My husband continues to use drugs. Should I tell him to leave?
Question:
Hi!
I was wondering if someone could give me some insight on a problem I'm having. My husband and I have been married for over a year and have an infant child. Our little boy was planned and no surprise. When we married, my husband was a minor and a "recovering" drug addict, and I was in my twenties and a recovering alcoholic. We helped each other through a lot of difficult times trying to reach sobriety. Shortly after we got married, I found out he was hiding the fact that he was still using drugs. I stayed with him because I love him and know that divorce is only OK in God's eyes under certain circumstances. I was married before and got a divorce because of severe physical and mental abuse.
When he got "clean" again, I got pregnant. He is not now, nor ever has been, sober. He physically abused me once when I was 7 or 8 months pregnant and again last month. He is extremely controlling and mentally abusive, but I try to help him because I know he has addiction issues and is bipolar.
He is now seeking rehab and trying to actually get clean. But he told me last night that he regrets getting married and having a kid when he was so young because it didn't allow him enough time to party. He's been a drug addict since he was 13; isn't that enough time? Should I just leave it alone, or should I ask him to leave? I feel he is just making excuses to not have to go to treatment.
Please help! I'm so confused.
P.S. I have been sober for over two years. But every time I have issues with my sobriety, the first thing he does is offer me a drink. I don't feel he is supportive to me because it makes him feel better for not being sober if I'm not. Do you think that's true?
Answer:
I want to say upfront that you probably won't like what I must say. I teach people how to follow God's laws because in the long run, their lives will be better, but that also means that I must tell people they can't do things they really want to do. "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen" (I Peter 4:11).
I understand your need to divorce your first husband, but with that choice comes an obligation. "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11). The only time a woman can divorce which allows for marriage again to a different man is when the divorce is because her husband is having sex with someone else (Matthew 19:9). By God's laws, you didn't have a right to marry your current husband. Nor will you be able to marry a different man until your original husband dies (Romans 7:2-3).
You didn't do a great job picking your second husband anyway. I'm wondering if deep down you wanted a younger man because it left you feeling more in control of the situation. But the young man is growing up and demonstrating why he wasn't a good choice.
Having been enslaved to alcohol, I'm sure you were sympathetic with his plight, but you should also have remembered that addicts say whatever a person wants to hear, so long as they can continue using. You have to go by what a person does, not what he says. Your current husband has no intention of getting sober at the moment. He really has no motivation to do so.
The physical abuse is most likely to continue and get worse. He sees this as a way of controlling his situation and the drugs he takes dampens any reluctance he might have toward hurting another person.
It sounds to me that you have a tendency to see what you want to see and to ignore what other people would say were bad signs. You've made two bad mistakes in choosing partners. You had a child with a man whom you should have known was not sober. He wants a wife he can "party" with and who won't tell him he's wrong for doing drugs because she is addicted too. Eventually, he'll wear away your resistance and find a moment of weakness to get you drinking again.
You have a boy who is completely dependent on you for his well-being. What I suggest is that you focus on him. End your current marriage because it is a sinful relationship anyway. Don't go looking for another husband. Instead, start figuring out how you are going to raise a young man to adulthood who is going to be nothing like his father. That's going to be tough unless your current husband signs away his parental rights. He will try to mold this boy into a drug-using buddy; sadly, I've seen this before. Your current husband gets his justification from others behaving as he does. If you don't join him, he'll find others, including your son.
