Is My Spouse’s Addiction My Fault?

Many husbands, wives, significant others, children, and other family members consider the possibility of alcohol or drug addiction problems to be their fault. There are family-of-origin issues to consider with addiction and mental health problems. Direct family members can be indirectly responsible in some capacity for learned behavior and experiences during childhood that would make someone more susceptible to using drugs or alcohol. Regarding a spouse, addiction is never the direct fault of the spouse on the receiving end. However, there are many times when spouses and the family members of spouses unknowingly stand in the way of recovery for all. Spouses often wonder why their love is insufficient for their husbands, wives, partners, or significant others to stop. Spouses usually ask why, if they can’t stop for them, why wouldn’t they at least stop using alcohol or drugs for the children? Not only is the alcohol and drug addiction not your fault, but it is also not your responsibility to fix them either. Regardless of the relationship with the substance user, enabling and acting out a dysfunctional family role is not going to bring your spouse any closer to treatment and sobriety. 

Please remember, while no relationship is perfect and things have occurred, your spouse was this way when you got together. For those who believe they weren’t, they were; it hadn’t shown up in full force yet. You are not responsible for your spouse’s alcohol or drug addiction, regardless of what happened that led up to you reading this article. Do not let how you have behaved or reacted because of their addiction make you believe you have caused the problems you are faced with. Although it takes two in a relationship, your loved one will make you think that the things you have done in the middle of this are why things are the way they are; do not take the bait. Spouses create problems with behaviors, alcohol, and drug addiction and then blame others for the way things are and the way people have dealt with it, whether it is right or wrong. Recovery is about your spouse seeing what they did to set the ball rolling and what they did to keep the ball rolling. Do not let them take your inventory.

Spouses experiencing addictions to alcohol, drugs, or process addictions often gaslight and flip the script onto others through calculated manipulation. Most spouses do not start off believing the alcohol or drug addiction is their fault, and over time, they come to accept it. The change happens because your spouse convinces you it is your fault, and your acquired maladaptive coping skills and family roles have convinced you it is your fault. As you start to see your loved one as a victim, you see yourself more as the reason why things are this way. As you continue to play events in your mind during the marriage, you ask yourself, at times, if you have pushed them to this; you didn’t. They chose to handle things this way. It is not setting boundaries or taking action sooner if you’re guilty of anything. 

As things progress, the spouse on the receiving end of the addiction almost always defaults to the role of a martyr. It is why when we do intervention consultations, the spouse often finds it difficult to get past their objections and excuses not to intervene. Spouses with substance use disorder will dismantle a family with dishonesty and manipulation to convince others that the problems result from everyone and everything else. It is like telling yourself every day or having someone else tell you that you are a terrible person or will never amount to anything; after a while, you may start to believe that.

Enabling and becoming a martyr are not the answers, and although the addiction may not be your fault, you may be addressing the problem ineffectively. It may be difficult for some spouses to understand that you are not able to love the alcohol or drug problem away from your spouse. When a spouse becomes a martyr, they make the problem more about what will happen to them than they are concerned about their spouse getting help for their alcohol or drug addiction. As much as you would like your loved one to take responsibility for their alcohol or drug addiction, the other spouse has to take responsibility for why they allow themselves to stay and not detach. We are not suggesting that you immediately leave; we are suggesting that if your loved one does not seek help, you consider your options, options that can help both you and your spouse simultaneously. Remember, alcohol or drug addiction is not your fault, and you have choices on what to do about it. 

Am I enabling my spouse’s addiction?

The spouse of an addict or alcohol often enables differently and for different reasons. A typical enabler is a mother or father who helps a loved one to feel needed in the relationship or to justify a purpose. The common spouse enabler is a martyr to justify being a victim of addiction, alcoholism, or mental health disorder. The common enabler is not absolute, as the martyr spouse may enable for the same reasons as the mother or father and vice versa.

Regardless of your connection to the intended patient and whichever family role you acquire, and for whatever reasons, enabling is not the answer, nor is it an effective solution. 

A spouse who has become a martyr is enabling because they see themselves as a victim and may also see their spouse as a victim. Often, the martyr, as well as other family members, may justify the enabling by believing the problem is a primary mental health diagnosis. The diagnosis could be accurate, but it may not be; either way, you and your spouse need help. Neither spouse is truly a victim because help is available for both of you. In addition to justifying a mental health disorder, the martyr often comes up with many other excuses to avoid addressing the problem. The concerns become more about what will happen to the spouse on the receiving end than providing help to the spouse with a substance use or mental disorder. A martyr will be left with worry about what will happen to them while their spouse is in treatment. They may not say this outright, but it is a driving force for enabling. Questions such as how will I do this by myself, pay the bills, handle the kids, will they love me when they come home from treatment, will they divorce me, etc., fill the martyr’s mind. Nobody gets better when a spouse enables through the lens of a victim and keeps things a secret. 

The martyr’s role is so decisive that the spouse has sabotaged many interventions. It is often the family of a substance user who has to do an intervention on their loved one’s spouse before they intervene on the family member struggling with alcohol or drugs. Some spouses are afraid their loved one will go to treatment and meet someone else or leave them when they return, so they avoid doing an intervention with excuses for not addressing the problem. 

Not all spouses become martyrs, and many enable, for the same reasons a mother or father does, to feel needed and to serve a purpose. The spouse who enables, like a mom or dad, also seeks approval and love from the substance user. Sometimes, the spouse wants to love their spouse and receive reciprocating love. The hope that love will cause their spouse not to want to use drugs or alcohol anymore is the desire of many; we wish this were possible. Addictions are so powerful that spouses and children are often insignificant losses that prompt someone with an alcohol or drug addiction to stop for the long term. This is not to say that these losses do not expedite someone’s surrender in the short term. These losses have sent many to treatment quickly. What often happens is that the fear of this wears off. Either the spouse at home let their loved one come home from treatment too soon, or both thought the addiction was cured because the spouse went to treatment.

“We have seen men get well whose families have not returned. We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon.”

Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, pg. 100

Family recovery is as important if not more important than recovery for the intended patient with substance use or mental health disorder diagnosis. Most interventions result in the intended patient accepting help and entering treatment. Most unsuccessful outcomes result from the family not engaging in our S.A.F.E.® (Self Awareness Family Education) Family Recovery Coaching program. Your loved one accepting help is a much smaller battle than your family accepting help and following through with therapeutic suggestions and guidance. 

How do you know if you are enabling?

When you enable someone with an alcohol or drug addiction, you take away their ability to feel the consequences of their actions. For someone to change, they must see the need to do so. In the clinical setting of addiction treatment, there is something called the stages of change. Of the five stages of change, the second stage is paramount. In the second stage of change, the intended patient acquires ambivalence, which is the ability to see both sides of something. When the consequences become more significant than the benefits, change occurs. When enabling occurs, ambivalence does not. Translation, clinically speaking, enabling prevents an intended patient from moving on from the second stage of change.

So, how do you know if you are enabling it? Ask yourself, with each action you take, whether it will make them comfortable or uncomfortable. Is what I am doing going to shield them from consequences or allow them to feel consequences? If the answer is yes to making them comfortable or protecting them from consequences, then you are enabling. It is that simple, in theory. 

Enabling is never one-sided; it is more about the person delivering the enablement than the one receiving it. People are enabled for selfish and maladaptive reasons and to fill the needs of the acquired dysfunctional family role. One of the reasons it is selfish is because the enabler is enabling others to fulfill something for themselves with a disregard for how those actions will affect and hurt the whole family. We all know what a person with a heroin addiction is going to do with fifty dollars, and most people know why not to give it to them. The real question is why does the other person need to hand over the fifty dollars, and what is it doing for them when they do it? Most enablers can feel required in a relationship. Some believe that enabling keeps the other person alive. Often, people will say if they don’t enable, the person will get into trouble; this goes against the second stage of change. The point is that we have to get past the obvious of what enabling does for a substance user and look towards what it is providing the enabler. Whatever the reasons, it does not help your loved one improve. You can read about some examples of enabling behaviors as well as the do’s and don’ts by clicking this bold link. 

In addition, here are some enabling behaviors that are more specific to spouses enabling their husband, wife, partner, or significant other:

• Seeing yourself as a victim/martyr
• Seeing your spouse as a victim
• Believing that the alcohol or drug addiction is your fault
• Believing you can fix the alcohol or drug addiction with love
• Lying/Covering for your spouse
• Shielding them from consequences/Making them comfortable
• Arguing with them

Some may read these and ask how these examples are enabling traits. Everything listed above keeps you in a state of inaction and allows your spouse to justify their actions. Take arguing with them, for example. How is this enabling? When an argument ensues, no matter who started it, the alcoholic or drug-addicted spouse will walk away, justifying the argument was your fault, and that is why they use substances. Detaching from your loved one and taking action for your recovery is the best thing you can do for yourself, your spouse, and your family. When you view yourself and your spouse as a victim, you put yourself in a holding pattern while you wait for them to ask for help, want help, or hit bottom and you punish yourself and prevent your spouse from getting help. We know it is hard, and if you enable them, you prevent them from moving through the stages of change.

Why is it so easy to enable?

Enabling is easy because it avoids confrontation and avoids you having to say the word no. Enabling is a coping mechanism people use to validate and fulfill their needs. Enabling is almost always viewed as something the substance user benefits from and rarely about how the enabler benefits. The enabler has two choices: they enable or they don’t. The enabler has to look at their actions and ask themselves why they are doing so. Most enablers provide justifications that sound good and make sense to them. When you dig deeper, there is so much more to why. On the surface, you will hear reasons such as you don’t want them to die, avoid jail, help their kids, avoid debt, keep their job, etc. What you rarely, if ever, hear is “I enable because” it gives me a purpose. I feel needed, afraid to say no; I don’t want this to stop, and I feel better when I do it. The last one, I feel better when I do it, is an example of codependency. Enmeshed codependency is when your loved one feels better, you feel better; when they feel bad, you feel bad. People can fulfill their codependency needs and determine their identity and self-worth by enabling and caring for one another. In summary, it is easy to enable because it feels good. It feels good and is one of the main reasons why your spouse uses drugs and alcohol. 

Codependency is not a recognized disorder in the DSM-V, and it should be. The DSM-V lists dependent personality disorder instead. Codependency and dependent personality disorder are very similar, with the difference being based on the nature of the relationship. When you look at codependency, the reason we think it should be listed is because it is just like an addiction. A spouse addicted to drugs and alcohol is very similar to a codependent addicted to enabling; both people do what they do for similar reasons: it feels good, and it is easy to do. While there are many similarities between a substance user and a codependent enabler, there are also many differences. The point we are trying to make is that both sides benefit from one another and need help. The spouses and families need as much support as the intended addiction and mental health patient. While enabling is easy, it is not easy to stop. 

Families have a far more difficult time at the intervention and after the intervention than substance use disorder clients. Before the intervention, the codependent enabler did better when their loved one did better and did worse when their loved one did worse. What is so fascinating is after the intervention and removing the ability to enable, when the substance use disorder patient is in treatment and does better, the spouse or family does worse. Their identity, self-worth, family role, feelings of being needed, and purpose have been removed. It is like taking alcohol and drugs away from someone. When the intended patient refuses help at the intervention, families are not as difficult as the ones whose spouses or loved ones accepted help. 

“It may be easy to enable, and it is difficult for spouses and families to stop. It is more challenging to work with a spouse and a family than it is to work with those who are diagnosed with substance use or mental health disorders.” 

How to set boundaries for addiction & family members

Boundaries are your determination of what is and isn’t acceptable to you in a relationship. People have boundaries in their marriage, workplace, family, friends, etc. The biggest problem we see is family members who accept their loved one’s addiction and behaviors and let other family members talk them out of taking action. The family may not happily accept the behaviors of others, but they are received nonetheless. Your loved one’s addiction and your family’s dysfunctional roles and maladaptive decisions have not happened over time; it has gradually progressed. As much as you should have healthy, effective boundaries with your loved one who needs help, your family will require healthy boundaries with other family numbers. People make decisions that benefit themselves, and when the decision to talk other family members out of an intervention is made, it is made for selfish reasons, and it has nothing to do with getting someone help; it is actually about not getting them help.

“Every family will be split. Some will want an intervention, and others will not. The ones who do not will benefit from not confronting the situation and preventing help from being introduced. Not wanting to do this and a split family is exactly why you are in your position. In these cases, dysfunctional family roles lead the decision, and we strongly suggest you do this without them.”

Throughout this article, we have discussed the impact dysfunctional family roles have on the outcome for your spouse or other family members. Boundaries are essential for anyone unwilling to let others dictate their decisions. People with substance use and mental disorders are far easier to work with than family members who have been consumed by a dysfunctional family role coupled with maladaptive behaviors and coping skills. Many times, family members have to set boundaries simultaneously with family members who are not setting boundaries with the intended patient. Although painful, it is necessary. Boundaries in this capacity are effective because they help the other person see the consequences of their behaviors. The second stage of change theory does not just apply to the person with addiction or mental health concerns. The theory applies to life itself. 

“As long as the benefits of an action appear to be more beneficial than the consequences of the action, the action and behaviors continue.” 

An example would be an enabling mom to her adult child. Suppose mom has other children, grandkids, and a husband. Her enabling is like a drug, and she executes her enabling with impunity while the family sits back and allows it with no boundaries. Sure, they may scold mom occasionally, and the benefits mom receives from enabling are with the minor consequences of scolding. Now, her other children have set a boundary: do not contact us, and you can’t see the grandkids until we do something about this and get our family help. The example may seem dramatic, and people do it every day if they want to see change. What happens now is mom’s enabling has more consequences than benefits, and she stops. Some family members may feel this is barbaric, and there must be another way. The other way is not to set boundaries and allow everyone to continue playing out their dysfunctional family roles and for your loved one to carry out their addiction and mental health struggles. 

“When boundaries are not set, and there is no accountability for negative actions and behavior, then the benefits of continuing the negative actions and behaviors will always outweigh the consequences.”

Family Interventions for Spouses with Addiction

Many people who call about their spouse believe they are functional. Determining whether or not someone is functional based on what they still have is not a healthy decision. Still having a job and a home does not make you functional; it just means you have yet to lose those things. Justifying being functional or not that bad doesn’t help your spouse or other family members. Although ideal, only some family members must be on the same page. If everyone were on the same page, you would not be reading this, the intervention would be completed, your spouse or other loved one would be in treatment, and you would be in your recovery program.

“When family members are not on the same page, the intervention will correct that. When family members are unwilling to get on the same page and try to talk you out of the intervention, not having them there will fix that, too.” 

When done correctly, interventions address the family system that prevents help from being considered, sought, or taken. A split and dysfunctional family system is the crux of the problem. It may not be why the problem started, and it is why the problem is not improving; when your spouse or another family member has a mental illness and is addicted to drugs or alcohol, be prepared for a divided family. The divided family applies to every situation regardless of whether the intervention is for your spouse or other family members. 

Our intervention services are designed to help your family first, then help your loved one. If only the intended patient corrects, the possibility of a successful outcome decreases. When the family corrects, the intended patient’s likelihood of successful recovery increases. When both enter recovery simultaneously, the recovery chances for all significantly improve. 

“It is easier for a dysfunctional family of many to pull one person backward than it is for one person with a substance use or mental disorder to pull back many family members.”

Families blame the one person with the problem for all the issues and cannot or will not see they are equally at fault. Addiction and mental health problems may have caused your family to default to dysfunctional family roles, and now it is your family’s responsibility to see the problem and correct it. Your loved one who needs help will not make the first move; you must. Rather than blaming your loved one, take ownership and take charge. Waiting for your loved one to ask for help, want help, or hit bottom is not likely working. Your family can make the first move when they are at their bottom. The intervention participation only requires those who wish to help their loved one. Waiting for other family members to get on board is like waiting for your loved ones’ friends, with who they drink or use drugs, to get on board first before taking action. If this last example seems extreme, we would like to understand more from those who talk other family members out of trying to help their loved one. You don’t have to wait for your loved one, and you certainly do not need permission from doubting family members to do this.