8 Tips For Making A Better Relationship With Someone In Addiction Recovery

By Ruby Daub

Addiction is always harmful to your every relationship. Your personality changes completely and you get all those symptoms that are been observed in the addiction.

tips to better relationship with somone in addiction recovery

Whether you are addicted to alcohol, drugs, or gambling, you definitely need to pay a huge price for your addiction. For example, if you are a gambling addict and stay in a country like the UK you must figure out a perfect gambling addiction treatment in cities like London“>Manchester or Nottingham etc.

Normally, the divorce cases happen majorly in the cases of addiction than the normal ones because addiction takes a major toll on marriages. Usually, these divorces happen in the recovery of the addiction. There are some ways through which you can improve your relationship with your loved one during your addiction recovery and also how your partner can help you with this.

It is very vital that during the recovery process of addiction, you need to consult a professional help alone or with your spouse. Both need the therapy individually as well as a couple though you may split up eventually. But, both need to take that medical help for their damages done due to the addiction.

It will be a very good way to repair your relationship if you join and support your spouse during his/her addiction recovery which will give both of you the chance to rebuild the broken trust and rebuild the lost relationship, though it is never going to be the same relationship as it used to be before addiction.

There are some tips and ways which can motivate and help you through improving your relationship during your addiction recovery which are described as below.

#1 Patience And Time

When you are in the initial stage of recovery, you try to become sober which may make your spouse feel being neglected. 

In this case, ask for some patience and time from your spouse; that you need some time with yourself to get a better person.

Also, in the reciprocation, your spouse should be able to understand this.

#2 Rebuilding Trust; Being Honest

When you are trying on improving your relationship with your partner, you also have to consistently work on rebuilding the broken trust of your partner.

In this process, the first thing you need to do is, to be honest with your spouse and mutually decide on the things you both need to work on.

For example, calling them if you are going to get late home.  Slowly the intimacy will redevelop between both of you but don’t expect them to accept you completely in the physical terms as it will take time for her/him to get back to you.   This too will happen after the trust is rebuilt.

#3 Acceptance

When you know that your spouse is an addict and is going through his/her recovery, you have to build the guts to accept them as he/she is.  You should support him/her completely in his/her recovery programs.

Accept the reality of your life rather than blaming them constantly which will worsen your relationship.

#4 Don’t Try to Fix Them

Give them some time to change themselves to what he/she was before the addiction. You cannot fix him/her yourself. All you can do is support them in these challenging times and be with them with all your love and care.

#5 Try to Forgive Yourself

The biggest thing you could do to yourself during your addiction recovery is to forgive yourself. You have to forgive yourself for the harm or hurt you did to your loved one and the other people. Forgiveness takes a lot of courage because for this you need to come out of your guilt and accept the fact.

#6. Avoid Getting A Manipulator

This happens when your addicted partner is not ready for getting recovered from his addiction. Once this happens, he tries to manipulate things to continue his addiction. This worsens the relationship. So, the addict has to be willingly ready for his recovery before anything else.

#7 Open Up With Your Spouse

When your spouse is making an effort to change, you also should support and appreciate their effort. Be supportive in their efforts at becoming a better person.

Don’t hesitate or try to  stop yourself to show love during recovery or during the process. Be open in showing your love and support to your spouse.

#8 Take Professional Help

It may be needed to consult a marriage counselor, a psychotherapist, or a family therapist in recovering from addiction as well as reconciling the relationship.  This will help both as individuals as well as couples to improve on your relationship with each other.

Conclusion:

When you are an addict and are going through your recovery and want to improve your relationship with your spouse or partner, you need to be willingly ready to go through your recovery first and then make an effort to regain the lost trust and love of your partner.


The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy.  Any links on this page does not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.

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