Pray! Pray for my addict husband I screamed at God. He is my enemy! He is responsible for all this mess!
Walking the dog in the early morning while my husband and my young boys slept, I talked or more often yelled at God. Exhausted, I struggled to hold it together during every day with a 2 and 4-year-old.
My husband just really did not exist. Sure, a male human came home in the wee hours of the morning. He sometimes played with the kids and ate a meal with us and then back to work.
I limited our time together on purpose. Colorado had just established the medical marijuana card which my husband applied for immediately against my protests. Argumentative or silent were his only two communication styles at present.
The boys and I normally left before he got out of bed. With his late night work shifts, we rarely saw him. Days off were a disaster. I wanted “normal” family time which turned out to be my co-dependent way of setting the whole family up for misery.
Even, if we could manage a meal or an outing together, my sky-high expectations sabotaged the whole affair.
My Husband, My Enemy
My contempt for my husband made him my enemy. I berated myself constantly. I married an addict! He had promised to quit before we married and he did for 6 months. Starting again on our wedding day, I found out later.
I am sure many of you can relate. At 35, I wanted a husband and children with all my heart. At that point, I did not have enough addiction awareness to realize that words mean nothing and actions are everything. Plus, I could control all this, my husband, the drugs, our family, life in general.
Pray for my addict husband–what was God trying to tell me.
You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matt 5:43-45
My husband, the father of my children, had become the enemy of the family life I dearly wanted. Love my enemy God? Pray for those that persecute me.
I just sat down on a rock in the field where I walked the dog.
God I Will Follow You
A few weeks before, I bounced up to my Pastor and said I am ready. “Ready for what?” he said. I am ready to be sent anywhere to have God use me in any way even if it means Africa.
My mission field is not Africa. My mission field is my family. God spoke clearing to my heart that morning in the field.
Pray for this man you call your husband and your enemy. Like all humans, I said, “but God! You don’t understand!” He is supposed to love and cherish me and our children, to provide and lead us, to be the rock we can lean on and he… he… can’t even bear to look at us.
46“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matt 5:46-48.
My family is my mission field and I am to love my husband even if he is my enemy, right? So I got up off that rock and marched home determined to love my husband as God loved me, wrong!
Training to Love My Addict Husband
No, instead I sat and wept over what God asked me to do. I continued to tell Him; I had tried and tried and failed.
I can’t do it; I wailed. I hate him! I wish he were dead. Even as I said these words I knew the answer. I pledged my heart and soul to God again committing to do His will and pray for my enemy.
Dragging myself home, I thought of my life verse God gave me in the midst of this mess.
You do not have to fight this battle. Position yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD. He is with you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Tomorrow, go out to face them, for Yahweh is with you.'” 2 Chronical 20:17
This battle for my husband’s very life did not involve me. God clearly sidelined me so that he could act. My training in praying for my enemy began that day.
How to Pray for Your Addict Husband
Years before my mom gave me a little set of cards bound on a key ring called Prayer for My Husband. Still grumbling at God, I found the prayer booklet and hung it on the shift column of my mini-van. I prayed these short prayers every time I got in the car. It was all I could stand to do.
On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Romans 12:20
This verse made me feel better. More like a warrior-princess. As I matured in the Lord, I realized my acting out in response to my husband’s addiction only created more friction for God to cut through to get to my husband’s heart. God needed me to stop trying to correct the situation and let him handle it.
My intense hate gave the devil a foothold in both of our lives. The real enemy of my soul sought to destroy me and my family by creating chaos and turmoil that kept me from prayer.
God showed me a way to pray small tiny prayers that I could swallow–to trust him with my marriage enough to get out of the way. Prayer changes things. Prayer changes you.
Prayer Challenge
Try this 14-day prayer challenge for the “enemies of your life”. God promises to bless those who do His will.
When the LORD takes pleasure in anyone’s way, he causes their enemies to make peace with them.
I did not even dare to dream of peace with my husband. God’s peace came for me as I learned to trust him through tiny prayers. The tiny prayers turned into bigger dreams as life shifted. All, while I prayed for and loved my enemy.
Great post and freebie! I am sorry your husband is unable to handle medical marijuana, it does have it’s place in people who can handle it and benefit from it. God Bless you 🙂
Thanks for jumping in on the comments. All medicines can have their down side. In the process we learned that addiction is only a symptom. What ever the person chooses to use jut covers the pain for a while, then the addict brain needs more pain relief and poof nothing else matters. Sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes a long time everyone is different.
Sometimes the best thing to do is separate from your addicted husband and let God deal with them as you continue to pray for them and love them from a distance. An environment where addiction is involved is not good for anyone especially children. It has severe negative consequences! We as mothers need to protect our children from the dangers and evil that come from addiction. Addiction is very very demonic and only God can deliver our spouses from those demonic strongholds!
I’ve been there! It’s a hard place to be. Unfortunately, my situation didn’t end well. But I do still pray!
It is a hard place. Jesus offers peace no matter which way out life turns. I am glad for the ability to pray and release the hurt.
I grew up with an alcoholic father and my mom put up with a lot. She prayed, attended Al-anon, and protected us from the truth. After 20 years she finally said enough is enough and kicked him out since he refused to get help. He came home two weeks later ready to home himself and make a change. We just celebrated his 15 year “birth”day last summer. He and my mom are going to hit 37 years of marriage this year. Her strength while being weak at the feet of Jesus taught me so much.
You are doing good things. Keep praying, keep fighting for your marriage.
What a wonderful story! I am so glad your Dad choose life, a full life. Prayer always prayer- Jesus is amazing.
May god bless you thank you for sharing you have blessed me I’m going through the same thing. But to god the glory and the devil is a liar
Thank you and yes he is! I am asking God to show me how much bigger he is than that ole devil!
I needed to hear this. Thank you
I’m sorry for everything that’s happening. Does your husband have cancer? Praying for him and for you and the family… ❤
No, he is doing well 7 years sober. We both work hard at emotional sobriety too.
This is very encouraging and I love the free prayer challenge.
Thanks Holly! I always like a little fine tuning of my prayer life.
This was right on time! I’m going through this with my husband riggt now, it has completely torn our marriage apart. I remain prayerful through this trial. Thank You
Brenda
Keep praying, trusting and being in touch with a supportive community. Hugs!
I have been going thru this with my husband recently for the past ten years. I also went thru it with my husband for the first ten years of our marriage. He did stop for twenty years, but as soon as he retired and was no longer subject to random drug testing at work, he went right back to it. I have done everything WRONG in my responses to this. I’m sure I have hampered God’s work in the situation a lot. I hope I am finally (after 40 years) ready to get out of the way and let God be God in my marriage. I thankful to have found this post. Thank you for the prayer cards. Hopefully, God can change me, so that I can get out if His way and.He can change my husband. God bless.
Oh, Cindy, you are so brave! Yes let God do his work. Also, know that He loves you so much and wants to be right by your side as you walk through this. Another thing I often remind myself is although I may get in the way sometimes, I am not big enough or strong enough to change God’s plan. Bless you and remember God is always with you. That is two against one fighting for this marriage. Keep your eyes on the one who loves you fully and He will fill your heart.
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Yes experiencing the same with my husband of soon to be 20 yrs this July. He has been a functioning addict (what I call a hiding addict) and now since he retired it’s been and addiction nightmare. He has so much pain from his past he has not dealt with. He has been to rehab twice in last 3 years. He wants to be free from his addiction but has not committed himself to the Lord although he knows God. We run 2 businesses and he is determined to put the business first because of the money it will provide so he can take care of us. He’s looking for validation.
I am so thrilled we all know God we could not get through this without GOD. Love, prayer& Perseverance,
Love you all my sisters in Christ!
Mimi
Did you stop confronting your husband about the issue? I just dont feel like I can fight with him about it anymore, my words dont do anything. He is dependent on marijuana and claims that he uses it for anxiety and pain but also uses it every evening for recreation. He has been using it for 2 years. This is not what I wanted for my family. We also have 2 young boys.
Yes. Yes, I did stop confronting my husband. I started to build a life and friendships without him. For several years the boys and I had a rather vibrant social life without my husband. I wanted a family and normal family life but that was not available so I sought out other Christian friends and especially church and Al-anon activities that the boys and I could enjoy as a threesome.
God provided me with this “expanded” view of a family while He quietly worked on my husband’s heart. It was not always easy. We did always invite my husband to participate if he wanted.
God helped me see that I was not helping myself or my husband by being angry all the time or by isolating myself and children from healthy relationships.
I certainly understand the frustration with not having the family you imagined.
I can definitely understand your situation My husband have been married for 13 years. We were high school sweethearts married late in life after each having a previous marriage. I am very sensitive to a marriage that includes drugs of any kind because my previous husband was addicted to pills. When dating my present husband I told him how adverse I was to drugs of any kind inside a relationship and he assured me he had changed from the young man he had been when we were kids. He said he was a Christian (he was actually on a worship team at his church) and there was no place in his life for drugs. Well about 4 years after we were married I caught him outside our garage in the late evening smoking Marijuana . Needless to say I was angry and felt betrayed. Not only was his using drugs but he had blatantly lied to me knowing I would not have married hm had I know he was still smoking. He promised to stop and I believed him. Four years later we moved n=into a new home and while packing and unpacking I wound a makeshift pipe i=hidden in the back of a closet in the garage. I found another pipe weeks later and some marijuana. I confronted him and told him I was done with this. Nt only had he continued to lie but he was putting his profession in jeopardy. He is a teacher. After a heated argument he promised to stop. Again I believed him. Well to make this very long story short, he has not stopped and I found more evidence of his lies and addiction. I feel like his addiction is more important than the promises he made to me and our marriage. It is a vicious cycle that has changed the way I feel about my husband which is not the desired outcome I am looking for. Our children are grown so at least they are not privy to what is going on. I know I am in the way of God’s work and often ask God to fix him or the situation but nothing ever seems to change.
I appreciate any advice or words of encouragement.
God Bless,
Johane
This is very helpful. I am also going thru this right now and believe in the power of prayer. But my husband refuses to see that he has an issue. I pray God will move him in a big way.
Debra
Praying with you! God can and will move. I choose to keep trusting God when I could not trust my husband.
Thank you so much for posting this. I am in tears. This hits home so much right now but this replanted a seed of faith in me when I felt I’ve lost it all. We just had our first baby’ together and if it weren’t for my sweet baby, I don’t know what I would do. I feel alone, like no one understands. I feel embarrassed to talk about it with others. I’m so happy to have found this post. ❤️ I thank God for speaking to me through this.
Standing & praying with you.
Sending love & support hugs!
Mimi
Wow! MA I’m totally with you as well. We just had a baby too and she is the only thing holding me together. His addiction, I feel, has torn everything apart. If he would just stop…things would be amazing. But I can’t make that happen. I’m realizing now that I need to stop attempting to force him to do what I think is right. I’ll focus on myself and my baby from now on and I’ll just pray that he follows my lead. Reading this post made me realize that my objections and suggestions and criticism are only clouding everything up and keeping God from doing his work. Thanks for this. Praying I have the strength to keep myself from being a burden to his recovery. And praying that God gives him the opportunity to actually recover and want to stay clean for himself, for me and for his daughter. But he has to want it for him and I’ve been selfish, wanting him to do it for me.
This is so timely. My husband isn’t choosing sobriety just to “drink less” without pursing treatment or recover plans. So what I’m learning about is the “dry drunk” and learning how to cope and deal with those behaviors. I’ve been going to Al-anon and counseling unfortunately He has decided not to go with me. I’ve been praying, sought counsel of my pastor and praying with others continuously. Glad to have these prayers I will be praying them.
Heather
Glad you found us. I found so much help in Al-anon, a place where I could share and everyone understood me. Keep taking really good care of yourself! You can do this!
AWESOME, SEVEN YEARS SOBER!
Really good work! Keep it up!
So glad I found you and this site. My husband’s addiction is food which caused him to have type 2 diabetes. He also suffers from depression. He lost a job, got a new one, but took a 60% pay cut- which caused me to go back to work full time (teaching) with tutoring on the side as the “bread winner”. He comes home and lays in bed the rest of the night with very little interaction with my girls or me. If you ask anything of him he is mad and grumpy am wants to go nowhere unless it involves food. I have EVERYTHING to do and I feel so resentful. This has been ongoing and I have been praying for most of our married life (27) for a break through. The depression has side effects as well and he has little or no “desires”- and its hard to not feel “wanted” or desired. I ask God “why” or “what did I do to deserve a life like this?” I was listening to Phillip Decoursey this week OTW to work. He was talking about Paul and and the thorn in his side, and it dawned on me that my husband is “my thorn”. I can become better because of “it”due to God’s never ending supply of grace.
Again thank you! And I would covet your prayers as it is so lonely.
I’m going through the similar things right now. We have three kids and I work full time. I feel exhausted and sad most of the time. I will do what you did and pray for my husband, please pray for me that I wont be tempted to be angry at Him. ty for your prayers. Ty for writing this article, I really felt the Lord speak to my heart through this.
Deep in prayer for you. God is big enough to handle your anger. I know because I have been there and He held me and told me he loved me after every time I turned my anger on God
I am grateful to find your article. I found out my husband of 2 and a half years is an addict 5 months after our wedding day. I want to say more but I am afraid to, so just thank you again for being open and encouraging.
I have been married to my husband for over 18 years and it is has been one addiction after another, we are not husband an sounds so familiar. I want to get away from the pain of feeling unloved and hated by my spouse, so I can really relate to him feeling like my enemy. We do not have a life together, I have had to have friends from church or I would have went berserk by now. I absolutely cannot live like this anymore. The words pray for your enemy is hitting me right between the eyes, I know this is what I must do and I have been to be quite honest I don’t want to. Reading this has given me some hope, some hope that maybe just maybe God can restore this broken marriage, the bad part is that is hasn’t been good from the start. So the Lord will have to make it brand new. I ask for prayers for strength to do what I know I need to do and that is pray more and continue to get closer to the Lord. Thank you for sharing your story, it is a story of hope and that is what Jesus is our hope. Here is the other part, he hides it or tries which may be more aggravating that if he did it in the open, it feels like the whole marriage is a lie, and I have no trust in him or anything he says or does. I do trust in the Lord. Here is another twist, I am the ladies Pastor at our church as of Jan. 2019, and I think things have really escalated since that has happened, I am on the praise team at our church, I want to live and be full of life and vibrancy, while he is a dead man walking. I know God can change things, but I guess my problem is does my husband even want to change. I can’t continue to live a lie that is for sure, as far as the marriage is concerned and I don’t advocate divorce at all. So praying for my enemy it will be. Thank you again.
My husband walked out on us all today because he chooses his addiction and lies. I’m heartbroken but realize I need to let God fix him. I will try this challenge! Thank you
My husband had brain surgery in May 2019 from infection in his teeth that lead to his brain. He has fought an addition with pain pills most of his life but had recently had about a year clean before we found the fluid on his brain. He insisted on no pain pills the whole time in the hospital even after the brain surgery but the pain was to intense the Dr.s recommend he take some to get some rest his brain needed to heal. Needless to say he’s still has very bad headaches and continue to take them.Except now its more then to help with the pain he’s getting high on them now. He lies to me about them he thinks no one can see what he’s doing but we all do he has endangered his job and my family is getting very upset seeing him be the way he was before not caring at all even when I cry out to him to stop .Lord I know it’s your will Father please help me I know you are carrying us through this amen.
Wow! The fact that I found this right now in such a timely manner has Gods name written all over it! I’ve been searching the internet, as my my husband is a marijuana addict for 7 years and I have been debating leaving him. I’m desperate. I’m just mentally checked out and after seeking answers online, I got so emotional reading this article. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You have encouraged me to continue the fight and pray for my husband-which at this time also feels like an enemy or a stranger I live with. In God we have the victory and I hope to one day share my story of God reconciling our marriage and him being delivered from drugs! God bless you! So grateful for you.
Thank you for this. My husband and I are separated as he left me and began living in a house of strangers doing crack. He knows the Lord and I don’t understand why or how this is a choice he’s made willingly but he has. He’s like a stranger to me! We’ve been married thirty years and he abandoned me about two tears ago. He’s also an alcoholic. He quit alcohol but picked up crack cocaine. Its been devastating to me! He’s now facing prison and I don’t feel like I know who he is anymore. We rarely speak but I havent filed for divorce as I feel God calling me to hold on. It just gets so discouraging sometimes, watching a man who was once vibrant for God lie and manipulate his way through life. What you said about how you decided to trust God instead of trusting your husband was helpful. I can no longer trust my spouse but I can choose to instead put my faith and trust in God and allow Him to work on the man I married. Thank you and please pray for us.