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My Husband - The Drug Addict

Posted by Thursday30 on 3 May 2015.

My husband and I have been together for about 14 years. He is 60 and I am 50, He told me quite soon after we met, that he smoked Cannabis and had used it since he was a teenager. At first this was a novelty and a secret we hid from others and our children: now more people know. He is a professional and works full time, it does not affect his work.
Over the years he has been smoking it more and more. He used to have a break of a month when he ran out. That has got shorter and this month he went straight away and got some more when he ran out. I have grown to resent it more and more. I do not use any and don't drink much. I am on strong painkillers for chronic pain.

 I hate it when he is stoned and I am sober, its like watching someone when they are drunk. He is still the same person, but at the same time he is different and I don't like what it does to him: it changes him and he gets silly and wants to talk for hours. 

The children have all left home now, it is just us and our pets.

He spends his days/evenings in his shed doing bloke things and smoking. He loses track of time and I have to remind him when to come in. He funds his habit himself.

He uses it, because he likes it and has smoked it for years. He has a stressful job and has poor coping mechanisms and says Cannabis is the only thing that helps. He always knows best and says he could stop if he wanted - but he does not want to. I think it is all tied in with him having an abusive childhood: he needs Psychotherapy but he is so arrogant at times and feels he is working through all his past issues and does not need a therapist (even though he has no training in this field).
He knows how I feel about it, but these is no compromise, he just carries on.
He says he does not have an addiction and would not consider therapy

Any comments please. Advice

Comments

Its sad that, like so many others, you are affected by someone else's addiction. Your  husband has got to want to seek help and it is so difficult for you watching him rejecting help that might be available to him. 
I work for a charity called The Icarus Trust. We offer support to the friends and families of addicts. We have trained volunteers called 'Family Friends' If you would like to talk to someone who would understand how you are feeling if you think that this would help. This is a free service. Our volunteers have lots of experience and might be able to help you find a way ahead.
You can contact us on help@icarustrust.org or visit the website www.icarustrust.org
I really hope this helps.

You've been very brave for carrying this habit around for years, for your husband. Sometimes for the sake of love and stability, we put up with so many things in our partners - some are reasonable and possible but some we make us lower our own standards of living.

If you have the resources to seek an alternative path, I would say separate and don't let the remaining years of your life be spent in resentment witnessing something that is killing you everyday. It'll be hard but staying with a partner who is absent isn't any better. 

I have suffered with a similar partner for 8 years, and now that we have a child he has gone to doing cocaine once a week along with marijuana every night before sleeping. The marijuana was still affordable but the cocaine has eaten our money, our life, our minds. I love him, he's the only man I have ever been with, but I had to get perspective and a grasp of reality - the harsh truth that my husband has an addiction, and I can either spend my whole life hating and loving him and being suspicious or invest that time in making my life and my child's life better.