Healing After Being Married to an Addict
Divorce is never what you intended or dreamt, but you also never dreamt you’d endure the crazy making of addiction within your marriage. Healing after being married to an addict can bring up many layers of complicated grief and feelings.
Make Space for Two Feelings to Be True At the Same Time
It’s very common to feel many, sometimes conflicting, emotions after being married to an addict. You may feel both relief and concern, anger and compassion, grief and resentment. It’s important to validate whatever you are feeling, and remind yourself that two things can be true at the same time.
Give Yourself Space to Focus on You
Life with an addict often means most of the attention, conflict and emotional caretaking is directed towards that person. Both from survival and the potential of any codependent traits, the partner may be trained to focus on the addict within the relationship and dismiss their own needs. After divorce, this is your time to get to know yourself again and really focus on your feelings, needs, and preferences.
Offer Self-Compassion
Life with addiction and life after divorce was never the dream. You will likely need to grieve the ways your dreams for your life have changed, grieve what you experienced during the relationship, and grieve the pain you now need to take responsibility to heal. Learning to offer self-compassion for this pain and grief will be essential to your healing. You’ve been through a lot. Speak to yourself with the gentleness that you’d offer your friend in a similar position.
Seek Professional Therapy After Divorce
Unpacking the effects of a marriage with addiction is a large task. You may have supported your ex financially and emotionally. You likely adapted to react to the presence of addiction in your life, overcompensating and adopting a hyper vigilance. You may have been impacted by ongoing gaslighting and lies. It’s common to feel some relief after ending a marriage impacted by addiction, but you also need some support and a place to process all of this.
Free 15 Minute Consult
I am a relationship therapist in Oakland, CA that loves to support individuals heal after divorce. My hope is to help clients get to a place where they can accept what happened and let go of being overly responsible or shaming. There is life and healing after divorce. Schedule your free 15 minute consultation call to get started with therapy after divorce today.
