How do I get my wife to accept that she is an addict?

[diva1957]

I'm still learning how to use this wonderful site.
I am not the addict, my wife is. I've been a perfect enabler until now. I am 30 days clean in the sense of not allowing her to manipulate me anymore.
My wife and I seem like the model lesbian couple to most our friends. I've allowed her to get out of control with her following of this famous singer. She has been draining me financially and emotionally. Now, since I had that "bazinga" moment (eureka!) I am smarter.
I used to get depressed at the way she is destroying her life and dragging me down with her.
I now recognize that she is an addict who has replaced everything, including me, with her "fix." I am getting a life and letting her know that she had lost me.
It is amazing how shame and secrets keep us isolated. I started talking to friends about what I'm going through, explaining that my life isn't as glamorous as it looks. I see a therapist to make myself stronger. I'm learning to be loving while not giving in to her manipulations. I am starting to demand that she pay her way before paying for her fixes. I talk to others, who are married to addicts.
30 days clean for me as an enabler. Unfortunately, my wife will never accept the fact that she is an addict.

[diva1957]

She is worth following, yes, but not worth giving up your life for. Ever since realizing that my wife has replaced everything she cared for with bits and pieces of this singer's performances and life trivia, I can barely stand that music jenre. My wife's obsessive monologues make me--and some friends who dare--lose patience and say, Come on already.
I would get embarrassed and try to change the subject. My wife would become distraught when people changed the subject on her. We lost friends over this. I kept covering up and apologizing for her crazy behavior.
Now I just warn her, Don't you dare bore my friends with stories about whats-her-face. She doesn’t dare doing it, but sometimes, being a true addict, she’d say stuff like, I love this color. This is the color of ----’s dress when she sang in Tokyo.
Sorry for going on and on. This only the second month of my realization and I'm amazed at how blind I used to be.

[dominosarah]

As one lady on Medhelp has always said, Support their recovery, not their addiction and you are doing just that now.  Keep seeing that therapist.  You are learning the tools you need.  Hopefully she will come around sooner than later.  Is this "famous singer" worth following??

[diva1957]

Thank you Liz. Your story give me strength.
More improvements yesterday. My wife got paid and transferred most of the funds to my account to so I can pay "our" bills. I didn't go out of my way thanking her. I just took it for granted, as she had just done what was expected of an adult.

My wife suffers from slight bipolar, mostly depression. She refuses to go for real therapy and just lets this hack throw paxil at her. It doesn't work. I've been asking her for years to see a psychiatrist and get her bipolar under control, but she thinks those little pink pills solved her problem.

Her "drug" use (the expensive need to travel all over the world to see her famous singer) is just a symptom of the bipolar. I know, because when she is about to get a "fix" she is manic and happy and loves me. And when a "fix" isn't due, she is depressed and treats me like I don't exist.

There's this big family wedding tonight, very important to me. Last night, when my wife gave me her paycheck, she started getting "sick." It's the flu, she says. I knew what's coming because I know her MO. She'll come with me to the wedding and be sick and ruin my fun in a legit way by making me take care of her, because I made her pay her way. Her psychosomatic sickness is so real, she can't even tell why she got sick!

She has done it before: Let me "get my way" then suck up my fun somehow. So this time I’d set up ground rules very lovingly.. I said that if she feels sick and decides to come to the wedding with me anyway, I'll put her in a cab and send her home and make her pay her fare. It will be expensive, because we live in LA. It was magic. She right away started feeling better!

All you enablers, I know the trick. I can now help.

Thank you Liz for listening.

[Nighthawk61]

Hey Diva, so glad you posted and WELCOME TO THE FORUM!!!
There are so many people in the same position  and the fact that you're celebrating every day that goes by that you are no longer enabling your wife is such a Powerful message to so many. By your actions you have already gained a Significant Change on your wife's part, that she has conceded and is paying her way prior to her drug of choice.  I know that you shouldn't have to celebrate the fact that your wife acknowledges and accepts the fact that she has to look after herself. She's not a child. Why should you have to acknowledge these "baby steps" as a huge achievement? Because piot to her paying her own way, there would have been no change in her drug seeking behavior or pattern and now........ there is. Congratulations on managing to do what spouses all over the world have not done yet!!!

That's a great start!  I understand that you are so far behind the 8 ball to see that your wife is capable of even accepting that she's an addict, but please, have faith, all addicts believe that they don't have a problem. They're in denial. It can last for years. For me, i guess i was in full denial for about 4 years. I was so transfixed to the drugs as though by a spell.  Honestly, I had no idea. How strange to think back upon that time. It was a time of misery because I missed all of those years with my family. I regret so much that I hurt them, I loved them so much, how could I have hurt them so much? It's not so much regret, as it is a profound sadness. One that I will never lose. If your wife and you were close before the drug use, you can be again. That is, IF, if you can forgive her. I think you have to look very closely at your relationship, prior to her using. Maybe there were problems prior to this "stage" that she is going through. Maybe your life before the addiction wasn't strong enough to warrant your going through this process.  Maybe you''re rightfully not willing to deal with this family disease when you personally had nothing to do with why she is using in the first place?

Please consider, your wife is just as capable down the road, in day or a year, of coming to the conclusion that she is an addict, and that she wants to do something about it? How long will her bottom take, is the question I'd be asking if I were you?

Thanks for inviting me as a friend Diva. I'm so proud of you for handling yourself the way that you are. I will be praying for you daily, to handle the process that this addiction will impact you. Keep strong, keep smiling.