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Saturday September 6,2008

My husband died of a heroin overdose!

by Paul V. Johnson

Dear Paul,

I go to Nar-Anon, and I know intellectually that there was nothing I could have done to get him to stay clean, but emotionally it seems I can't forgive myself for leaving him. I never stopped loving him, and he knew that. But there is this lingering "blame" I have toward myself. Can you offer any suggestions? Thank you so much.

Dear Inquirer,

I am sorry to read about your former husband's death and concerned about the lack of support you have been getting, as well as the unnecessary "blaming yourself" that you have been experiencing. I'm glad to know that you had a number of excellent years with your former husband but sorry that the last two years were so bad that a divorce was inevitable.

I think it is important that you remind yourself that life is full of choices and that it was your former husband's choice (not yours) to choose drugs as being more valuable than his relationship with you. And in response to your former mother-in-law's comment that "you killed him," I can only say that it is a classic example of someone with a problem (or someone close to them) blaming someone else for what is really their own responsibility.

Guilt is a common emotion experienced by individuals after someone important to them dies. There are at least two types of guilt: legitimate and non-legitimate guilt. Legitimate guilt would be experienced if you had done nothing to help your former husband and walked out on him the very first time a problem with drugs was evident. Non-legitimate guilt is experienced when someone does everything in his or her power to help someone else, but that individual does not respond. Even though everything imaginable was done to help the other individual, the giver (you) still feels guilty.