How To Deal With An Addict Husband – Evangeline’s Story

If you’re struggling to deal with an addict husband, we get it.

We’re here for you. Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are for women who have done everything they can to fix their marriage, but their addict husband is still causing trouble.

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And listen (above) to Evangeline’s story to see if you relate, or read the transcript below. You’re not alone.

Transcript: How To Deal With An Addict Husband

Anne: A member of our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community is on today’s episode. We’re calling her Evangeline. Welcome, Evangeline.

Evangeline: Thank you for talking with me, Anne. I’m so grateful for the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Community.

Anne: Let’s start at the beginning. Can you talk about how you felt about your husband at first?

Evangeline: Ours was like a real romance. I thought I married the man of my dreams, that I earned and deserved this as a good Christian girl and woman. I was in love, head over heels in love. He checked all the boxes. He had faith, honored and respected me, and did many thoughtful gestures.

Anne: Back then, did you notice anything a bit off, and how did you define that?

Evangeline: There were moments. I suspected he may be an addict early on and thought he acted out in his “addiction” in isolated moments. Like, just a few times a year. He’d apologize and say it wouldn’t happen again.

I never told anyone because it was infrequent. I just thought he’s growing up, he’s figuring it out. As long as it doesn’t get any worse, I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.

How To Deal With An Addict Husband When He Lies

Evangeline: He introduced pornography into our marriage. I said, no, I didn’t like that. I became uncomfortable.

He’s telling me he’s watching pornography to learn how to be a better husband. How to maybe be a better lover or to be more educated.

Anne: A flat out lie. He’s constantly on his phone, watching it.

Evangeline: Totally. It didn’t help him be a “better” anything. I found infidelity 15 to 20 years into my marriage. The reality was, I can’t tell you how many incidences. I lived in fear. There is no way to deal with this when your husband says he’s an addict.

The Reality of My Husband’s Addiction

Evangeline: And really why would I know how to deal with an addicted husband? My parents raised me sheltered and uninformed.

And he seemed to love and adore me. I felt so blessed at the time. This was a godsend, an answer to prayer.

Anne: It makes total sense. That is exactly what you would think, especially under the circumstances. You think he’s a man of God, because that’s what he has told you.

Evangeline: The first 10 years of our marriage were a blur. Our two youngest out of three kids had severe medical issues. Those years were just survival.

I took women’s Bible study and women’s leadership.

The Sacrifices You Make When Your Husband is An Addict

I did bookkeeping for multiple churches and nonprofits. He also played a part in my business. He did taxes for some of the customers I had. My business was thriving. About 13 or so years into our marriage, we decided to move across the country. He wanted us to go down to one income, one job.

So I sold my business to another accountant in our city. And I became a full time stay at home mom for the next 16 years.

I didn’t know what would happen when I gave up my financial security and ability to take care of myself. I needed safety, because my husband was an addict, and that was an unsafe situation. The Christian evangelical community promoted and encouraged us to be stay-at-home moms. I didn’t realize that as a woman, I was putting myself at risk for the situation I’m now currently in.

He Wanted Power & Control

Evangeline: I can see it now that he wanted more power and control. If he’s an addict, you can start seeing the patterns. Like, when I started going back to school, he was not supportive.

He would call me in the middle of my day, interrupt me when he’d never done that before. This behavior felt like more that just being an “addict husband.” I would keep my study time to only the hours my kids were at school.

I could only study when I had no other duties.

He Didn’t Want Me To Improve Myself

Evangeline: It was obvious he didn’t want me to improve myself, or show interest in any of my hobbies.

And that was shocking. His addiction meant he only wanted me the version of myself he married at 22. He didn’t allow me to grow and change. I wasn’t allowed to be an educated and degreed adult. I had to be the high school graduate.

He simply wanted my attention only on him.

Anne: One part of The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop teaches that we all have special talents and interests. But sometimes, when a husband struggles with addiction, he makes us think our life should only be about him. This workshop helps us realize that we were created to live our own life.

My Addict Husband Got In the Way Of My Career

Evangeline: Yes, only certain activities met his approval, such as my kid’s medical issues. I could do ministry and women’s ministry through my churches.

And I’m learning that my husband is an “addict”. But the more my information and knowledge about abuse increased, the more his behavior became destructive and worse.

Realizing What My Husband Being An Addict Meant To Me

Evangeline: I think back now, and I’m like, my life was out of control. My personal life was in mayhem. In fact, the only place stable was work. My spouse was an addict to an extreme level. As an “addict”, he was also acting out with other women.

Sometimes I think we just go through a series of betrayals that are so deep and so intense. It’s almost like when he does it again, you’re in such a state of shock. The reverberations from each of these betrayals almost paralyze you. It’s like you couldn’t even react anymore.

My hypervigilance became extreme. I was waiting for the next one to happen.

And at some point, I’m became numb. I developed severe agoraphobia.

When An Addict Gets Caught At Work

Evangeline: We moved four times in 10 years. I lived in four States in 10 years.

These were all moves related to him changing jobs. There were multiple incidents with his employers or with a fellow employee. I would never get the whole story or the whole truth. But I knew enough to know that he was misbehaving and acting inappropriately, unprofessionally with subordinates.

When he started the last job he had when I was with him, he had already started a relationship with a woman at work before the rest of the family moved.

But I didn’t know that. All those years, I was fighting for my marriage. Even though it was a complete disaster, full betrayal, full addiction. It was so exhausting constantly having to manage an addicted husband.

I didn’t realize what his addiction was doing to me. I just thought, “He needs help to overcome his addiction. And I’d still be there for him once he figured it out.” That’s truly what I thought. I said to him, “I’ll give you the freedom to figure out your problems, get help, and do what you got to do.”

Anne: You’re still in this, like, willing to help your husband with his “addiction”?

Manipulation & Prolonged Abuse

Because many times a husband will say, “I’m an addict” to manipulate us to “help” him. But it’s just to continue to exploit us.

Evangeline: Yes! He used it to continue to exploit me for sure! I said, “You go get help”. Your addiction is ruining your career. I do not feel safe, my husband is addicted he needs to get into a 12 Step Program.

Also, you need therapy.

So in addiction therapy, the therapist had us create one shared password for all our emails and accounts. We set up accountability and transparency. So I don’t know how he did it, but he still watched explicit material, and had conversations with other women.

He would just “slip up” here and there until life became just one constant slip up. I didn’t realize what was actually happening.

The Myth Of Keeping Your Addict Husband Satisfied

Evangeline: I’d never spoken to anyone about my marriage. I remember telling one woman at church that I had become fairly good friends about with what I’d found on his phone. He had inappropriate texts with a woman at work.

I truly believed the teaching that if you keep your husband busy and satisfied, filling his mind with thoughts of you, it would help him deal with his addiction. She told me that if I satisfy him, he wouldn’t need to seek out explicit material or other women.

When I decide to do something, I’ll go all in. And so I followed that advice, and it didn’t work.

It failed. He cheated, betrayed, and continued in his addiction.

Isolation, Fear & Discovering What His “Addiction” Really Meant

Evangeline: I took a leave of absence. I began to search for any resource I could find, betrayal trauma, addiction and narcissistic personality disorder.

It wasn’t until I started listening to The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast. And I heard other women share their stories of what it was like to be married to an addict. I suddenly heard something I identified with.

And of course, at the beginning, I didn’t understand that you can’t take this information to an addict husband. But I made that mistake of taking him the information I was learning.

Misunderstanding Addiction

Evangeline: And I truly thought if I just approached him the right way. If I had the magic way to say it, he will understand and see the light. I know he’s intelligent, smart and capable. I must be failing. I’m not saying it right. Let me help my addict husband by trying it all in different ways. He’s bound to get it eventually.

Then he began turning what I knew against me. He started saying that I was the abuser and that I was the one causing problems. The scariest part of my story with him happened when we moved to this state for his job. This was the first time he worked at a hospital for behavioral health. He was the CFO at the hospital.

Even though he has no mental health education of any kind. Maybe Psychology 101 that everyone has to take in college. He’s an executive for the facility. But he’s coming home and telling me, you wouldn’t believe the wonders that we see in patients receiving shock treatment. It’s actually still a valid treatment practiced today, and you wouldn’t believe how these people are emotionally stable due to shock treatment. And he’s like, you should look into it.

Anne: For you?

Evangeline: Yes, he scared me so bad. At that point, I struggled with severe agoraphobia. I was terrified, knew no one in a strange city. I had no friends, no family, and no one to call and talk to.

Feeling Complete Isolation While Dealing With My Addict Husband

Evangeline: I was completely isolated and terrified. If I can’t trust people I live with, who are supposed to be for me. And the people who are supposed to love me and have my back? How could I possibly trust a stranger? I knew I could trust my coworkers in my child advocacy work, but beyond that, I had no one personally. And I was terrified. I was terrified he would commit me against my will and that I would have a shock treatment done to me against my will.

And you lose memory, and looking back now that I know that’s one of the effects of that treatment. I understand why he wanted it so bad. We had reached a point in our marriage where I had learned so many truths. There was no return from that knowledge.

Anne: Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Evangeline: You can’t unsee it. And I didn’t realize then how desperate he was for me to not know the truth of him. I know it now.

Anne: So you become a child advocate, recognize what abuse is, but still don’t recognize that he’s abusive. Then you recognize that he’s abusive, and you think, oh, if I can just explain it well enough. By the way, this is totally normal. You’re completely normal. I went through the same thing, trying to help my “addicted husband.”

I think every abuse victim does. Because they’ve manipulated us to think they’ve like given us that impression. They’ve gaslit us to think that. So then, you go through that phase, which we’ve all been through, of okay. If I can explain it to him, or if I can get him to the right therapist or something, then he’ll get help.

Therapist Disappointment

Evangeline: He went to a therapist, and I went to one appointment not to do a couples therapy. But to say, hey, I want to hear from the therapist that you are telling the therapist everything.

Anne: What type of therapist? Is it an addiction specialist?

Evangeline: They do therapy for addiction. Just a traditional therapist with addiction training. I told both therapists, “I’m not safe, I’m not safe, and I’m not sure what he’s doing next. That’s going to destroy me and the kids, our lives. I’m terrified.” Did you know that neither of those therapists had one thing to offer me? Not one thing. They didn’t follow up, and they didn’t have anything to give me.

Anne: That is unfortunately most women’s experience when they work with an addiction specialist for their spouse. It’s so disappointing, invalidating, and frankly dangerous. And that’s why I started our group sessions and our individual sessions. And also why I wrote the Living Free Workshop. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop helps women determine their adddict husband’s true character, and then teaches safety strategies.

So basically, it helps women know exactly what’s going on, and then also what’s going to happen next. Because I found most therapists, therapy in general, especially couple therapy or therapy for troubled marriages. They just look at you and blink. They might say the word boundaries, but they don’t know how to actually teach boundaries, because “communication” is always the solution when it comes to therapy. And “communication” doesn’t help with an addicted husband.

So I am so sorry. That’s so discouraging. So they just like stared at you and just like blinked at you.

False Hope In Addiction Therapy

Evangeline: That’s what they did. They had nothing to offer, no suggestions for a safety plan, and didn’t look to him and say, we need to stop now. At this point, we weren’t addressing the misconduct. We were addressing his behavior with addiction. It was out of control and dangerous.

Anne: Though it felt terrible to you at the time, and they did not do the right thing, there is a silver lining there, and it’s that they didn’t say, oh, I can help both of you. And this is how we’re going to do this. And the reason why that’s a silver lining is that false hope. Sometimes we call it hopium around here that, like, oh, I will treat your husband and make him safe for you, is super dangerous.

We don’t recommend any men’s programs, because we’ve seen them use that to continue to manipulate and control, and they weaponize all the therapy language. It almost makes them like super abusers, because they know how to speak. And it gets scary quickly. When they’ve become these like almost mutants of themselves through learning the therapy language. Did you experience that part, where they’re good at using the therapy language as weapons against us?

Evangeline: When we were separated for a year, I felt it a little. I asked for a space where we could talk and actually work things out. Whenever we talked alone, the conversations just went in circles. We kept jumping from one thing to another without solving anything. I still cared about my marriage and wanted it to work, even though we had been apart for a year.

I requested, can we find a therapist where we will have space to have conversations?

My Addict Husband Was 99 Percent Done

Evangeline: So we’re both held accountable for how we participate in that conversation, not couples counseling. this point, even though I still desire to keep my marriage and future, he said I’m 99 percent done. You know what that did to me? It took me a couple of appointments before I finally understood that statement.

I’m 99 percent done. There was that 1 percent chance, and that dangle. I was the one dangling. He was exercising that power of dangling me, even though he was done. He was already living with a woman for a couple of years.

I just didn’t know it. My kids knew it, he knew it. And no one told me. I was the only one. But he kept saying, I’m just 99 percent done. So I’m thinking, okay, he’s not going to the top. The therapist knew he’d thrown in the towel before I did.

https://youtu.be/p-PCyiQQrp0

Anne: It’s so hard. And I’m guessing the therapist didn’t mention this is abuse either.

Evangeline: No.

Anne: Yeah.

Evangeline: And that therapist actually with the credentials is trained and should have known it, should have seen.

Anne: Generally, therapists don’t have abuse training. It’s a weird, strange situation. Because people think therapists should have abuse training, but in general, they don’t have a lot of it. They don’t assess abuse.

When they think he is abusive. And I am the best therapist, and I can help him with his abuse. That scares me actually even more than the person who doesn’t recognize it. Because if the guy didn’t want to be abusive, he knows what he’s doing, and he would have stopped his abuse already.

He Knows He’s Lying & Therapy Won’t Help

Anne: Therapy isn’t going to help him. It makes me nervous.

Evangeline: I’ve since learned therapy doesn’t fix the abuser.

Anne: For those of us, me included, who thought, he just needs to know what’s going on, where I went wrong there. And I described this well and why this happens in the BTR.ORG Living Free Workshop. He knew what he was doing. So he knew he was lying and what happened. And so if I was like, ah, this is what’s happening. He already knew it wouldn’t change him. Because if knowing would have changed him, he already knew, it would have changed him already.

It was the opposite. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was doing it on purpose.

Evangeline: It is hard. It’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that the person you committed to your life, that you love, honor, and cherish. And you bring such a beautiful, valuable side to the relationship to the table. It’s so hard to imagine they’re doing these destructive things on purpose.

And they actually don’t care how much you’re harmed, how deep you’re hurt, how devastated you are. And then you get blamed for your response for being emotional or angry. For being any of the valid emotions you’re supposed to experience. When you face betrayal, shock, hurt, devastation, and your life imploding, you’re going to have those emotions.

Those are valid, and they’re appropriate. For those to get judged, I mean, you’re emotionally unstable, you’ve got the problem. But their decades of behavior suddenly is not even the issue or not even the focus.

Corporate Retreat Revelation

Evangeline: You know, Anne, there’s one more part of my story. Before I became an advocate, we were actually on a corporate retreat for his work. So all the wives did a spa day together, and we were having healthy girl talk, nothing inappropriate. It was spending this time with these other women who were not from the evangelical community in which I was raised.

They were just average, ordinary, great women. We were talking about marriage and intimacy. And I had made a comment that we have intimacy, and it’s healthy in my marriage. It’s great, in fact, if he feels the need to be intimate, even if I’m passed out and asleep, I was okay if he needed to be intimate. And the reaction from these women.

Anne: You were sharing what you thought was an example of your healthy intimacy, thinking they would be like, oh, that is so healthy that we can be intimate.

Evangeline: Yes.

Anne: …with you when you’re passed out.

Evangeline: I was so ingrained with my only role and goal in life, which is to please him to whatever self sacrifice I need to do. My purpose is to please him. Even if that means using my body when I am asleep and on sleeping medication, I cannot verbally consent or even have any memory or knowledge it happened afterward. I thought that was my duty as his wife to provide that for him, in order to help my husband with his addiction.

No husband should ever do that ever. You have to consent. I’m like, I consented. I and they told me, no, that’s not consent. You have to be conscious in the moment, consent in the moment. And so I started having conversations with my spouse about it.

How To Deal With An Addict: Realizing the Extent of The Abuse

Evangeline: And it turned out he’d been doing this way longer than I knew, and it was something he continued to do. Even after that conversation, he did it for years.

Anne: I’m so sorry.

Evangeline: You know, it was shocking when I found out. The times I didn’t know, it’s like if he did it and then told me, and I knew it was somehow a little better and okay. But finding out it had been going on for years. And then once this conversation started happening with him, this person inside out. You know, when they start lying, you can tell when they are not truthful with you.

And then it was having all the subsequent conversations. And in each of those, his lies grew more. The retellings, the details would change in his retellings. And then having these conversations with him is when I would begin to get flooded with flashbacks. Where I would have some conscious recall, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

I had nowhere to turn. I was alone in that. And I still stayed married and had a very active, intimate life with him for many more years to come, like eight more years. It was hard to reconcile.

Anne: Absolutely.

Evangeline: When you have the good times, and then you have the falling apart times, and then you have the shock and awe times of like, is he really? Is he that bad? Is he that vile? No, I have to be misunderstanding. That had to have been an exception. That can’t have been the norm. Again, it’s just a series of traumas that never seemed to end.

The Final Separation & Divorce After Years Of Supporting His Addiction Recovery

Evangeline: So when I finally separate from him, I finally realize my marriage is over. That I can’t deal with his addiction anymore. I need a divorce. I had at that point already done betrayal trauma work. It was a 17 month divorce with a full trial. I then turned around, and the week I turned 50, he filed the appeal.

So I had another 17 month long court. I just won the appeal, but he’s still challenging my win. I actually got a text two weeks ago on the 4th of this month, communicating that exact thought.

He said, just be reasonable the way you saw me once upon a time. He wants me to be that 22 year old bride who thinks he is the most amazing person ever. Who can do no wrong. And unless I view him like that, I’m not reasonable. Because I’m asking for something that the law legally entitles me to ask for. From Focus on the Family, “Help your husband be the hero to your children.”

I chose to do it with my kids, and even though he was working late or I didn’t know where he was. I told them, “Oh, your dad wishes he was here. He’ll be here as soon as he can. You have a great dad who loves you.” I said those things, and I didn’t just do it once. I kept saying it for years.

Realizing All The Abuse

Anne: And you did it because you thought it would help. It was actually an act of resistance on your part. So I want you to, like, hold your head up high. Because you genuinely thought that it would improve things. It wasn’t because you’re stupid. It wasn’t because…

Evangeline: No.

Anne: …your brain doesn’t work. It’s not because you’re emotionally unstable. It’s an act of resistance. It was the only thing you could think of at the time to keep yourself safe. And the sad thing is they’re preying on women’s vulnerabilities. They should educate women about abuse to “focus on the family”, and strengthen a family.

Evangeline: Yes, Anne, I’m 51. It took me decades to understand all the abuse I experienced in my marriage.

No one teaches this in most evangelical groups. Schools don’t really teach it either, especially private Christian schools. I went to a private Christian school for 13 years, and no one ever talked about abuse—not in class, not in church, not even in women’s ministries.

For ten years, I led in my role, but no one ever brought me a lesson saying we should stop supporting addicted husbands unconditionally.

Advocacy & Awareness

We don’t teach women how to be a good support, how to be a safe place to live, how to be a good friend. Can I walk alongside a woman in the middle of trauma, abuse, and betrayal? What should I say? What should I not say? So big churches we have, is that in their bookstores? These materials are not on their bookstore shelves. They’re not promoting them. It is a missed opportunity.

Anne: That is why I started podcasting. To educate everyone that abuse causes betrayal trauma. A husband’s addiction will always be abusive to you, their wife. The lies, the gaslighting, all that is abuse. You can’t call it anything else.

Evangeline: We didn’t know about erectile dysfunction either. And that my husband needed to begin the pill for that in his early 30’s. I never even learned that fact until my late forties. I didn’t even know that piece of information.

Evangeline: For over 15 years, I didn’t know things that should be simple to understand. Women need to understand what they’re going through. We need to learn the words and meanings to describe it. For example, if your husband is an addict, you are experiencing abuse and betrayal.

Infidelity Is Abuse: Dealing With An Addict Husband

Anne: I think one of the reasons why it’s not common knowledge. They want you to think that their shame causes it, childhood trauma, or something. When many of us feel shame or have childhood trauma. We have problems, and we don’t lie to people and deceive them on purpose.

So many people pretend or act like this isn’t a choice, a conscious choice to harm people and exploit them. But that is what it is, and it’s really hard for the courts to wrap their heads around it. For therapists to wrap their heads around it. For friends and family, to realize that abuse is a conscious choice. He knows what he’s doing, and it’s harmful. And of course, she’s upset. Of course, she’s hypervigilant.

Anyone going through that is hypervigilant, because someone was hurting her on purpose. She was trying to avoid the chaos her “addict” husband was causing. Like, it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around it. So I’m so grateful that you were willing to come on today to share your story. Because all of us sharing our story helps other women realize what’s going on. So your bravery today to share has been amazing.

Evangeline: Thank you for having me Anne.

We’re here for you. If you related to any part of Evangeline’s story, we’d love to see you in a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.