Getting a Divorce from Your Addict Spouse

Has the time come to seriously start thinking about divorcing your Addict Spouse? After much heartbreaking soul searching has the time to break the downhill addictive spiral come for you and your family? Have you decided to stop the instability and damaging personal assaults the addictive spouse and parent has inflicted on the entire family?

Here are some possible questions you may ask yourself before making the final decision of divorcing your Addict Spouse:

• Have you acknowledged to yourself that your spouse is an addict?
  
• Have you acknowledged to your spouse that he/she is an addict?
  
• Has your life and that of your family become chaotic and unstable as a result of living with an addict?
  
• Have you gotten help for yourself and your spouse from an addiction expert?
  
• Have you attended counseling with your spouse and a knowledgeable addiction therapist?
  
• Have you or your family experienced serious negative consequences as a result of your spouse’s addiction?
  
• Have you considered or tried an intervention?
  
• Have you told your addict spouse that you are contemplating divorce unless he/she stops using?
  
• Are you now ready to leave the marriage and stop the pain?

You do not have to live in this current situation. Are you, as the non-addictive spouse, already the enabler in this relationship? Many times when the addictive spouse does seek professional help it is already too late for the marriage to survive.

If you have a family, addictive reality is very destructive to you and all family members involved. Most non-addictive family members feel very helpless in stopping the family unit from being destroyed or addressing the viability of the marriage.

(credit : National Institute on Chemical Dependency: http://nicd.inspirehealth.org/)