If you are married to someone who is struggling with an undesirable behavior or addiction, you have undoubtedly experienced many emotions. Living or being with your spouse has produced frustration, anger, hurt, betrayal, sadness, fear, loneliness, guilt and shame…to name just a few.
You may have asked yourself “Am I going crazy?!”
Often, there is a roller coaster experience of some hope followed by hopelessness as your spouse vacillates in his/her desire to stop the behavior and heal from their addiction. You may have tried everything you know to help the addict with little to no success.
No wonder you find yourself questioning your own sanity.
We want you to know that you are not alone. Help is here!
In some ways, you will take a recovery journey with your spouse once the decision is made to stop the behavior. The good news…you can get your journey started now.
Let’s discuss what that looks like and the action steps you can take to reclaim your sanity. Being married to an addict is full of challenges but it doesn’t have to be a one-way ticket to the funny farm!
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If you’re married to an addict, there are a few skills that are helpful for everyone but are essential for YOU.
#1 Required Skill – Boundaries
The number one skill that is most fundamental for you to learn is related to personal boundaries…setting and holding them. A boundary is a self-imposed limit of behaviors, for yourself or others, that you will accept (or not accept) with meaningful consequences if the limits are violated. If you have been living with or exposed to an addict for any length of time, you have most likely broken or capitulated on a boundary or boundaries you established.
And, you’ve probably done this frequently.
You have tried to reason with the addict. Do any of these techniques sound familiar?
- begging
- cajoling
- threatening
- bribing
- protecting
- lying
You’ve probably done anything you can think of to help your struggling spouse…all to no avail.
For many spouses, the addict becomes their obsession…indeed, their addiction. This is a scary thought!
So, the first step for you is recognizing that you are powerless over your spouse’s addictive behaviors. The only control you have is over your own behaviors. Setting and holding boundaries is the number one most important skill you can master to help your spouse…and yourself.
One warning…there is something called intermittent reinforcement that you need to be aware of.
Let’s say you hold your boundaries with your spouse and they test you 5 times. You hold firm all 5 times. But then, they catch you in a weak moment…and you give in to your boundary on their 6th attempt to “break you down.â€
You have just taught your spouse that 5 “No’s!†are required before they will get a “Yes!†You have made it even tougher for yourself to hold the boundary in the future, because you will probably need 15-20 “break down†attempts before they finally accept that you are serious about holding this boundary.
Psychologists learned that intermittent reinforcement, in which you occasionally link the appropriate response to the behavior, is actually more powerful than linking the response to the behavior each time.
But we get it…it’s tough to be the bad guy and to hold fast to your boundaries.
Giving in actually strengthens the resolve of your spouse to break you down the next time you try to adhere to your boundaries. So, for your own sake, you need to get really good at setting and holding boundaries.
In our Craziness to Sanity presentation, we cover this critical skill in more depth. We also go into some of the other skills you need to develop to survive being married to an addict. You can see the full presentation at www.RecoverYES.com/Spouse.
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