Q&A Addiction, Meetings, & Lack of Commitment

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Question: 

My husband and I attended the EMS Weekend in September. We are on our 5th week of recovery.

During the EMS Weekend my husband was told that it would be helpful for him to attend addiction meetings. This has also been encouraged by a former counselor for him to attend 90 meetings in 90 days. In the past he has attended a few meetings but did not continue. In the 5 weeks after EMS he has attended 4-5 meetings.

I feel like he struggles with feeling like he is not truly an addict. He questions it because he says he has never had a problem with porn or consistently acting out. He feels that now that he has God in his life and is not partying anymore he can control it. I feel that he has many of the signs of an addict from reading the material in my Harboring Hope class. I went through that with him and during that conversation he seemed to agree.

He says that he is committed to doing all that he can to make the marriage work. He has done all of the other homework that we were given through EMS.

I really felt like after EMS he was going to go above and beyond and attend 90 meetings in 90 days. I could see very quickly that he was not once we returned home. I tried to just be patient and allow him to go to as many as he wanted hoping that he would do the minimum suggested of at least 3-4. The meetings are a scary thing for me because I feel that he has a tendency in his affairs to use women that also have addictions.

I am frustrated that he is not understanding how important his actions are for me. This has been the pattern now in our marriage for the past 7 years. I am struggling with how much should I encourage him to go to the meetings and at what point do I need to just let him fail?

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who's he doing it for?

This was a good video for me. I don't feel my spouse is doing any of the things we are doing, even the EMS weekend for himself, but because I am wanting it and he is showing up, participating, some, and I find myself being the one to lead or look for the next step, which I don't want to do. I applaud him for showing up, but feel it is not going to benefit like it should if he does not want to accept his own weaknesses. The things that are not healthy for a marriage, or just not healthy in general, are glaring, except to him and I am tired of fighting with him about what is right. He did join our after-care phone meeting from our EMS weekend and when I acknowledged him for doing so, his comment was "glad to be of service". I think that tells the story. I shared I didn't think that sounded quite right. He tried to redeem himself. What is a habit, what is reality?

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I would highly recommend giving this a try.
 
-D, Texas