Lp86

I respect your opinion and I get what you’re saying. The thing is, I do believe that part of her does want to be free of this addiction. Not enough of her to actually quit but part of her. It’s not fun for her. There is no partying going on with heroin most of the time or at least not once you get to this point. It’s loneliness, isolation, constantly worrying about where and when and how you’ll get your next fix, and nodding off and or passing out and spending 5 hours in the middle of the day in bed. She has lucid enough moments, and she especially does right now that she’s not getting high off the maintenance drug, that she realizes how much of a mess her life’s become. I’ve seen her sob over it and she’s not faking that. But I know her desire to keep using is greater than the desire to quit. I know that she rather be able to get high than deal with all of the difficulties of life. She rather get high than have to be held accountable and to have to put effort into staying clean, such as attending meetings. She doesn’t want people to harass her about what she’s doing, that’s true. We don’t actually know if the baby is a boy or a girl. We’ll find out in a few weeks. I have nothing prepared yet but I am starting to make plans. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to take off. I am in a lucky position where I can make my own schedule to some extent and work from home a lot of the time but the less I work the less money I make. So, I’ll plan financially to not need to work so much in the first few months. Praying that the baby won’t have to spend too much time in the hospital being weened off the drugs and that I can control all the rage I’ll feel over it.

Again, I appreciate the understanding and support everyone. I used to beg and plead and try to do anything to get her to quit or to go to treatment. I’ve learned that’s all worthless. Even if she did agree to go because I begged her it would most likely be meaningless because she would only be going to try to please me and not because she actually wanted to get clean. I suggested she should think about going before we’re divorced and she no longer had health insurance through me. I didn’t try to force her or bargain with her. I simply suggested it might be a good thing for her to think about and that I would be there to support her if that’s what she chooses to do. She’s overdosed twice. Once when she was younger before I knew her. That scared her enough to quit for good for 5 years. She overdosed once again more recently and nothing happened as a result. I don’t think it’s really the life she wants. She tells me it isn’t and I believe that’s how she feels a lot of the time but she doesn’t want to do the hard work to get and stay clean. Not right now at least.

My wife is from a good family. Not extremely wealthy but they paid for multiple rehab stays in the past. They’ve been dealing with her addiction since she was a teenager. She became addicted after being prescribed opiate painkillers for an injury when she was 16. The relapse happened about 3 years ago. An ex boyfriend of hers died from an OD. She had not been in contact with him or anyone from that time of her life for years. She found out this guy died and went to his funeral against my wishes (I didn’t want her to go because I worried about her being around people that she used drugs with in the past, not because he was an ex boyfriend). She became very depressed and just couldn’t get over the fact that this guy died even though she supposedly hadn’t talked to him in years. She would go visit his obituary online all the time and just stare at it. It was around that time that she reconnected with some other people (meaning other drug associates) from that time in her life and I think it was the perfect storm. She was only able to hide it from me for a short time. She hid it from everyone else for longer, but they weren’t living with her. She was able to “function,” as in hold her job, still go out of the house and have a social life, and look out together for about a year before she rally started to go off the rails. Even then, looking at her most people probably wouldn’t have known what problems she was dealing with.

My family knows about her problems and that I’m planning to divorce her. They support me 100%. One of my sisters who is a stay at home mom has even offered to watch the baby when I have to work. I have a flexible schedule but it includes evening and weekend hours so it would be hard to find traditional daycare, especially for a newborn. I’m working as much as so can right now and will have to do so for some time since my wife ruined our finances.

I’m 36 years old, college educated, and wasn’t born yesterday so yes of course I know she’s endangered the baby. The pregnancy wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t my choice to continue the pregnancy either. As harsh as it may sound, I had one opinion on what she should probably do but she had already made up her mind that she was going to have this baby whether I agreed or not. I recognize at that point I have no say about anything until the baby is actually born, and that’s what I’m preparing for. She’s no longer using heroin. She’s using a prescription opioid medication that doesn’t get her high but makes it so that she doesn’t go into withdraw. This is what the doctors advise is the safest option during pregnancy. She wishes they would ween her off of it so she can be completely clean when the baby is born but that isn’t common practice for a variety of reasons. The medication isn’t ideal but it’s far safer than heroin and usually results in the baby experiencing a shorter, less severe withdraw after birth. I don’t sleep much anymore because I’m so stressed about what my life has become. At night I usually spend time reading research articles about babies born addicted to drugs, which then leads me to reading more about all of the various cognitive or behavioral issues they might have and I start fretting about what I’m going to do about that. I’m trying to let that go for now because it’ll be hard enough watching my newborn baby going through withdraw. That’ll be the first big hurdle. Any long term effects won’t even be known for years, most likely. I’m in the US. It’s no longer rare for fathers to be awarded custody here. To be clear, I don’t want to strip her parental rights. At least not to start out with. I want to give her a chance to get her life together and to be a mother to her child. It just has to be done in a safe way that minimizes any damage to the child. She’s very upset with me right now because she thinks I’m trying to take her baby away, which isn’t what I’m trying to do.

Thanks for your understanding. I think it’s hard for some people who have never loved somebody, whether romantically or not, who has these addiction issues to understand what it’s like for somebody in my position. If I was somebody else looking at me from the outside I’d think some of the things I’ve done in relationship to my wife and he issues are absolutely pathetic and ridiculous. It can really start to affect your own behavior and thought processes, I know it has mine. No matter what, my wife will always be an addict. Even though she had been clean for over 5 years when we got married, I knew she was an addict even in that moment. I accept that now. My previous involvement with NAranon has made me learn to accept some things that I have no control over. I can’t trust her to care for a baby at this time. The clean version of her, sure. She was totally together and a loving caring responsible person during those years. Now, I can’t trust her. It will take a very long time, as in years, and lots of effort on her part for me to trust her again. In our particular state there is a big push for addicted mothers to maintain some sort of safe custody of their newborn babies if possible. My lawyer doesn’t think we’ll have any trouble getting the court to award me primary custody, but there’s a chance she could have some sort of custody or unsupervised visitation, which terrifies me right now. It’s true that as a result of dealing with her and her addiction for years that I now am super hyper focused on controlling situations and trying to minimize damage, so when I have to release control I sort of go into a panic internally. My wife is very good at manipulating people and making them think she’s really putting a ton of effort in and she’d be the type who could put on a really good act for the court. She has absolutely no legal records related to her drug use this far.

I’m glad you were smart enough to get out while you could. I realized a few years ago that yep, I should have walked away long before I ever married her. Now I find it impossible to do it. Long term recovery rates for heroin use are so low that they’re almost nonexistent. And I knew that going in and I let myself just pretend I didn’t know.

Believe me, I’m not treating it like a DIY situation. I’m working with a lawyer. Haven’t booked with a therapist yet but no doubt I need it due to how badly this has all screwed with my head. I used to be part of a naranon group. I was not ready, at the time, to commit to all of those steps, although I found several supportive people in that group nonetheless. It all sort of dissolved during COVID and I’ve never revisited it. We have a team of doctors caring for my wife now, high risk pregnancy specialist and such. I’m consulting with them to try to gauge what to expect and prepare for that on my end. I go to every appointment because I cannot trust any of the information that comes from my wife and I know and accept that now.

Thanks for the comments and advice. I probably should have prefaced that I’m already working with a lawyer regarding both divorce and child custody. He’s great as far as the legal aspects and the facts go but he’s obviously not there for any sort of emotional support. I always end up feeling like crap after talking to him actually. I feel guilty I suppose. I’m doing as he advised and documenting everything. He said in the case of child custody, since she’s an addict, it will not hurt for me to establish a separate, safe, stable residence away from my wife. I’m paying for everything for her right now, the house she’s living in is in my name and I pay all the bills because she has no job at this point. I’m keeping records of it all. Honestly, I’m terrified of what will happen to her after I divorce her. No money, no health insurance. I get that I’m supposed to let her hit rock bottom but it’s so much harder than I ever imagined and I’ve not really ever succeeded.

Hi everyone. New to this site today. I’ll be honest when I say I feel kind of desperate posting here. I’m feeling so angry, so sad, and so alone and can’t seem to find any place to just vent and to talk to people who I don’t have to face every day in real life. Please don’t take offense, I just can’t believe I basically want to come a place online where I can proverbially cry about my life right now. I’ve been married to my wife for 4 years. She’s a talented, funny, beautiful, intelligent woman. She’s also addicted to heroin. Her drug issues predate our relationship; however, she’d been clean for 5 years when we got married. She didn’t disclose these problems until after 6+ months of dating. It was a total shock. You would never guess it based on the clean version of her, the person who has everything together. By then I was already in love with her and despite my better judgment I allowed myself to convince myself that she was fine and it was all behind her. I was wrong. She relapsed about 3 years ago and it’s been hell for me ever since. Shes 18 weeks pregnant with our first child. It was not planned - I’d never intentionally do that given the circumstances. She hid it from me and continued to use drugs for the first 12 weeks. She eventually confessed and agreed to do whatever she needed to do to get off the heroin. She is under doctors’ care and taking a maintenance prescription opiate drug, which is what is advised during pregnancy. I am so angry at her and at myself. I’ve decided that I have no choice but to divorce her in horsed to protect our child. She’s not doing anything to prove that she’s dedicated to getting clean but she has this fantasy that she’s just going to be a normal, capable, stable mother. I’m terrified of my child being taken away because she is deemed unfit and I happen to be married to her/in same household still. I don’t use any drugs, never have. I can’t even have a casual drink anymore because Im so hyper focused on trying to stay in control of the situation with her all the time. I moved out of our home because I just can’t be around her right now but I am in contact with her daily, go to all of her doctor appointments, and am starting to get prepared for what’s in store as most likely a single dad to a newborn baby. This is is my first baby so I have no idea what I’m doing. Despite everything I’m just so sad. I still love her and I still see pieces of the person I married somewhere in there. I wish we could just be a normal married couple without this huge problem in our lives and raise our child together as a family like how I used to imagine it’s be someday. I’m scared for how this will affect my child as he or she grow up. I’m trying to hold it all together but I’m really a mess inside. This is really difficult for me to talk about with people I know. I’ve spent so long covering up for her (enabling her unintentionally) that it’s deeply uncomfortable to be completely transparent with people. I don’t know what I’m looking for by posting this, but thanks for listening anyway.