How To Stop Enabling Your Husband
Enabling is a dysfunctional way of helping someone else in such a way that hurts the enabler and the person they think they are helping. In other words , Enabling means we are allowing someone to continue doing the wrong things like smoking and drinking. Enabling is a negative term and those who enable their husband or other persons in their life for example friends and acquaintances, are ultimately harming them and repercussions are faced by enablers too. In case of an addict it becomes more important not to enable/allow taking drugs or alcohol, because this way we are giving rise to addiction. Married drug/alcohol addicts are even more difficult to treat as they take their spouse for granted and don’t listen to them at all. Wives keep trying hard to get rid of their husbands’ addiction but all efforts go in vain. They need to understand that this way they are giving rise to their husband’s bad habit of addiction. Wives need to learn their enabling behaviours and make a conscious choice to stop those behaviours.
Living with an addict is not easy, so is trying to control their addiction. Women married to an addict face lot of challenges. They have to take care of the children all alone, assume all other responsibilities alone. Enablers often lose their own identity while assuming all responsibilities and their lives become convoluted and controlled by addiction.
Few things to stop enabling :
Enabler has to make a commitment to change.
Enabler must commit to stop their part in enabling 100%.
Enabler must stop negative behavioural patterns and replace them with positive ones.
Enabler needs to get support from someone with experience and trust worthy.