dh had a relapse..repost from another thread....long

[sweetnblessed]

Hi all. I need some advice that is Christian based and unbiased. My husband has struggled with a drug addiction since he was 12. He is now 33. When I met him he was sober and I had no idea about his drug use. After a few months went by my parents found out I was dating him and of course did not like him although they never met him. I mention this because I think my narcissistic mother has played a role in his relapses, its a pattern for sure. When I met him I was not spiritual. Because he was a baby Christian we found that we were drawn to each other based on our spiritual belief and all that was in common. We could see ourselves growing together. Ok so he relapsed couple times after that. He wanted to get away from the bad influences so we moved 15 miles out of town where no one could find us. He stayed sober for months. Well I allowed my parents to get more involved and they were civil but still standoffish and continued to try to influence me. They put pressure on me and I of course vented to him. Well he relapsed again. Was gone for days smoking crack. His d.o.c. When he came back we tried to work it out. I was not working at this time because I was prego and had complications. We moved back into town so my parents could be closer when baby came. They were at our house all the time unannounced. This was the bad time. He was using like every week. Then our daughter came and he continued to keep using. He tried meetings, praying but nothing worked. Everyone he worked with was using too. Well it got so bad I left with baby to my parents. They had me on , said I needed to change my daughters last name to theirs. Well dh saw i moved out and he abandoned our home and lived in a crackhouse with no electric no running water where this guy he was running with lived. Well he stole money from his work and was arrested. After a week I was fed up with parents and moved back to our house. He wanted me to bail him out. So I did. Thought maybe he would have hit his rock bottom like that. So he came home and wanted to move back to his hometown a bigger city and get away from his past. So we moved didnt tell anyone. My parents were livid. Did not have any contact with me. So everything is fine we get more involved with church he talks about starting a ministry. I support him. Well he gets a call that he has a warrant in old town and has to do a 10 day jail time. He relapses again. He turns himself in and does his time. He gets out and was a brand new person. He got a taste of ministering to others and he loved being able to tell others about God and Christ was doing for him. He gets out and things are ok. We end up almost homeless and he relapses again. So this time I leave again with our daughter and move in with a roommate I work with. He basically gives up and figures he lost everything and does the same as before living homeless in a crack hotel for two weeks. Well his PO calls me looking for him and I tell them where hes at. He gets locked up and has to do 60 days for not reporting. Well time goes by and hes trying to win me back but i ignore his tries. Then I realize I am prego again. So I tell him and he is saying he is going to pull it together. Time goes by and I move out to prepare for a place for us to live when he gets out. My roommate I discover is unhappy as she became single white female on me. So after I moved out and she made work a living hell for me. Long story short her mom was a manager and I lost my job. Well dh says stay in prayer dont lose faith and our Father will provide until he can get out and help. So God does miraculously provide, dh gets out immediately I see the change in him. He is bible studying now, he has new perspective now. He was a good kind man before but now he is dedicated to living in the spirit. He finds work right away. Then his boss stiffs him. We end up homeless, literally.
So we are literally with nothing and he prays and prays and decides he is going to wash windows to provide for us until we can get help. God provides each day so we have a place to stay and food for us and our little one. Finally God leads us to help and we relocate nearby. Mind you this whole time we are staying at the crack hotel he was using at. He said Satan is a joke and he cant touch the new him. He resists temptation by the power of God. Well we end up relocating to yet another crack hotel and I express my concerns. He said its cheap and his new job is right across street. That hes done with that stuff. Well for months he is doing great. He gets a second job so we arent struggling so bad. He insists I stay at home and take care of myself and daughter. He , cooks for me helps around the house and with little one. Well my mom wants back in so she comes to visit once a week. She again is civil but unapproving of our humble means. She fails to see how happy we are. This is the happiest I have ever been and same for him. We live poor but we are taken care of. We dont go without. We are in the Word all the time we discuss and explore new things in our faith and he really gets his ministry kicked off online. We talk about our plans of living to serve God and use our struggles to bring hope And help others. We dont want to be rich we just want what God feels we need for ourselves amd our ministry. So all is amazing until Satan interferes out of nowhere. Dh gets arrested walking home from work. A warrant was issued that very day from old town on that money he stole from work which was only like 20 bucks. So I bail him out next day so he doesnt miss work. A few more weeks go by and hes stressing. He quits second job because he says its affecting him negatively and tells me I need to help him refocus God like he was. I dont. Not like I probably should have. So now court is coming up he's worried how is he going to get there, what if he gets jail time where does that leave me and our daughter and what if hes not back by the time I deliver. He starts falling apart. Then he relapses. He comes back and says he needs my help to not get back into that pattern. He want me to hide money, not leave him alone take him and pick him up from work...he still finds ways to sneak off. He is at this point crying for help because he is out of control and does not want to do this again. He says he feels like God is not.listening when he prays and that he feels two faced when he tries to get back in scripture. Hes so ashamed. Well he does ok for about a week and finally gets back into scripture and that night he relapses. So I left again. Went back to old town. When he came back and saw I was gone he spiraled out again. Was homeless for two weeks and ended up back at the original hotel. Hes been arrested again a month ago. My question is this. Do I stay with this man who has amazing potential and whom I love and feel is my . If it weren't for this one sinful nature of his, we would have a amazing relationship. We dont fight or bicker. We are so compatible. He treats me very well when he is sober. Does not lie to me, cheat on me or beats me or anything else abusive. He just leaves and on a crack binge at times. I notice that each time especially since his increased faith that it has gotten better for him to resist the sinful nature. This last time he even saw it coming but did not handle it like he should have. Everyone around me parents especially are convincing me that he will never change hes scum of the earth etc. he doesn't care or love us look at how he had us living. These people in my family are not Christians by any means and in fact bash our faith and how involved we were together in our faith . That dh brainwashed me and God only helps those who help themselves that he shouldn't rely on God to provide but go out and get good jobs like them. God did not provide their home they did and if weren't for them I would be on the street. But I recently discovered that my parents mostly my mother suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. They see how well dh treats me and it makes them angry because they dont feel i deserve that. They feel that i deserve to be miserable and only approve of relationships that make me miserable....my ex. They are also alcoholics but talk bad about dh when they drink all day everyday and around my toddler often teasing like they are going to give her some. Dh may have an addiction but he NEVER would subject his drug around me or her directly like that. I want to stand by my husband and hope and pray he can or has overcome his demon. But I am tired of the worry and what if. I can forgive but trust is hard. Sorry so long and for typos. On mobile cuz my mother wont allow me to use her laptop so satan is malfunctioning my phone...worked fine all day imagine that. .[/QUOTE]

 

[Autumnleaf]

If he relapsed its because its what he wanted to do. The reason addicts relapse is because they are addicts. If you want to help him you have to help yourself first by going to Alanon so you can learn how to deal with him and yourself as it relates to his addictive behavior. Addicts and alcoholics make their relationships and the people in those relationships sick in a spiritual way, or so I've been told by people who helped sober me up.

That is one of those suggestions that isn't really a suggestion (you should do it), but we call it a suggestion because when you tell people to do stuff like that they tend to ignore you and go about their dysfunction as they were.

Of course that might not apply to you and your situation. If it doesn't I apologize.

 

[sweetnblessed]

Thank you Autumnleaf. I have been thinking along the same lines. That maybe we both need to tackle treatment together. Not just him working on sobriety. I was thinking like some type of therapist. Would alanon be a better option? He is.incarcerated so I have no idea for how long. I am thinking about seeking help for myself so that I can be better able to support his recovery process. I doubt he is any "program" while in county but I know he is doing some serious Bible study and working on his relationship with God. I want to be there for him as we are all he has. He has no friends or family that he can count on. It was just our little family. However, I am still so upset at the whole mess, my family is breathing down my neck (although they are abusive and that is ok for them) and I am having doubts about getting back with him. But just leaving him with no support when he gets out just seems wrong in my spirit. My non believing family on the other hand are trying to tell me it is hopeless, he did not care about us when he relapsed etc. So it is like I am getting pulled two ways. I feel like scripture tells me I should focus on my own family not try to appease the family I left. They have some serious dysfunctions as well. I see so many folks recover and he is not a chronic user. In fact his fight with this has improved as time goes on. I feel he can overcome this and he does as well.

 

[Autumnleaf]

Thank you Autumnleaf. I have been thinking along the same lines. That maybe we both need to tackle treatment together. Not just him working on sobriety. I was thinking like some type of therapist. Would alanon be a better option? He is.incarcerated so I have no idea for how long. I am thinking about seeking help for myself so that I can be better able to support his recovery process. I doubt he is any "program" while in county but I know he is doing some serious Bible study and working on his relationship with God. I want to be there for him as we are all he has. He has no friends or family that he can count on. It was just our little family. However, I am still so upset at the whole mess, my family is breathing down my neck (although they are abusive and that is ok for them) and I am having doubts about getting back with him. But just leaving him with no support when he gets out just seems wrong in my spirit. My non believing family on the other hand are trying to tell me it is hopeless, he did not care about us when he relapsed etc. So it is like I am getting pulled two ways. I feel like scripture tells me I should focus on my own family not try to appease the family I left. They have some serious dysfunctions as well. I see so many folks recover and he is not a chronic user. In fact his fight with this has improved as time goes on. I feel he can overcome this and he does as well.

Give Alanon a shot first. Its cheaper, about a dollar an hour for the therapy sessions and its a quick course as far as picking up the basics.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I mention this because I think my narcissistic mother has played a role in his relapses, its a pattern for sure.

No. She is the excuse he uses, but if he relapses, it's his choice, his accountability, his action. It's not something to do with your mother.

Ok so he relapsed couple times after that.

I think you over-use the word "relapse." Relapse means he's making steps towards recovery and fails. Relapse doesn't mean he's using, casually stops for a day, a week, then uses again.

I allowed my parents to get more involved and they were civil but still standoffish and continued to try to influence me. They put pressure on me and I of course vented to him. Well he relapsed again. Was gone for days smoking crack.

So that's his fault. Not your parents.

They were at our house all the time unannounced.[/quote]

Because they don't trust their drug abusing son-in-law.

He tried meetings, praying but nothing worked. Everyone he worked with was using too.

Then he wasn't trying all that hard.

After a week I was fed up with parents and moved back to our house. He wanted me to bail him out. So I did.

I find it hard to believe your parents were worse to live with than a drug-abusing husband who's now a criminal and a thief. I'm also noticing you and your husband have zero accountability for your actions. So far in your story, everything that's happened to you is apparently the fault of somebody else.

So we moved didnt tell anyone. My parents were livid. Did not have any contact with me.

Their daughter sneaks off with unrepentant drug abusing criminal and brings an infant along for the ride? No wonder they're livid. If it was my parents, they'd call CPS on me and try to take my child away. And rightly so.

So everything is fine we get more involved with church he talks about starting a ministry. I support him. Well he gets a call that he has a warrant in old town and has to do a 10 day jail time. He relapses again.

Again, he relapses, but it's not his fault... It's somebody else's fault.

He gets out and was a brand new person.

Nope, he's actually just putting a great show. A brand new person doesn't repeat the same thing over and over and over again.

He got a taste of ministering to others and he loved being able to tell others about God and Christ was doing for him

Nope, he shouldn't be in a place of ministry. His spiritual education is not formal (it's actually non-existent) and his life is a trainwreck, so he's in no place to be guiding others when he can't guide himself.

He gets out and things are ok. We end up almost homeless and he relapses again

So things are not OK. At all.

Well time goes by and hes trying to win me back but i ignore his tries. Then I realize I am prego again.

If you were ignoring his tries, you wouldn't be pregnant...

My roommate I discover is unhappy as she became single white female on me. So after I moved out and she made work a living hell for me. Long story short her mom was a manager and I lost my job.

And yet something else that's somebody else's fault.

Well dh says stay in prayer dont lose faith and our Father will provide until he can get out and help.

This is why he shouldn't be ministering others. Prayer to the exclusion of taking care of yourself is not only not Biblical, but it's a canned answer to a problem often presented by people with only a very superficial understanding of the Bible.

So God does miraculously provide, dh gets out immediately I see the change in him. He is bible studying now, he has new perspective now

No, same as before...

He finds work right away. Then his boss stiffs him. We end up homeless, literally.

Yet again, somebody else's fault.

So we are literally with nothing and he prays and prays and decides he is going to wash windows to provide for us until we can get help.

Praying to the exclusion of solving your own problems through hard work is not the way to go, spiritually or practically.

God provides each day so we have a place to stay and food for us and our little one. Finally God leads us to help and we relocate nearby. Mind you this whole time we are staying at the crack hotel he was using at.

So as I said, not changed too much... And with one kid, maybe two by this point (not sure, you don't mention your kids at all, which is scary and shocking), living at a crack house is reckless and irresponsible.

Well we end up relocating to yet another crack hotel and I express my concerns. He said its cheap and his new job is right across street. That hes done with that stuff

Reckless, irresponsible, and shows that he's not in control of his addiction at all. "Express your concerns?" With at least one, maybe two kids... If my husband asked me to do that and had his kind of history, I wouldn't be "expressing my concerns," I'd be leaving as fast as I could. I mean, at what point does protecting your kids come into play here?

He insists I stay at home and take care of myself and daughter. He , cooks for me helps around the house and with little one.

He insists you stay home but he does the housework and cooking and has a second job? Something else is going on here...

Well my mom wants back in so she comes to visit once a week. She again is civil but unapproving of our humble means.

Humble means? You live in a crack house. She should be disapproving, she should be downright livid. She should be on the phone with CPS reporting that her grandchild is living in a crack house with a drug abuser. This isn't like you're living in a charming cottage and sewing your own clothes. Your husband won't let you have a job and you live in a crack house. With a child.

We live poor but we are taken care of. We dont go without.

Yes you do, you go without suitable housing, a safe environment, and without a husband who's serious in recovery.

We are in the Word all the time we discuss and explore new things in our faith and he really gets his ministry kicked off online.

You guys have no right or place to be doing an online ministry, or any ministry. He needs to focus on his numerous issues and you need to focus on your numerous issues before you take on other people and their numerous issues.

We dont want to be rich we just want what God feels we need for ourselves amd our ministry.

Which is not living in a crack house with a child.

So all is amazing until Satan interferes out of nowhere.

Somebody else's fault. Again.

Dh gets arrested walking home from work. A warrant was issued that very day from old town on that money he stole from work which was only like 20 bucks.

Theft is theft, if it's $20 or $200. And if the amount is so low, it's worse because it means he's probably using again. If he stole, he should get arrested, and you shouldn't be indignant because they dared arrest him for an amount that's "only" $20.

Then he relapses.

And again, it's not his fault. It's the people who brought the charges, it's you for not doing enough, he's stressed... But it's not his fault.

He's not serious about recovery.

Well he does ok for about a week and finally gets back into scripture and that night he relapses.

He needs to get real help and take charge of his recovery, not ask you to make it better, ask God make it better, hope the police don't bother him, your family don't bother him, and make that enough for him to decide to stay clean.

So I left again. Went back to old town. When he came back and saw I was gone he spiraled out again.

Again, no accountability. He does it because you aren't there to keep him on track.

Do I stay with this man who has amazing potential and whom I love and feel is my

No. He's not ready to be in a relationship, he's not ready to be sober, he's not accountable for his actions. And you're not ready to be in a relationship. You're not accountable for your behavior, you're not even exploring your role as a possible enabler to his addictions, and you display a lack of personal responsibility that's utterly shocking. I mean seriously, you have a child. You should not, as a parent, be OK or supportive of putting yourself and your child in a crack house for a relationship.

Somebody has to start thinking about the one or two kids that you have.

Are you a user too?

If it weren't for this one sinful nature of his, we would have a amazing relationship.

This isn't like "if only he'd put the toilet seat down, he'd be perfect." He's an addict who takes money from you and others to feed his addictions. He neglects you and your child to indulge and he's shown no serious inclination to getting better.

We dont fight or bicker. We are so compatible. He treats me very well when he is sober. Does not lie to me, cheat on me or beats me or anything else abusive.

You're not compatible. At all. First off, let's ignore that he does lie to you regularly by stealing from employers and your family to feed his habit, and he disappears to who knows where, and that the likelihood of a guy who gets drugged off his rocker while going missing on his wife for several days, weeks, or whatever means that he has plenty of opportunity and occasion to cheat (and most likely is), but the fact that he doesn't beat you and is nice when he's sober is very little of a concession when he spends so much time using drugs.

And it shows how for your part, you're so deep in denial about this situation that it's shocking.

He just leaves and on a crack binge at times

THAT'S A BIG THING.

I notice that each time especially since his increased faith that it has gotten better for him to resist the sinful nature.

If that were true, he wouldn't still be using now, he wouldn't have been recently arrested, he wouldn't be stealing, and he wouldn't be asking his wife and children live in a crack house. He's making bad decisions that have potentially deadly consequences for all of you and you're apparently OK with that. If you're not using yourself, then I have no idea why you'd be OK with it.

Again, at what point is either one of you going to weigh out your parental obligations as a priority?

This last time he even saw it coming but did not handle it like he should have.

Exactly, which is why saying he's getting better at managing it is a complete fabrication.

Everyone around me parents especially are convincing me that he will never change hes scum of the earth etc. he doesn't care or love us look at how he had us living.

They have a point. You should listen. He's a unapologetic abuser with no desire to recover. You put him and his addiction before your own children.

These people in my family are not Christians by any means and in fact bash our faith and how involved we were together in our faith .

This is not a case of "non-Christians don't understand." This is a case of human beings seeing other human beings living a deplorable situation with no regards for their own children, and they're justifiably outraged. And if you pull the Christian card against them, but what you have to show for it is a husband who is a criminal and abuses drugs while you live in his crack house, they're not going to feel reassured about you or Christianity. Especially if you tell them Christians and the faith are OK with it, because let me tell you, they're not.

That dh brainwashed me and God only helps those who help themselves that he shouldn't rely on God to provide but go out and get good jobs like them.

They are right.

God did not provide their home they did and if weren't for them I would be on the street.

So then don't bite the hand that feeds you. Practice humility and start thinking of people other than yourself.

But I recently discovered that my parents mostly my mother suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.

No, they suffer from common sense.

They see how well dh treats me and it makes them angry because they dont feel i deserve that. They feel that i deserve to be miserable and only approve of relationships that make me miserable....my ex.

No, if they thought that, they'd approve of you being where you are now. And I might add, you're obviously not all that happy right now, either. They have a right to be concerned and the fact that you turn that concern into attacking them... Shame on you.

Dh may have an addiction but he NEVER would subject his drug around me or her directly like that.

If that were true, he wouldn't have asked you guys to move into a drug den. He wouldn't be stealing from his family to feed his habit. He wouldn't be stealing from employers to feed his habit. He wouldn't be landing himself in jail.

News flash, he's directly subjecting your toddler to his drug habits.

And as a parent who is apparently OK with this, you have no authority to look down on the behavior of others when you yourself are guilty of worse.

I want to stand by my husband and hope and pray he can or has overcome his demon.

He's not going to overcome his problems until he actually starts trying. So far, he hasn't. He needs inpatient long term rehab or you'll just do this until he goes to jail or ODs and you'll have two kids exposed to the drug lifestyle from a young age.

Sorry so long and for typos. On mobile cuz my mother wont allow me to use her laptop so satan is malfunctioning my phone...worked fine all day imagine that. .

[/quote]

Satan doesn't cause phones to malfunction so that you can't use the internet. You give so much power for your own life away to others, it's scary. Through this whole post was all this stuff that happens to you, your husband, but it all is somebody else's fault.

He needs rehab. You need to go to treatment for being the spouse of a abuser. You need to think about your child and evaluate just how what you're doing affects her or them, since I'm not sure if you've had your second baby.

The fact that CPS hasn't been involved yet is pure luck.

 

[sweetnblessed]

Ill reply more as I read furthur but I either I did not type the circumstance correctly or there is a point of misunderstanding.
We were not living in a crackhouse. I call the hotel a crack hotel because it was on the lower end of the "amenities list". There was drug activity going on there as with most hotels. It is an extended stay type suite. Actually no different from an apartment complex. Only difference was we paid on a weekly basis as he would get paid.
He was not using at this time at all. He had been clean for 6 months. You keep mentioning cps like he was actively using in the home. This was not nor ever was the case. Our LO has always been taken care of first. Even when we were homeless. Literally on the street. He did what he had to do so we had money for diapers, etc, and a room to stay until we could get into a better situation.
I understand the blaming others point of view. However he has never blamed anyone but himself for his actions. My parents involvement is my own observation as I am realizing their behaviors and influences on me. They are not Christians and not looking for the benefit of anyone but themselves. Their goal from the start was to have me and my children under their control with no outside interference. They have even affected my relationships with friends in my church group. I only mention this in relation to DH because there was a pattern of his sober times and the common denominator was the absence of parental influence. We were only involved with our church family. But when my family started back into communication it seems things always went sour. This could be coincidental though. However this pattern has been mentioned in research I have done on narcissistic parents.
Our homeless situation again not blaming anyone but there again if the boss had paid dh we would not have been in that situation at all.
I totally agree with you in the Ministry. He needs to fix himself before leading others. He sees himself more as a person who plants the seed. He is not trying to be a pastor or that type of leader. Over the course of the past few months we have both tried so hard to get up on our feet. Everything just seemed so stagnant. It seems like as soon as we were getting ahead and things were going in a good direction financially, something would happen. Again just coincidental I suppose. Ok I am going to review more. Thank you for your input.

 

[seeingeyes]

I mention this because I think my narcissistic mother has played a role in his relapses, its a pattern for sure.

He quits second job because he says its affecting him negatively and tells me I need to help him refocus God like he was. I dont. Not like I probably should have.

Neither you nor your mother have responsibility over his relapses. He is a grown man, and his decisions are his own.

But I am tired of the worry and what if. I can forgive but trust is hard. Sorry so long and for typos.

Yes. It is impossible to trust someone whose actions are determined by what other people do.

When your husband runs off to smoke crack, it's your fault, or your mother's fault, or his boss's fault or the cops' fault. And when he is sober, it's all the Holy Spirit's doing.

Now don't get me wrong, it is good to rely on our gracious God, but what does it mean to trust someone who admits to having no control over their own actions? That's a bit like trusting a baby not to crap his pants.

I'm not spelling this out to bash your husband (at all), but I'm spelling it out because if you were raised by narcissists, then you may be accustomed to this sort of victim mentality and think that's it's normal or unavoidable. It isn't.

In fact, your own view of what's going on seems quite healthy. You don't blame your life on your husband or your mother (even though neither one is a walk in the park), but you recognize that you are where you are based partly on your own choices, and that your choices now will also affect your future. That's excellent. That's a huge part of growing up.

Your husband needs to learn that, too, of course, but what if he doesn't? Or what if it takes him forty years to get to that point? The two choices you have listed include staying with him or cutting him loose. But there may be other choices, as well.

Therapy is a good idea if you can swing it. And you can also organize your life in such a way that you don't rely so heavily on your husband. His future relapses (if there are any) would not be quite as traumatic if your children's safety and standard of living were unaffected by his absences.

It would be good, too, if you could insert some distance between you and your mother as you get on your feet. Her leverage for pressuring you wouldn't be as great if you were certain that you wouldn't need her as a fall-back plan.

Get yourself some sisters in the Lord, too. There are very few women who can pull off relying solely on their husbands for friendship, and that's true even when their husbands are 'upstanding' men. You need some sisters to hear your story and pray on you and love you as you are.

May the Lord give you His wisdom, sis.

 

[Autumnleaf]

I realize you are very busy, have you been able to spare an hour to check out an Alanon meeting yet?