Leaving a partner with an addiction can be an incredibly difficult and distressing decision to come to. We spoke to Kate* who left her husband after years of alcohol addiction – and several failed attempts to get sober. She shares the catalyst that made her seek help for the first time, and then the next time, to make the decision to leave. Then, we hear from a Divorce Coach who shares that in the last year or so, addiction has been skyrocketing as a reason for couples divorcing.
Welcome to the Divorce Diaries. In our past instalments over the last year we’ve covered everything from when you’re most likely to divorce to whether they’re contagious to whether being on the contraceptive pill can effect your chances! and have now spoken to dozens of women – including one whose husband announced he was leaving her to have an open relationship with a 19-year-old, another who was quite literally ghosted by her own husband and one who discovered the real reason her husband divorced her was because he had a baby with her SISTER.
If you have a topic you’d like to discuss, share your thoughts, experience or advice about, drop a line to alice@capsulenz.com.
Kate and Nick’s marriage very nearly didn’t make it through the pandemic.
“Nick had the kind of job where you couldn’t work from home,” says Kate. “He had nothing to do. To me, sounded like heaven. I was still working. Plus, we had two children – aged four and six at home. Nick was very stressed.”
Kate says Nick started turning to alcohol to cope with the stress and uncertainty of life during lockdown – and, to get through the monotony of it. But, that only compounded her stress – and her mounting responsibilities.
“In hindsight, I can’t really believe I got through it,” she says. “I thought that Nick would be able to pick up the childcare side of things while I worked, but that wasn’t the case. He was drinking – and trying to hide his drinking, but it started earlier and earlier each day, and, he wasn’t getting up until late due to the hangovers. I was on autopilot. I can’t believe we made it through. Nick had problems with alcohol in the past, but that was on a whole new level.”
There was a moment where Kate said enough was enough and organized for Nick to speak to someone – virtually – to get help with what was clearly now a quite serious drinking problem.
“I’d gone down to the supermarket quickly because I realised we were out of a few things for dinner – and milk, which, at the time, our four-year-old demanded a glass of before bedtime,” says Kate.
But when she got home, Nick was on the couch, asleep. Their children had pulled chairs into the kitchen and were making dinner. “My heart leapt into my chest – they had got out all these ingredients, had turned on the oven and were searching for a knife.”
Kate says she couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if she had of been home five or 10 minutes later, and told Nick it was time to seek some help.
“I found it so hard at the time, because so many people were making light of drinking during lockdown,” she says. “It was like this funny thing to laugh about – oh, what else is there to do but drink? How else do we get through this? But at my house, it was no laughing matter.”
Things seemed to improve, and Kate supported Nick through therapy to get his drinking under control.
He hadn’t touched a drop in nearly six months, when one evening they went to a friend’s house for dinner and Nick had a beer.
“He said that part of recovery was being able to drink the odd drink and it not be a big deal,” says Kate. “But that went against everything I thought I knew about addiction. It seemed like a fantasy. And a slippery slope.”
Which is exactly what it turned out to be. The “odd drink” soon became a handful each night. And then, when she went snooping, she found the drinks he was having in front of her were just the tip of the iceberg.
“He was having two beers in front of me, but he had a bottle of vodka in the wardrobe, and in the garage, and was clearly taking swigs from those,” she says. “He’d be getting drunk off two beers, so I knew something was clearly wrong. One night I snuck a little mark on the bottle with white nail polish. I came back to check it two hours later and realised I didn’t need the marker – he’d drunk about a third of the bottle, whilst pretending to just have two beers in front of me.”
Kate confronted Nick the next day and laid things out for him – if he wanted to keep his family together, he needed to stop drinking.
“We had young kids,” says Kate. “I didn’t want them to grow up in that kind of environment. And I didn’t want their safety to be compromised. At that stage I started work very early, so he would do the school run. Some nights he’d say there was sport he wanted to watch on TV, or some work he needed to finish up and would end up sleeping on the couch. When I’d leave the house all the windows would be open – I couldn’t help but wonder if it was to hide the smell of alcohol. Because on those nights we slept in the same bed, I could smell the alcohol. There’s no way he was under the limit when he was driving our kids to school.”
Nick agreed he needed help and Kate supported him – this time also doing AA meetings. For three months, things seemed to be back on track.
“Then, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was up,” she says. “I was looking for alcohol around the house, but I couldn’t find any. He seemed like he’d been drinking a couple of times, but he got so angry about it when I asked him – he had a cold, or he was tired, and made me feel like I was crazy or cruel for accusing him.”
Nick had a work conference the next week and Kate had a sick feeling about it. She called him his first night and he didn’t answer, but text back, ‘Conference going well. Just at dinner. Will call when I can.’ An hour later the kids were asleep and Kate went onto their online banking. That’s when she noticed something odd.
“We have a joint account where we transfer the bulk of our salary in, every two weeks,” she says. “Nick hadn’t transferred anything in a month.”
In fact, he’d transferred $2,000 to his account.
She called Nick, but he text back, ‘sorry, not back in the room yet. Will call when I can. Everything ok?’ She said yes and went to bed.
The next morning she had a terrible feeling about everything, so she called her husband’s work and pretended she couldn’t remember the name of the hotel he was staying at for the work conference he was at.
“I don’t really know why I went with that angle, but something wasn’t sitting right,” she said.
It was then that she got a greater shock than she bargained for. Not only was there no conference her husband could be on, but also, she was informed that her husband no longer worked there.
“They weren’t able to tell me any more – I think they were scared they’d already said too much,” Kate says. “I called a few people I could find the details of who worked with Nick, and finally one of them talked to me. My throat is closing up now, remembering it. He told me Nick had been on his final warning at work, when he was chosen for a random drug test.”
Nick failed that test – he tested positive for cannabis (something Kate didn’t even know he used), and was twice the legal driving limit for alcohol, at 9am. Worse still, that day – when he had been instantly dismissed – was now three weeks ago.
“I remember my vision going like a literal tunnel,” says Kate. “I was trying to look up our bank accounts and I couldn’t even work the computer.”
She can barely remember calling him, but in a daze, she called Nick and let his voicemail know that she knew everything.
Kate didn’t hear back for 24 hours, during which time, she had called her family over and made the decision to leave him. She’d let his family know too – including his sister, who she was very close to.
“The worse part of it was the guilt,” says Kate. “More than the rage I felt for him lying to us, I felt guilt. Guilty that I was leaving him while he obviously had all these demons to fight. But, I had to put my children first. He’d already put them in danger. He knew the consequences of drinking again, and had stopped going to AA, having therapy – anything that would help. I felt I had to stay true to my word, so I wasn’t enabling him.”
Kate says it was a gut-wrenching decision – she still had so much love for her husband – and she was filled with fear about what might happen next.
“I was so worried that he might go even further downhill,” she says. “I was worried he might drink himself to death. And I was worried about what everyone must be thinking of me.”
She told herself that she was sticking to what she said she would do – but that maybe it would be temporary. Surely, he’d get help, get back on track and then, maybe they could look at coming back together.
For four months, she put one foot in front of the other. Nick got a new job, but they didn’t hear from him.
“I’d been ready to say he couldn’t have the kids until he was fully sober – and that I wanted his sister present while the kids were with him,” she says. “I wanted him to still see the kids – but I wanted it to be safe.”
But Nick didn’t ask to see the kids. And then, after those four months, her sister-in-law came over to the house, helped her get the kids to bed, and then made her a cup of tea and told her there was something she needed to tell her.
“She told me that Nick had been seeing someone,” she says. “He’d apparently met her a few weeks after we separated.”
And, there was more bad news to come.
“She told me that – even though Nick and I were legally married and would still be for quite some time – that Nick had proposed to her,” she says. “They were engaged.”
It’s been a year now since they separated and Nick has a new life, with a new fiancé who he lives with. From what Kate has heard, he is still drinking.
“I am still trying to understand what has happened,” she says. “And, I’m the one left trying to explain to the kids why Daddy isn’t around and why he doesn’t even call on their birthdays. I brought them fake presents from their Dad for Christmas and their birthdays because I couldn’t stand the idea of them not opening something from him.”
Divorce coach Bridgette Jackson of Equal Exes says that the number of divorces and separations she is seeing due to alcohol or substance abuse and addiction is on the rise – and, at a startling rate.
“Yes, unfortunately, we are seeing a huge increase,” says Bridgette. “A marriage thrives on mutual trust, honesty, and shared commitment – so when one partner has a drug or alcohol problem, it will severely damage this trust. The repercussions are felt most profoundly by their partner as well as the immediate family including children, relatives, and friends.”
She says people quite often try to hide their addictions, but over time it becomes more difficult to do so and there are tell-tale signs.
“The signs I see in my practice and another coach sees are aggression, emotional stress, financial issues and extreme mood swings,” Bridgette says. “People who are struggling with their addiction are so often wrapped up in their issues that they begin to neglect the needs of those around them, as well as their own.”
Bridgette has seen the devastating consequences that addiction can have on a marriage. And often it is a cycle similar to what Kate experienced – “It’s not unusual for the spouse to constantly apologise for their behaviour and promise never to do it. However, these false promises are exactly that and can cause the other spouse to feel disheartened.
She says that as the partner of a person with an addiction, it’s essential to put yourself first and think about what you really want.
So, what does Bridgette advise doing, if you feel it’s time to confront your partner about a possible addiction to?
Bridgette’s Advice for Confronting A Partner With An Addiction:
Confronting the situation may be your only way forward. While it may be easier to fight for sobriety on your spouse’s behalf, this can lead to confrontations if they are not ready to recover. It can also enable their behaviour and cause them to lash out.
The partner needs to remember:
I didn’t cause this addiction
I can’t control it
I can’t cure them
Five strategies that stop a partner being enabled in their addiction
- Anything that supports the person’s current behaviour, addiction and lifestyle
- Do not cover up or make excuses for them
- Do not give or loan money to them
- Do not offer to or rescue the person when difficult natural consequences occur
- Set boundaries and stick to them
Step one is to stop defending them or turning a blind eye. It is incredibly hard to acknowledge a spouse’s addiction; covering for them will allow them to continue abusing drugs/alcohol. E.g. calling their work to cover him/her being hungover.
Step two is to allow them to deal with the consequences of their decision. When you confront them, you must try and remain specific about your addiction-related concerns. Don’t sugar coat your feelings to avoid upset; without being frank, it will be unlikely to produce effective results.
The best time to confront a spouse is when they are sober and calm, and the best way to move forward in your confrontation is to lay out your concerns and discuss why you want a divorce. When a spouse has an addiction, the non-addicted partner often offers an ultimatum explaining that the divorce will happen if they do not seek treatment.
If you are not ready to end your relationship, explaining what you want and what will happen if your demands are not met is a good way to begin.
If you are ready and you find that your partner is unwilling to change or seek treatment, then divorce may be the right option.
