{"id":3563,"date":"2012-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/the-saddest-thing-ive-ever-seen\/"},"modified":"2020-05-11T20:48:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T20:48:46","slug":"the-saddest-thing-ive-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/the-saddest-thing-ive-ever-seen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Saddest Thing I’ve Ever Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"

These past few weeks I’ve been in a position to witness one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.\u00a0 A marriage destroyed by addiction.\u00a0 Oh, sure, marriages get destroyed by addiction all the time, so why is this one in particular so sad?\u00a0 Perhaps because, from my viewpoint, this marriage had every element necessary for success.\u00a0 The couple did the work – in the counselor’s office, working through the rough spots at home.\u00a0 Working at their relationship had become a way of life.\u00a0 They knew and understood the concept of loving the little child inside of their mate. They had learned to really hear each other. They loved and truly cared about each other.<\/em>\u00a0 They enjoyed spending time together.\u00a0 They’d been, almost literally, to hell and back more than once, but they were doing it!\u00a0 They were going to make it!\u00a0 They were happy and looking forward to spending the rest of their days together – or so it seemed.<\/p>\n

This couple did everything we, as marriage counselors, ask for – except<\/strong><\/em> deal with the addiction that plagued their relationship.\u00a0 He tried to hide it, but each time she stumbled upon something and confronted him, she would back down in the face of his defensiveness and anger (typical of addiction<\/em>).\u00a0 She feared pushing him on the issue would realize her greatest fear – that he would leave her (typical of the codependent<\/em>).\u00a0 She covered for him.\u00a0 No one in their circle knew of the multiple incidents, not even the children, so his only accountability was to her – and she and her paralyzing fear were no match against the power of an addiction.<\/p>\n

With each occurrence and the searing pain that ensued, the wife got stronger – while he slowly descended back into his haze of denial.\u00a0 The last time it occurred, he was confronted by a mature, grown woman, not a terrified, skittish child.\u00a0 Now he is alone in his house, full of sorrow, remorse, and shame, turning over every stone trying to figure out how to reverse the decade of damage.\u00a0 The thing he wanted more than anything, the fulfillment he sought through his addiction, was to be loved.\u00a0 And the person who knew him better than anyone and truly loved him<\/em><\/strong>, just walked out the door – for the very last time.<\/p>\n

He didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he was simply killing his pain.\u00a0 Pain he refused to acknowledge.\u00a0 Hell-bent in his determination to do it his way, now their dreams of enjoying grandchildren together are shot.\u00a0 The excitement of discovering where their lives would lead with an empty nest – destroyed.\u00a0 Their kids now have awkward encounters between divorced parents at weddings, graduations, births, etc. to look forward to.\u00a0 Gone are the plans for travel in their retirement years.\u00a0 But the saddest part? Two people who really loved each other were so crippled by their issues that they couldn’t prevent this unnecessary tragedy.\u00a0 Too much damage had been done, and somebody had to call it.\u00a0 The cost? She lost the love of her life.\u00a0 He lost his best friend.<\/p>\n

I have written about the importance of working on our own issues. I have nearly yelled at people in my office, “Do something NOW, while she still wants<\/strong><\/em> to spend time with you!”\u00a0 But the twisted logic of unhealthy thinking will insist its way is better.\u00a0 As a counselor, I know the truth.\u00a0 There is nothing I, or anyone else, could say or do to convince them otherwise.\u00a0 Experience is the indeed the best teacher, and losing everything is sometimes the only way to learn.\u00a0 And every time I see it, it is the saddest thing I have ever seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These past few weeks I’ve been in a position to witness one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.\u00a0 A marriage destroyed by addiction.\u00a0 Oh, sure, marriages get destroyed by addiction all the time, so why is this one in particular so sad?\u00a0 Perhaps because, from my viewpoint, this marriage had every element necessary for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21,18],"tags":[445,399,564,565,566,396,567,429,447,430,568],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction","category-affairs","category-marriage","tag-addiction","tag-affairs","tag-alcoholism","tag-boundaries","tag-counterdependence","tag-divorce","tag-drug-addiction","tag-marriage","tag-marriage-counseling","tag-relationships","tag-workaholism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4190,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions\/4190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}