving her children a dad that they could respect.
That being said you have to make the decision for yourself, your children, and for what
you see at this time.
Remember, change your reaction, change your world.