There are social support agencies that will assist your husband to have all he needs to keep body and soul together. There are fellowships of recovering substance abusers who will welcome him into their midst, if he wants companionship in working a program of recovery. It's all out there. I've worked as a nurse in a variety of venues that services this population. Many very dedicated professionals and assistant workers labor conscientiously to guide troubled individuals along a pathway out of hell. But the individual must cooperate. Nothing impossible will be asked of your husband.

I was astonished at the support offered my brother. He was set up in a one bedroom apartment nicer than my own. He was offered a support worker to come by several times a month to assist him to clean his place, since he has trouble staying organized. If he failed to pay his rent, an agency would pay it for him and allow him to gradually pay off that debt. The agency had a special contract with the management of his apartment complex. Because he kept getting arrested, they matched him up with an attorney who specializes in defending mentally ill chronic offenders. I met with this attorney, and I was so impressed by her commitment. BTW, I live in a poor state. Yet, resources are there. Of course, my brother would say that "the system" was out to crush him. You're going to hear that too. Don't believe it.

People like my brother and your husband want to have their cake and eat it too. Wouldn't we all like that? You and I have to meet expectations to get what we have in life. These two men have decided they do not accept that reality of life. Their real core problem is NOT their mental illnesses. It's their rotten attitudes, whereby everyone is expected to cater to them. I have another close relative who struggles with very serious mental illness. Yet, he's been a good husband and father . . . plus a wonderful friend to me. He is a good man who accepts that he has to TRY. He is very loved. He knows how to love.

It is not true that mental illness makes anyone a bad person. I worked in an agency that stored and administered medications to mentally ill clients who were either homeless or not organized enough to manage their meds totally on their own. Some of them were just the nicest people you could meet . . . so grateful, so cooperative, so very pleasant to engage with. They came by consistently each morning to take their meds. This agency provided shower facilities and a clean change of clothing and a meal. Also an address to receive mail. These individuals were very courteous to staff and to each other.

Your husband's rotten attitudes are not caused by his mental illness. Like my brother, he simply has an entitled attitude that comes with a complement of rotten attitudes. Something was lacking in what he was exposed to growing up. He suffered abuse. That may have led to both his mental illness and his rotten attitudes. But they are two separate problems. Just because they both have roots in the same soil does not mean one causes the other.

Your husband can control his behavior much better than you think he can. I'm talking about the bad behaviors that come from his contempt for other people. (Not the mental illness stuff.) If you think those two sets of behaviors can't be separated, you need to visit a jail or a prison. You would be amazed at how polite inmates are capable of behaving. If your husband got put in a prison cell with a cellmate who was bigger, stronger and meaner than he was, do you think your husband would verbally abuse his cellmate? Your husband would become the most courteous guy in the world.

Because your husband has no attachment to any moral code of how to treat another human being, he probably can only be governed by fear. He will be respectful of those he is afraid of. Eventually, he will work himself into an environment where that's what he'll have to deal with. He will curb his behavior to the extent that he becomes afraid not to. Oh, he can change, alright - given sufficient incentive. That's why I could walk into a prison pod with a murderer over here and two rapists over there . . . and everyone would be getting along just as nice as could be. If these men were dressed in nice street clothes, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with them. They were controling themselves because they were afraid not to. I suspect most of them had sad, abusive childhoods. They grew up and abused the rights of others. But, in that controlled environment of the prison pod, they were capable of relaxing, joking, acting friendly and not causing me any discomfort to be in their midst. If one of them were disrespectful toward me, he would have been "corrected" by his peers. Certainly, some of these guys had been in the habit of smacking around their wives and girlfriends, when they were at home. You'ld never know it meeting them in the pod. Some people will alter their behavior based solely on what they can, or can't, get away with. That's your husband's approach to life. He doesn't care about what's right or wrong. You might as well make those arguments to a brick wall.

Your husband is probably in his 40s. It's better to cut him loose before he gets much older, when adjusting to the change will only be tougher. He'll have choices to make. Let him make them.