Your Kids Are Watching How You Survive

Nobody wants to hear this, but someone needs to say it plainly: when we stay entangled in a spouse’s addiction and call it “surviving,” our kids pay the price. I’m Steve, and I’m sharing one of the hardest truths I learned after years of living inside marital chaos. If you’re trying to keep the peace, hide the problem, manage the explosions, and hold everyone together, you may believe you’re protecting your children. Many times, they already know. Worse, they’re absorbing more than you can see. 

We talk about what children learn in an addicted home: how chaos starts to feel normal, how instability changes behavior and school life, and why the risk of abuse and neglect rises when addiction is present. Then we go to the part that still stings for me, because it’s the part I got wrong for too long: kids aren’t only watching the addicted parent. They’re watching the “strong” parent. They’re watching how we respond, how we cover up, how we rage, how we shut down, and how our survival strategies become their blueprint for love, safety, and self-worth. That’s where codependency quietly becomes generational. 

I also open Scripture to Psalm 34:18 and unpack repentance as a change of direction, not a shame label. Recovery is possible, but it isn’t built on fixing your spouse. It’s built on you getting healthy, getting clarity, setting boundaries, and protecting what matters most. If you’re ready to stop spinning and start healing, listen now, then subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more families can find hope.

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Transcript

The Truth Nobody Says

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I need to say something to you today that nobody has the courage to say to you. Not your mother, not your father, not your best friend, not even your pastor can tell you this. But I'm gonna say it because I care too much about you. I care too much about people. And I can't keep quiet anymore. What you're doing right now, the way that you are surviving this marriage, the way that you are trying to manage this chaos, it's hurting your children. And you don't even know it's happening. Somebody needs to

Show Mission And Who It Helps

SPEAKER_00 0:32

tell you. Welcome to Reclaiming Your Identity, a podcast dedicated to providing hope, healing, and support for married individuals whose spouses are battling addiction. Rooted in the truth of your identity in Christ, this podcast offers practical guidance and biblical insight to help you navigate the challenges of addiction within your marriage. Here we'll find encouragement and embrace God's plan for restoration in your life. Let's walk this journey together, one step at a time. Hello, I am Steve, and I want to welcome you to today's episode of Reclaiming Your Identity Podcast. I'm super duper excited that you're here today. Hey, we're talking about the ten truths untold, the ten things that I wished somebody would have told me, slapped me across the face, woke me up, and told me when I was entangled with my ex-wife and her addiction. For 13 years I battled that, and I wish somebody would have just shook me and woke me up and told me these ten truths. Today's episode, we're talking about probably one of the most difficult things. Probably one of the things that flies under everybody's radar that's in the middle of managing all this chaos, all this mess, but it's destroying your kids. It's destroying your kids. If you have children, it doesn't matter the age, but if you have children, this is so much affecting them. And while you think you're managing everything so nice and trying to keep them out of it and keep it quiet, they know what's going on. And they suck everything up. And I can just tell you that from experience. But this is going to be a hard episode, and I really hope that you can just take a moment, listen to this if you're in this situation. Maybe you know somebody that's in this situation, it'd be a good time to send them this podcast. But this episode is a tough one, it's a good one. And we've talked about the 10 untold truths in the prior episodes, so you can go back and listen to those. We're wrapping this up here. This is one of two that are left. We'll do the next, the

Ten Untold Truths And A Hard One

SPEAKER_00 2:44

last untold truth in the next episode, but let's uh dive into this one. And before we do, would you please like and subscribe to this podcast? If you're watching on YouTube, would you like, subscribe, and even follow me? If you're listening by way of the podcast platforms, please like, subscribe, and follow as well. And as always, just make comments, it just really helps me out. The 10 untold truths, I do have that as a download. I have a guide. You can get that. Everything's in the show notes, but it's a great guide to get in your hands or maybe somebody that you love's hands and let them see these ten untold truths that they need to know if they're in this situation. But we're going to start today and jump right in

Like Subscribe And Download Guide

SPEAKER_00 3:29

here because numbers don't lie. They don't lie. There was a study done in 2025

The Numbers On Kids And Addiction

SPEAKER_00 3:34

that says one out of four kids, one out of four kids grows up in a family where one of the parents have a substance abuse. And of those, one out of four, seven point six million kids have a parent that has a severe addiction or abuse disorder. That's huge. And 3.4 million of those have a parent that has multiple addiction or disorders. It's crazy. The numbers just don't lie. And we really don't think about it. And when we go to talk about recovery, we're always there for the addict, which is great, don't get me wrong, but there's always support for the addict, but nobody's ever thinking of the children involved. Nobody's ever thinking of the spouse that's involved. And if you're a follower of Christ, this is a huge missed opportunity that the church is just letting go. I was a pastor. I had a church. This wasn't on our radar. It's always about fixing the attic because if we fix the attic, things stop. It doesn't. We have to focus on you getting healthy, your children getting healthy. And these numbers are just amazing. And witnessing a parent's addiction at such a young age just opens up the opportunities of long-term effects on that child. And to put this in perspective, there's kids sitting in your home right now, possibly, living in fear, wondering why their home isn't safe, wondering why things aren't better. And to be honest with you, probably wondering why the strong, sober parent isn't saving them and continues to live in this hell.

Kids Absorb Chaos As Normal

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Which brings me to discussing what your kids are absorbing right now. I mean, they are absorbing so much right now that maybe you realize, maybe you don't realize. We need to discuss what your kids are absorbing right now. Those children, those statistics, maybe your kids, what are they absorbing right now with you being in this situation? Or you knowing of somebody that's in this situation? What are their kids absorbing absorbing, sorry, right now? Number one is they're thinking that chaos is normal. They're growing up thinking that chaos is a normal part of life. Life was never designed to be chaos at all. Addiction disrupts the stability in a child's home environment. Things change on the fly. There's no structure at times. Things are always based on what the addict is doing. So schedules are always changing, things are always changing, fights are always coming up. It's just changing the overall family dynamics on a monthly, weekly, maybe even daily basis. And the emotional toll can really impede them in their academics and their behavior outside of the home. They're just starting to process and understand that chaos is normal. So they're gonna live out that

Higher Risk Of Abuse And Neglect

SPEAKER_00 7:12

chaos. Number two, they're three or four more times likely to be abused or neglected. Children who grew up in a home with an addicted parent are three times more likely to be sexually, physically, emotionally abused. That's a scary thought. Number three, this one is a shocker,

They Watch The Sober Parent

SPEAKER_00 7:33

and this one really was eye-opening for me in recovery. For myself. They're not watching them. They understand what the addict is doing. They understand what chaos they're causing, but they're watching you and how you respond and how you act and how you're there to try to protect them. Are you there protecting them? Or are you so entangled with the addict and stopping the addiction? And here's the hard truth that haunts me almost every day. Children who grow up with a codependent parent who didn't leave an addict are more likely to have low self-esteem issues. Children of codependent parents often grow up believing that their self-worth is tied to pleasing you. And that's what mine grew up believing. It leads to low self-esteem, depression, lack of control over their own actions, their own impulses. It's saddening to watch that all play out. That's all truth. That all plays out my two older kids, my two older boys. They're watching you, they were watching me. What was I going to do? Was I gonna save them from this chaos? Was I going to make them feel safe and protected? I didn't. You have to understand that your survival strategies are becoming the blueprint of who they are. Wow. That hurts. That really does hurt. Number four, they're losing their childhood.

Losing Childhood And Repeating Cycles

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And what I mean by they're losing their childhood, sometimes they end up becoming a caretaker too. They have to grow up faster and take care of younger simbleeds, or they have to grow up and take care of the addicted parent, or sometimes even the codependent parent. They lose their childhood. They lose the fun. They lose the freeness of being children. The dreaming, the playing, the all those things that we loved as ch doing as a child, they're losing it fast because they have to be in survival mode. That child should not be your emotional support. That child should not be managing your home. That child has one job, and that is to be a kid. And right now the chaos in your home is robbed them of that. And number five, we're setting up our kids to repeat the cycle that we're doing. So if we don't want to see our kids in the pain that we're in, we need to break the cycle of what we're doing. We need to find healing for you. We need to find clarity for you. We need to get that transformation in there so you can start breaking the cycle so your kids can witness that before it's too late. And of course, we need to talk about codependency because that's basically the life that you're living. That's the life that they're going to live. Codependency isn't a life you chose, that you were just kind of forced into it, especially with this addiction. If you were with this person before they were an addict, you'd probably now are battling some tendencies of codependency. And your kids are going to see it, and your kids are going to, like I said, with the cycle, your kids are going to repeat the cycle. When you overmanage, when you cover up, when you try to keep silent, when you are in a rage, when you try to shut down and make everything about the addict, your kids are watching that. They're watching every single move on how you're handling it. And it can be confusing to them because they see you in a caring mode, then they see you in a rage, then they see you screaming at the top of your lungs, and then they see you just battling every day with this addict. And it's fight after fight after fight after fight. And then maybe there's a good period. And you back off, and things are good, and you go back to the carrying role that this is gonna work. We have hope. This is it. Your kids are watching this the ups and downs, the ins, the outs, the entanglement. They're watching all of this, and they're gonna think this chaos is normal. And then they're gonna grow up putting all of their worth into another human being, and they're only gonna be as good as that human being is. Codependency are words we use in recovery, but it's for the healthy person. It's for the healthy person too, the one that thinks that they got all their stuff together, that they're trying to manage this household of chaos. This is for you. I'm talking to you. I'm not talking to the addict. This show is for you, not the addict. This show is for the one trying to manage everything on their own, and they're destroying their kids in the process. This is where we need to stop.

Invitation To Walk Right Community

SPEAKER_00 13:37

And this is where I need to take a moment and invite you into the community I created, walk right community. I wish something like this was around when I was going through my healing. But God laid this on my heart. This is something that we've created online. It's everything that I walk through, it's everything that I went through to get my transformation, my healing, and my freedom. And your outcome with your partner may not be the same as mine, but the goal of getting healthy is the same. That's the idea. What happens after that could be discussed. But right now it's about you getting healthy, and what a better place to do it than in a community of people like us. Now, there's courses, there are really in-depth worksheets that you work on yourself. This isn't just a little Bible verse and you know, God's going to be with you type thing. This is self-reflection. This is really ripping apart all those layers that are on you and getting to the core of what's controlling this and getting healing from that. It's called Walk Right Community. It's in the show notes. And maybe this might be a place for you. So I invite you in. Maybe you know somebody that can use this. And when you do join, there's a free area, of course. There's a free area. And when you join, you get to book a call with me, and maybe that can help give you some guidance of where you need to go or what you can look forward to. So I would take that just for the opportunity itself. But anyway, again, it's walk by community, it's in the show notes. I really would like to see you start on your path of healing

Psalm 34 And What Repent Means

SPEAKER_00 15:30

today. Can I take a moment to take us to the Bible? I'd like you to go to a psalm, and it's Psalm 34, 18. And I've got it right here. And it says that the Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain, and he is always ready to restore the repentant one. Now, this verse can come across so many different ways to so many people. Does it sound comforting and warming? Or does it put a little bit of fear in you because of the word repentant one? Now when you hear the Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain and he is ready to restore them, that's great. That's awesome. We all want that. That's comforting. But then those last words, the repentant one, he's ready to restore the repentant one. Is that where it gets scary for you? Is that where the fear comes in? Because repentant one doesn't mean that you are a bad person. It doesn't mean that you're less than, it doesn't mean any of that. And that you have to do this. He's only gonna restore those who repent to him. They repent of their sins. Why do we drive fear into people? Why do we not read these words and understand what they really mean in the Bible? Because most people think repentant is forgiving your sins and repenting your sins and saying all that. No, what it really means is you're changing your mind. You're changing your path. If I repent, it means I don't want to be like that anymore, and I'm gonna change the way I go so I do not hit that mark, so I do not continue to do what is causing me to fail. So repentance really means turning around and going this way, the right way, the correct way. Walk right. So God is so ready to restore you when you're ready, when your mind shifts, when your heart shifts, and you walk the other way and you walk out of this mess and you're ready to go. I'm not fighting this anymore. I need to get healthy for myself and for my kids. I'm gonna turn around and go this way. The Lord is ready to restore you. He's ready. But if you're gonna stay stuck where you're at, he wants to restore you, and he still is close to you, even though your heart's crushed, but that's how great God is. He doesn't just force himself on you. That wouldn't be love, right? He doesn't make you love him, he wants you to love him. And he's sitting here right now just going, Come on, come on. I want to restore you, but I need you to take a couple steps this way in repentance and go the right way that I can restore you. I'll never forget him speaking to me.

Stop Focusing On The Addict

SPEAKER_00 18:53

He was there the entire time in my entanglement with my ex-wife for 13 years, screaming at me, Steve, stop doing this. Stop it, stop it. I wasn't listening. I was so focused on her. I was so focused on her getting better. I wasn't focused on my kids, I wasn't focused on myself, I was focused on her getting better. And the Lord said, I just wanted to fix you. But you wouldn't listen to me. So I'm trying to help you today. And I know the Lord wants to restore your heart, and I know that he wants to restore everything that you have. And he might be just sitting there screaming at you like he was at me. So I'm gonna tell you stop what you're doing, get clarity, get help, and protect what you have left so you can build your children back up. You can worry about the relationship after you start getting healthy for yourself, but this needs to happen. Or you're gonna sit where I'm sitting someday watching your kids hurt because of what you've done. Of course, Mag's wife, who had an addiction that never stopped, that damaged him too. But I played my part by being so entangled in her that I didn't protect them. And that's what I need you to understand today. Out of these ten untold truths, this is the hardest one. You're hurting your kids. You're hurting your kids. But the good news is, I know this is a rough episode, but the good news is there's still time. There is still time. You can reclaim who you really are, and you can become strong, and you can get the clarity and you can get the healing, you can get hope back, and you can be transformed. And then your kids can too. God didn't design your kids to carry what they're carrying today, but he did design you to lay down your burden. He did design you to be able to lay that down. Recovery is possible, but it's not about fixing your spouse. This recovery is about fixing you. And I think that once this really hits home with people, they're really gonna start to understand how all this is really working. How being entangled with an addict is really more of their control than it is the addict's control. See, we think the addict controls everything. So we focus on the addict, we focus on stopping the addiction, we focus on that. The addict controls everything. No, you control everything. You have the power, you're the one that is stronger. You may be codependent. Right now, but you actually are stronger than you think you are. And you have the power to stop this. You don't have the power to stop them and their addiction. And you've heard me say it in many episodes, you're never going to. They have to do that. You can spend the rest of your life trying to stop the addict, and they're not going to stop. You've already tried everything, right? You're just thinking of new ways to try to be creative to get them to stop. It's not going to happen. Please get yourself help. Whether you want to more information on the community, whether you want to download these guides I have, they're everything's in the show notes. There is hope. There is a place for you to find healing. And if the community doesn't turn you on, then try to find something locally. It's very hard. But try to get yourself into something or somewhere that you can start healing yourself. And

Hope Healing And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_00 23:08

more importantly, allow God in to where He can start healing. He can start transforming you. There is freedom on the other side. I promise you. There is so much freedom on the other side of healing. There is so much peace and joy being transformed and having a wonderful relationship with God and knowing who I am. Yes, it hurts to see my kids, grown-up adults, struggling with things that I've caused. But now they're their own people. And I just have to love them and encourage them. I can't become codependent with them and try to fix them now. They have to choose to want to heal too. So while my heart breaks for them, I have hope that God will see through the transformation in them. I want to thank you for joining me on this episode today. I know it was a rough one. But it had to be spoken. It had to be spoken. People have to hear this. Again, if you know anybody, please share this. Again, like, subscribe, all that good stuff. And most important, out of everything, remember, you're loved. You are holy. And I'll see you in the next episode. God bless.