You're listening to the Love Over Addiction Podcast.

Hello, how are you guys? Today we're going to be talking about whether you should stay in your marriage

while or your relationship while you love someone suffering from addiction or whether you should leave the one you love.

And I know that the topic of this podcast already is bringing up a lot of anxiety in some of you because it did for me.

I was once married to a great man who suffered from addiction and I would say within the first couple months of falling in love with him, even before I married him, I started quietly hearing the whisper that I might need to leave this relationship.

Like if I was being completely honest with myself looking back now, I saw red flags and warning signs quite early on and if I was really in touch with myself, I would have known that these red flags were serving as whispers telling me this is not good.

You need to get out of this relationship. But like a true codependent and somebody who loves to help people and is incredibly loyal and it felt really good to be needed by somebody, it also felt really good to take the attention off of all of my issues and instead focus on somebody else's issues.

I ignored all of the warning signs and red flags and I married him and then proceeded to stay with him for over 10 years and have three kids with him.

And pretty soon about year five or six was when I really started, the voices became, or the whispers became regular voices and then by like year nine it was like loud screams, like get the heck out of here.

But why did I stay and why do we stay? Isn't it frustrating sometimes don't you want to like hit your head up against the wall because you're so frustrated with yourself.

A part of you has lost a lot of self respect for staying in a relationship when someone is hurting you so bad.

And whether you're with somebody who is verbally abusive, which a lot of us are, I was, where they're telling you you're worthless or they're telling you you're crazy or you're dramatic or you're the reason why they have to leave because you're such a nag, they don't like being around you, you're no fun.

All of the, they can call you terrible names, all of the terrible things that they make you, they say directly or they elude to or they say indirectly, whether you're with somebody like that or whether you're with somebody who might not be verbally abusive, but also might be neglecting your relationship and neglecting you.

And just is very passively addicted, meaning they leave you alone. They watch TV too much, they go out with their friends too much.

You don't know where they are, they work too much. But when they're around, they're not really even around.

They might not be abusive, but their behavior makes you feel like they love drugs and alcohol more than they love you, that their addiction is a bigger priority than your relationship.

And if you fall into one of those camps, then I guarantee you that there might be some whispers or voices going on in your head telling you you might consider leaving.

Maybe it's every day you're feeling that way or maybe it's you've just heard one or two occasions where you've thought, oh my gosh, do I need to consider this? Do I need to consider that this isn't healthy for me anymore?

Either one is okay because in the community that I've built, we want to make it very clear that we don't judge you for staying and we certainly don't judge you for leaving.

And I know some of you come from a religious background where perhaps your community tells you divorces sin or divorces wrong.

We want to make it very clear that I never for once think that God intended for me to stay in a terrible marriage. And not only that, I don't think he intended for my kids to grow up in a home where there was a lot of drugs and alcohol going on.

If you've chosen to stay for whatever reason, it could be financial, it could be because of fear, it could be because you're madly in love with them, that's okay too.

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