Thank you for showing how to handle a drug-addicted husband
Question:
Thank you so much for your website. I am desperate to be pointed in the right direction on my situation. Your article titled "My husband continues to use drugs" was exactly what I have been searching for these last three years.
I knew in my heart that I should not move on from my drug-addicted, abusive husband, but I could not understand why I felt this way with everything he has put me through in our long marriage. I have been separated from him for a year because of the mental and physical abuse, and now that we are separated the abuse is worse. I think it is because he feels he has no control. I know he loves me and I love him, and I am so sad at what he has done to our family. I have been lost this past year fighting for custody of my kids and listening to everyone telling me to get a divorce. Your answer to the question in the article has cleared up my confusion and reminds me to trust in God. I know now that I have to focus and cling to God and whatever His will for my marriage I will follow. I will remain unmarried and pray for my husband. I will not be ashamed to be departed from him and will continue to live on my own and continue to pray for God to give me the wisdom to know when it is safe for me to go back.
Thanks for posting such a personal situation.
Answer:
Sometimes the best way to learn is to see the same situation through another person's eyes. I'm sorry about the mess your husband's addiction has brought to your life. But at the moment, your job is to raise your children to be responsible adults. God's way does work out for the best in the long run. Even secular people understand that a mom who is dating men don't do a good job with their children. The natural tendency is to see the children as a liability and resent them for interfering with the woman's life. Women who do eventually marry again almost always have problems with the new husband causing problems with the children. So I hear many secular advisers say what God has always said: stay unmarried. They limit it to until the children are grown. God says it is until you can get back with your husband or he passes from this life.
- "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).
- "For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband" (Romans 7:2).
Let your husband know that you still love him, but that he has to be clean and sober before you'll take him back. I wish you had a way to do it without divorce, but your husband has cut that pathway off for the moment. Meanwhile, as your children get older, they will need a good male role model in their lives. So think about who you can live nearby who can help with what your husband cannot supply at the moment -- your father, a brother, or even a brother in Christ. It will be rough, but you can do it. And if in the process your example pulls your husband back from the road of destruction, even better. "But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they [the children] continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint" (I Timothy 2:15).
Response:
God bless you for what you are doing. Thanks for the inspiration and insight. I will do my best to stay strong and take care of my kids in God's name.
