You may not realize it, but your addiction can hurt your marriage and family in many negative ways. Some addicts don’t quite realize how deep the hurt can go with addiction until it’s too late. Addiction leads to many marital problems. If you are a drug or alcohol abuser, it’s important to know all the ramifications of your addiction. Irritability and mood swings are common with drug users and can have a negative impact on all your relationships. Another issue is feelings of broken trust and guilt that your partner probably is experiencing. And of course, there are financial problems that often arise from addiction. Maybe knowing the negative effects can give you the motivation to quit using.
How Your Addiction Can Hurt Your Marriage and Your Family?
Irritability/Unstable Mood
Your addiction can hurt your marriage in many ways, but the irritability and mood swings that come with drug or alcohol use can be hard. Irritability can negatively impact all your relationships, not just with your spouse. If you have mood swings that vary wildly, your spouse and family might feel disconnected from you. They never know what mood you’ll be in or how you’ll react to situations. Often, these mood swings and irritability can lead to a lot of hurt feelings and pain in a relationship.
Broken Trust
Another way that your addiction can hurt your marriage is most likely a lot of feelings of broken trust. Addiction usually involves sneaking around and secrecy to some degree. And any married person will tell you that secrets are not good in a marriage. If you’ve been hiding your drug or alcohol use from your partner, they may distrust you in the future. A lack of trust in a marriage can lead to heartbreak.
Feelings of Guilt
Feelings of guilt are another way that your addiction can hurt your marriage. No matter how you got involved with drugs or what your habits are, your family will always take on some blame themselves. They’ll assume that they could have helped, or maybe they caused the drug use, or maybe that your addiction is a response to them. Even children take on these guilty feelings when parents have problems with addiction.
Financial Woes
Finally, and maybe most obviously, your addiction can hurt your marriage financially. Substance abuse whether it’s drugs or alcohol is expensive. It can be difficult to maintain your normal lifestyle while also purchasing substances on the side. This can easily and quickly lead to financial trouble and increasing debt. As money is already one of the biggest stressors in a marriage, money related to addiction is even more stressful.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, your addiction can hurt your marriage deeply. Addiction hurts everybody that it comes into contact with. Your spouse probably has a hard time dealing with the mood swings and irritability that come with drug or alcohol use. In addition, addiction can often lead to feelings of guilt and broken trust in a marriage. And of course, addiction is an expensive habit to keep up and can quickly put you in debt. All of these factors are hopefully motivation to you to get the help you need to get your addiction under control. Your spouse and family will hopefully support you and probably be very grateful if you are able to get clean for them.
