Answer
In this counseling answer:
• Get involved in the most active masjid in your city.
• If you stay with him, you must make your family and his family aware of the situation. Don’t help him when he gets in trouble (legal or otherwise).
• Take a step back away from him mentally and develop yourself, because as a wife you have probably been harmed in parallel to the addict’s level of addiction.
• Don’t be wishy-washy with the addict. Keep the rules you set.
Wa ‘Alaikum As-Salaam,
I want to say it’s good for you to learn how to better your situation instead of” just taking it”, because that will bring you nothing but pain. The first thing I want to point out is that you must not have any children with your husband in this state.
The thing about using drugs is it gets worse and worse until the person commits to a lifestyle of recovery. You need to also look at the possibility of adultery from your husband and the possibility of getting a sexual disease. We are speaking of a person who has lost will power to stay away from that which is wrong. You have a person whose will power has been hijacked by the addiction, and no matter how bad he wants to quit (if that’s the case), he can’t until he retains the brain and spirituality and restructures his life. This is a serious situation that will change the course of your life in a direction you don’t want it to go.
You first need to make a decision: are you willing to spend the next years of your life in a very difficult situation and try to help him in his recovery with no real guarantee of success, or are you going to leave the marriage? Only you can make that decision. May Allah guide you.
You don’t have children right now, and it sounds like you don’t benefit from this marriage very much. Now is the easiest time to leave him, and you and him can both go your own ways without much of a loss.
If you decide to stay with him then know you can’t change him but can only live by certain rules to better the situation. It’s only Allah’s mercy that can completely heal an addict, and it’s the addict’s burning desire to change which will affect the causes for his change. This burning desire has to come from a mature person who is willing to plan a course of action and follow through with it no matter how hard it is for them. He should not quit but stay motivated and have the resources they need to live the life of recovery.
Here are some rules to live by:
Get involved in the most active masjid in your city. Many people with an addicted family member stay away from the community for one reason or another. This is the trick of the Shaytan. Support masjid events, prayers, lectures and meet other sisters to give you support.
Get familiar with http://www.al-anon.org/
If you stay with him, you must make your family and his family aware of the situation. Don’t help him when he gets in trouble (legal or otherwise). A husband who does not try to work or can’t mentally keep a job is unacceptable.
Check out this counseling video:
When a family is in crisis, the household can get so crazy that it gets used to being crazy. Don’t get use to a house with no rules; refuse such a situation, even if as a family you end up having to kick the addict out for months at a time every so often.
When the addict is in pain, it makes them want to remove the pain. You will notice this if you pay attention that they only want to change when they are in pain. If the family keeps saving them or reducing their pain, they won’t change. The pain of the legal system, homeliness, and being alone is a motivator for change. The family should only remind addict of Allah, recovery and love, but no other support can help.
The wife must have a life outside of the addict. Some wives are co-dependents so they are addicted to the addict. They always worry about them, they change the way they live, and they have a hard time making decisions. All of this happens when one allows themselves and their families to be overly involved in the addict’s life. Each person has his/her own goals, needs and wants that need to be fulfilled. Some wives forget about their own spirituality and needs because of the constant effort and worrying over the addict. Take a step back away from him mentally and develop yourself, because as wife you have probably been harmed in parallel to the addict’s level of addiction.
Don’t be wishy-washy with the addict. If you say something or set a rule in the house like: “I will leave to live with my mother for 9 months if I don’t see you writing about your readings in your recovery books, coming home every day before Magrib and praying 5 times a day”, then do it! Every time a wife threatens but doesn’t follow through, she strengthens the part of the addict that wants to stay in the addiction cycle.
Read 3 books on addiction recovery together if you can, singly if you have to. Read one on addiction recovery, one on enabling the addict, and one on how addiction hurts the family.
I hope this helps.
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