Today I find myself trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there is no hope left for my marriage. At this time I think I've tried everything, done a lot of things wrong and followed the plan as best I could. Here's my background story. My husband and I were childhood sweethearts, we first met when we were 13, later at 17 we began dating and have been together ever since. Three months into our marriage my husband was arrested for drug charges, which was my introduction to his drug problem. I became an enabler for most of 23 almost 24 years of marriage. I took care of the bills and rent, we didn't have the best but we managed to stay afloat. His problem got worse before it got better, 10 years ago he stopped using cocaine, but to this day he uses marijuana and has this last year developed a gambling problem as well. He has addictive personality. Last year I became aware he was having an affair. He was at work and had accidentally dialed my phone number, I overheard a conversation he was having with his coworkers about another woman he had on the side. I immediately kicked him out of the house, and he immediately moved in with the other woman. Almost a year to the day later he has gone back and forth between us 6 or 7 times. Last december he moved in with me again, everything in me said this was a bad idea. But its like having the one thing you want in life show up at your door, you can't help but be happy and let it in. Needless to say I tried to get him to agree to terms before he came in, no contact and counseling. He agreed to both on day one, once he was in he refused to go to counseling and although he was being affectionate and trying very hard to be accountable of his time, he did begin the affair again within the last few weeks. As soon as I became aware I once again asked him to leave, it did become an argument at first but he finally left.

Today I wake up with the realization that this man may have never loved me. Looking back at our marriage it wasn't that at all. When you think about having spent most of your life with a person who may not have loved you, you feel used. We'll they say people can't do anything to you that you don't allow them to do.

He's left me for another woman, he doesn't want to be with me, I have to accept that embrace it even, and move on. RIGHT!

But as bad as it's been and being rational enough to say I should know better and why would you want to be in that sort of relationship, a part of me still wishes for him to come home and for my marriage to be NOT JUST RESTORED, BUT RENEWED. I have no hope today and no other option but to divorce this man whom I loved most of my life.

I'm sorry.

princefan, I'm so sorry, but the addictions to marijuana and gambling mean that your marriage cannot be restored. If he were able to stop using the substances and enter an accountability programme, as well as end his affair, your marriage would stand a chance, but he is unlikely to do any of those things. You are best to get out of the way. The breakdown of a marriage is devastating but divorce is your best option under these circumstances.

Did you expose the affair? If so, to whom? What have you done to kill the affair?

What Plan did you follow?

Have you seen this?
How to Plan B Correctly

The affair was exposed to all our friends and family, to her family, our church pastors. It made no difference, it just meant they didn't have to hide it anymore.

Sugarcane is right. I'm signing up for the Divorce Care group and moving forward.

I strongly recommend Plan B.

You will heal so much more if you will cut all contact with your WH.

Will you go into Plan B?

I, too, am separated (over 1 year) from an addict which I learned years later he is now considered a "dry drunk." I was not a believer when I married 22 years ago to someone 9 years older than me I only dated 3 months before we got engaged, 8 months after meeting we got married. I was 21. Our daughter was born 1y 2m later & his alcoholism became a huge problem. I gave my life to the Lord 5-6 years after the marriage & raised my daughter in the church. Our marriage was rocky since the day it began & got worse even after my husband stopped drinking, cut his hair, got his license back (due to DWI's) & we purchased our first home. What I didn't know then was he has an addictive personality that he refuses to get help for. He never sought counseling, or AA, or therapy because he feels he's "cured" because he stopped drinking & his life is "successful."
One day I was cleaning the hard drive on our computer because it was too slow when I found porn & dating websites my husband was visiting. When I called him on it he said "I'm on the computer so much because of fantasy sports" but every guy I know that is involved in fantasy sports doesn't sit behind the screen for hours & hours. I was lied too. We have separated & tried divorce many times but this time it's going to happen. It has to. God answered my prayer NO. Not because He is a mean God or doesn't care but just the opposite. Affairs & addiction don't make a marriage. It is poison in our lives that's slowly killing us. When I found messages back & forth between my husband & girls at his job, I uploaded software on his laptop & phone. The things I read, the pictures I saw, the porn sites he was visiting devastated me so much I went into shock/deep depression. Who was this person I married? I was living with a stranger for 20 years!
I thought I heard from God to stop the divorce proceedings so I did. That was wrong. I fasted & prayed for his salvation & our restoration but God said NO. The signs were there but I didn't see them because the church offers NO HELP when it comes to divorce, un-equally yoked marriages & pornography. I was under the impression I didn't pray hard enough or didn't have faith enough, after all, I was the believer. My husband's spirituality was MY responsibility. Wrong! God gave man free will & my soon-to-be-ex had millions of chances to give his life over to the Lord.
God revealed to me that sometimes "NO" is very necessary & without knowing it, I was fasting & praying for results that I didn't ask for. I didn't mean to "manipulate" God that wasn't my intention, I thought I was battling Spiritual warfare. It's like a child going to their parent & asking to play with a meat cleaver. No good parent would allow a child to have something harmful. I try to look at this divorce the same way. It's not that I don't have Faith God can perform miracles, it's just not the one I expected. Still waiting for mine down the road.
When I look back at my marriage, not only do i realize he never loved me, but he married me because he was too drunk to know what he was doing. He is currently involved with another woman that my 20 year old daughter had to approach him because she found her father's "girlfriends" things in his apartment. Our divorce isn't even final & he jumps in bed with another woman right away.
I know the pain, devastation, betrayal, hours of crying & sleepless nights all too well. You are not alone. Common sense tells me to be happy the evil is gone out of my life, this man never did & never will love me but why do I hurt so much? I really don't want to love this person but for anyone to say "move on" is ridiculous. You don't just "move on" after having a soul-tie to someone for so long. After so many years of pain, tears, prayers & frustration it's hard to accept all that is lost. People think I'm nuts to love him but the hope we need to hold onto is God has our future, but our husbands are not in His plan. It was a huge blow to realize God not only answered no to my ex's salvation but the restoration of marriage. I was told so many times "It's not God's will for anyone to perish" & "God hates divorce" but it grieves Jesus that my ex is headed to hell, & we never really had a "marriage" not the way God designed it. My husband replaced alcohol with porn & I told him that but he refuses to see he has a serious problem. God cannot & will not have me in a covenant relationship with someone who is filled with so many demonic spirits. Light & dark can't mix.
The pain we are feeling is a result of having a heart. We hurt much because we love much. If we didn't love our husbands, divorce would be pain-free. I understand. I'm living it right now. This is the worst pain, your soul is being ripped from your body & your heart is being stabbed over & over & over again.

You need your own thread.
Do you know how to begin a new topic?

Inlovewithaddict...Thank you for sharing your story with me. I feel your pain, unfortunately I know what your experiencing all to well. The years of hoping for their freedom so you can receive your freedom.

Maybe because this is so fresh and new to me I find it difficult to believe my husband never loved me, I don't believe he never loved you either, but they love their addictions more, be it alcohol, drugs, or women. Yes it was watered down because of his addictions. To an addict their feeling are almost impossible to ignore. They are so used to feeding their flesh they never developed the ability to fast or starve the flesh to feed the spirit.

That is actually part of the questions running through my mind. If an affair is an addiction and my husband has such a strong addictive personality then this too is harmful to him.

I know in the end you have to treat this like any other addiction, or at least this is what I am understanding within myself, that he is powerless against it. And until he realizes that I have to stay away from him. The consequences for not getting treatment, from me, is no contact at all until he ends the affair completely and seeks treatment. Showing with time that he is free from his ADDICTIONS all of them.

But I also have to think of myself, in the sense of how long will I be willing to wait for him as he may never be out of it. It saddens me to think I've lost the person who once was my best friend, my partner in everything in life. I must be honest, I enabled a lot of his addictions. Taking on responsibilities that were never mine to handle. But this one I cannot enable. This one has forced me to leave him to God. I pray that he will notice the loss in his life. He has turned away from the only family he has known to be with someone else, follow his flesh.

In the end no matter the outcome I hope he will be freed from all his addictions and able to finally take ownership of his life.

I told my husband to get help, that he needs therapy/counseling, I told my daughter her father won't change unless he wants to. He doesn't want to. He thinks he is OK & I'm the one who made his life miserable. So now he thinks sleeping with other women & visiting porn websites will make him happy. I once talked to a pastor about my situation & he told me what I was experiencing was abuse. The fact that my husband was mistreating me as a wife & had a secret life on the side but knew I would love him no matter what was abusive to me. No, we can't be enablers & we have to walk away for good to send the message "you can't do this to me anymore." We need self-worth, we are not garbage to be dumped on. It's not our job to fix what's broken, we're not psychologists. We need to heal. It just stinks that the intense pain we have to suffer through can be so crippling.

inluvwithaddict I truly understand, you know what needs to be done but your heart isn't in it!

my heart is shattered, broken into a million pieces. i have been betrayed on the deepest level possible by someone who was supposed to love, honor & stay faithful to me until death do us part. i have prayed scriptures over him, prayed Spiritual warfare prayers for him, fasted for 40 days for his salvation...how is that not having my heart in it? i had faith that God can do a miracle in my marriage & held onto hope that a miracle would come, but my prayers were answered no. so how come this hurts so much that i can't stop crying & i've been separated over 1 year? how come i still love this man that doesn't, never did, & never will love me? what am i supposed to do except now pray for God's healing power to make me whole again & give me strength to get through this divorce.

inluv, I wish I had some magic thing I could say that would help you with your pain. I am so sorry that you are hurting so. I understand on some level what you are going through. It is very difficult with someone like our husbands. I truly believe that God is trying to teach you something here. Is it possibly that you are not being still or quiet enough to HEAR Him? He has a plan for you in all of this. In the meantime, you have to steel yourself. I understand all too well the abuse and hurt that comes with living with an addict. It really destroys you. ONE of the things that I have learned here is that we may have reasons (many reasons) for behaving the way we do, but that at the end of the day, they are only excuses. There are NO excuses for not doing the right thing by yourself and everyone else. So, they say here to clean up your side of the street.

Can you put your husband and all that comes with him on the back burner for now? You cannot fix him. You cannot control him. You can only control yourself and the choices you make. I hope you choose RIGHT NOW to put him on the back burner and start taking care of yourself. You cannot and will not be good for anyone until you start taking care of yourself and get yourself into a healthier, better you.

How do you know that he never loved you? Maybe he has so many issues that he isn't really capable of truly loving anyone. Let it go, for now. You have to take control over your life now. Do you have any hobbies? If you are like me, you have let them all go. So, what did you used to love to do? What, deep down, do you wish you could do that you always wanted to do? Make sure you go to lunch with a friend. Go to the gym. Get out of the house. You have to TRY to change your dwelling on him, or it will never happen, so go take a dance lesson, a cooking lesson or photography classes. The time of the year is coming to start working in the yard, so make a plan on how you can improve your flower beds, and DO IT!! Start achieving, giving youself life again. Cause, if there is ONE thing that I DO KNOW, it is that we quit living ours because addicts keep us too busy juggling theirs and and all the chaos that comes with loving one of them, to live our own.

I hope I am not overstepping any boundaries here. I really feel for you. I can really see that you are having a hard time seeing that your focus on him is preventing YOU from moving forward in your own life. He has made his choice, now, you have to stand up straight, find your inner strengh and love for yourself and walk out of that box for a newer, shinier, happier life that you can create for yourself!!

Would you please start your own thread so everyone can help you on that thread instead of trying to help you on princefan's?

anyone married to an addict does get consumed with the "disease" i did that too. i realize it's over & my life is free from the horror i lived with. keeping busy definitely helps & knowing there are others out there who "get it" is almost some sort of relief. we're not just talking about average couples that get divorced, we were married to addicts & mine definitely has emotional & personality problems that only professional help can conquer. when separations are so new, so fresh, after so many years of marriage it takes time to put things behind. it's a process that takes time but i just want anyone & everyone in a similar situation as mine to know you're not alone & i understand. the pain is real, the devastation is cutting & if there's someone who feels like yelling "it's not fair!" and "why me!" can go ahead & express their feelings to me because i can't physically be there with a hug or tissue box, but i understand. i'm going through it too & it's not the same explaining this to someone who hasn't been there. i just think it helps to have someone there for you.

Littlebit thank you for your advice, I'm actually glad this is going on on my post as it allows me to see as imluvwithaddict says others who have gone or are going through the same thing I am. It is different than just another wayward spouse these are waywards spouses that can't say no they never learned how. These are WS's that need counseling but refuse to get it and it brings up a whole other level of frustration.
I have discovered that for most spouses dealing with addictions there can be codependency that developed over the years of trying to fix someone else.

Strangely enough I have to say that I feel better about myself when he's gone. From time to time I am able to feel the person I was before he came into my life and remember how amazing she was and hope will be again.

Take care of me time. Oh that's hard!! I must admit as I'm writing this its is one of those days where I just want to hide in my room under the covers and forget the world.
So what I'm doing is:
I am seeking counseling for myself. Professional this time! No contact is easier to manage when I take a standpoint that I am no good for him or our marriage in my current state anyway.
Getting fit: this is for me, I did let myself go healing someone else, so I want to get to a healthy place. (its a goal LOL but I'm trying)
Creating a happy home: I enjoy and need peace, so if its painting the house, clearing clutter it will bring me peace.
Doing things I always wanted but was too afraid to do because of the consequences of taking my eyes off him: Traveling and painting were my passions. So I'm being true to myself.
And MB, I am being honest in saying I'm not ready yet to get the divorce proceedings going. This doesn't mean he won't being as that he is in another relationship. I'm hoping with time things will become clearer and easier to face if it comes to that. No matter how much I hope it doesn't.

Yes we have to take our focus off of them. Not to say the pain goes I really wish I could shut it off especially today. But regardless I need to heal. I hope I heal. I pray we all do!!

I have a question. Has anyone with similar situations recovered their marriage? Long term affairs, Spousal abandonment, and chemical addiction?

Yes there are some posters who have recovered from each of those.

Here is a good clip on addictions.
Radio Clip on Addictions

Also a clip on a long time affair.
Radio Clip on a 10 year Affair
Segment #2
Segment #3