Those close to them, such as the wives, mothers, and friends, should give the recovering persona the support needed if the marriage after rehab is to work. If you’re reading this, it’s likely because your spouse is struggling with addiction. While there may be some correlation between a successful marriage and sobriety, partners entering recovery can also learn to get healthy together.

• Trust is a cornerstone of any successful marriage, and actions speak louder than words.
• A great way to support them in their recovery is to be proactive and research fun sober activities that you can enjoy together.
• That’s because codependency is a relationship trait and condition that’s independent of the substance use itself.

There are over 40 million people in the U.S. alone living with substance use disorder. And many of those individuals have partners or spouses. It’s well-known that substance use disorder (SUD) can negatively affect relationships. But what many people don’t realize is that even after sobriety, addiction can continue to have a negative impact. A few months after deciding to get sober, your partner may feel more calm and relaxed.

Go to Marriage Counseling for Addiction

When you and your spouse receive couples therapy for drug addiction together, you can address your individual issues and work together on the underlying problems. Support groups are another helpful resource, where you and your spouse can learn from the experiences of others and receive support from those who have been where you are. Recovery can also sometimes uncover underlying mental health conditions that have contributed to substance use disorder. For example, up to half of people with substance use disorder have also experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Substance use disorder doesn’t only affect the person who’s addicted to drugs and alcohol — it affects loved ones as well, especially the partner who’s living with the person experiencing addiction.

• I ached for traveling without worrying whether France or Italy was safe, for the serendipity of chance meetings with people that would end with long evening conversations in cafés and spontaneous decisions to go out for dinner.
• For almost a year and a half, we experienced a new kind of rollercoaster until he found the proper medication and acceptance of its place as part of his treatment.
• Does your partner acknowledge their addiction, and are they actively seeking help and recovery?
• Bill would draw me in emotionally and then shut the door tight, with me on the outside.
• Even just one supportive person for a recovering alcoholic is enough to boost them towards living a sober life.
• That’s a massive emotional landscape to navigate and neither of us knew what to expect.

Boundaries help maintain your commitment to sobriety, safeguard your relationship, and prevent misunderstandings or conflicts. They also show your spouse that you are taking your recovery seriously and taking active steps to protect both marriage changes after sobriety yourself and your partnership. Effective communication is the backbone of any strong marriage, and it’s especially vital when one partner is in recovery. Be open and honest with your spouse about your struggles and your progress.

Addiction Treatment: What Are the Levels of Care That You’ll Be Receiving?

Partners establish trust through good communication and effective interaction processes. Giddens argues that pure relationships are more egalitarian than traditional romantic relationships, which can result in greater happiness for partners and foster a greater sense of autonomy. If you or your spouse are ready to rebuild your lives and break free from the chaos of addiction, then it’s time to get the help you need. At Gateway, our evidence-based treatment programs are designed to address the personal needs of each individual who comes to us for help. Addiction to drugs or alcohol is often experienced by one partner in a marriage.

Others find the burden is too heavy and decide to end their relationships. I don’t think my husband and I ever really knew each other until I got sober. My pregnancy added an additional challenge to the recovery process. Here I was busting my ass every day working an impossible job while he stayed home, and he was out there living his best life, making friends while I got fat and miserable on the balcony.

Time running out for $1 million Michigan Lottery prize after winning ticket sold in Oakland County

Our first aim is to determine whether the pattern of high initial satisfaction followed by steady declines typifies all newlyweds or whether large decreases in satisfaction are isolated among a subset of spouses. To address this aim, we applied mixture-modeling techniques (Nagin, 1999) to eight waves of marital satisfaction reports collected over 4 years to identify groups of husbands and wives with similar trajectories. First, the available research suggests that there will be identifiable subgroups of satisfaction trajectories over the early years of marriage. Second, one or more of those subgroups will include spouses with stable trajectories, and the subgroups will be more common among relatively satisfied marriages (Kamp Dush et al., 2008).

• When one spouse is struggling with addiction, it’s easy for the other spouse to become overly involved in their recovery.
• However, it’s not a cliché to say that our journey was far from linear.
• Sobriety isn’t just about abstaining from substances; it’s a cornerstone of healthy relationships.
• It was my jumping-off point into a life I knew I had buried inside of me.
• Success is not overnight, so it takes patience from the recovering adult and the supportive partner.
• New habits are formed that support their sobriety goal.
• First, with regard to the semiparametric modeling approach adopted here, the number of trajectory groups in a sample is not immutable (Nagin & Tremblay, 2005).

Your SUD recovery may benefit from the social support and closeness, too. This cycle can be hard to break, but it is possible with the right recovery strategy for you and your partner. Although the road to recovery can be long for everyone involved, it’s possible to make amends with those you might’ve hurt or lost in the past due to SUD. So we come to accept that going back is not an option and that building new relationships with new boundaries and clear expectations is key. While sobriety is a major milestone it is only the beginning of building a better life.