Stress of Addiction on Romantic Relationships

Alcohol abuse doesn’t just affect the person with addiction but also extends to affect his/her relationship with romantic partners. As they move forward with their recovery, taking time to better understand that relationship issues are linked to alcohol abuse can help them create healthier bonds. The stress that addiction causes among the romantic relationships is ample enough to wreck the relationship altogether. Some of the issues could be as listed below 

Communication Issues

People with substance use disorders fail to see things from their partner’s perspective. Obtaining and using their substance of abuse becomes the first priority in their life.

For people with, there’s nothing more important than obtaining more of the abused substance. This leads them to neglect relationships and makes it impossible to see things from a partner’s perspective. When alcohol abuse becomes an addiction, its common for romantic partners to feel that the partner’s they loved no longer exist. Being intoxicated increasing risk-taking behaviour, impairs judgment, critical thinking, problem-solving skills and reduces inhibitions. This leads to frustration, stress, anger, and sadness among the romantic partners.

Co-dependent Behaviour

When partners fall into a pattern of co-dependent behaviour, Communication suffers. In co-dependency, partners protect alcohol addicts from the consequences of their actions thereby supporting their abusive behaviour. They take the responsibility of paying the addict’s bills, running chores around the house and calling sick to work on the romantic partner’s behalf and work long hours to earn for the addiction related expenses. This behaviour creates chaos and unrest among the partners and promotes substance abuse in the addict.

Issues Relating to Sexual Behaviour

The effects of alcohol on the sexual behaviour of the addict could be profound and varied depending on the gender of the addict. 

For men, substance abuse notoriously diminishes the sexual performance. It becomes difficult to get and maintain an erection in male addicts due to the decrease in testosterone. Decreased pleasure in sex and intensity of orgasm have also been reported. This creates loss of intimacy and insecurity among the romantic partners and leads to an unhealthy relationship.

In women, alcohol addiction generally leads to increase in sexual desire. However, this effect is just psychological as the alcohol reduces inhibitions among women and they often feel free to express their sexual preferences. In reality, the physiological signs have shown a significant reduction in arousal with alcohol consumption.

Issues due to Financial Instability

Financial instability is the most common outcome of alcohol abuse. Absenteeism to work due to the constant high in compulsive behaviours and high spending on alcohol for substance abuse can be mentioned as primary reasons for issues due to instability financial instability among the romantic partners.

Physical or emotional abuse issues

Though the addicts love their partners, substance of abuse becomes their number one priority in life and in the process makes them resort to violent behaviours if someone tries to stop them from abusing the substance. Both domestic and emotional violence is a common scene among the romantic partners of the addicts and sometimes may result in fatal injuries or homicides. Addiction has been the reason for more than 50% of emergency room visits due to domestic violence for the past 10 years.

Legal Issues

Due to the erratic behaviour exhibited by the addicts, most of them land in legal issues either due to DUI or erratic driving and the accidents caused thereof. Most romantic partners of the addicts end up not only bearing their financial burden but also endure the troubles caused by legal concerns. 

These are just some of the troubles that addiction causes among the romantic relationships of the addicts. Though your significant other may know that these undesirable consequences are due to the substance abuse alone and not your true feelings, they may be reluctant to approach you again fearing hurt.

How to break the cycle? 

The relationship issues created by alcohol abuse may be multitude but the good news is that they are temporary. When you seek treatment in the right rehab with detox and intensive therapy, it can help you break the cycle of addiction. Though it is a little struggle some and time taking, seeking help always leaves you with a hope for a better future.