How to Enable Your Very Own Alcoholic

I was married June 4th, 1988. When I met my husband, I was a wild, out of control party girl. I had recently moved back home with my mom, and living with a alcoholic wasn't helping any. I longed for security, stability... Someone who would take the reins and give me the perfect life. My husband was like something out of Leave it to Beaver. Clean cut, working, polite... Such a difference from the guys I had been dating. I was into the party boys, out drinking every night, cruising in my 65 Mustang, smoking weed. I was worn out, ready for a change... This guy took me to dinner, to nice places. I met his loving Christian family. It was the change I was looking for. However, to this day I do not know if I married out of love for my husband, or if I fell in love with the idea of a different life.

Things began well. We rented a little apartment, I had my job, we hung out with friends. It was relaxed and I felt a sense of true companionship. Soon though, I began to see that he was a bit controlling. He didn't like me listening to certain music, he didn't want me going out with my best friend. A few months after we were married, he decide that he wanted to move out of state. He went to Seattle, WA and started looking for work. He found a job in construction and an apartment, and came back down to re-locate us. Hence, the first real hurt for me in my marriage. He refused to let me take my Mustang, saying we could take only one car. Now, this was the first car I bought without help... I restored it myself, even doing the wet-sanding when it was being painted. It was the one thing I had that was truly mine. However, he felt an older car like that was too much work and not worth keeping. As a submissive Christian wife, it was my duty to submit to his decision... And that's what I did.

While in Seattle, things got off to a rocky start. Being isolated from the circle of friends we once had, we started spending too much on things, entertainment, etc. He decided (without consulting me) to trade in his car for some turbo Pontiac. When I looked at the payment, I knew immediately we couldn't afford it. I made him take us down to the car lot to get our car back. It was already sold, and we were stuck. the car ended up having overheating problems, and blew the head gasket. We had to turn the car in as a voluntary repossession. We ended up getting a previously wrecked little Toyota. What a joy.

Construction didn't work out, so now he was working as a mechanic in training, and I was working as a bookkeeper for a bowling alley. It was around 4 months after we had moved that I found out I was pregnant. Our finances continued to decline, as bills piled higher. He felt we had to maintain a certain standard of living, and it was beyond our means.

The need for family and friends, as well as the strain of finances, brought us back home a year after we moved. We had to live at home with his parents, and I began to see where his controlling nature came from. His father was disabled, and bitter. His word was the only word that mattered. I finally stood up to him shortly before Thanksgiving, when he said something hurtful and I called him on it. He was so angry that someone talked back to him that he refused to speak to me until after my daughter was born at the end of January, 1990. It was so stifling, sharing a home with someone who refused to acknowledge you. My husband never came to my defense, didn't try and intervene or provide a buffer between his dad and I. It was one of the most miserable times of my marriage.

After my daughter was born, things improved a bit. yet my father-in-law, being very conservative, was uncomfortable with my breastfeeding her. Despite the fact that she would be completely covered by a blanket, I wasn't allowed to nurse her if he was in the room. If we were watching TV in the living room, I would have to leave the room and go to the nursery to feed her. My father-in-law belittled his wife, me, my sister-in-law... Anyone could be a victim of the acid that poured from his mouth. His sons never defended their spouses, or their mom, from this verbal abuse. Instead, they seemed to echo it, although quietly at first.

Finally, we were able to move out when my daughter was around a year old. We moved into a little duplex, and when she was a little over 2 years old, her brother was born. During this time, my ex-husband was injured on the job. He spent a lot of time at home, recovering and navigating workman's compensation. He was involved with the kids, and this was a good time for us. The only problem we had was money, and this is where I began to enable him. He expected a certain standard for things.. Little things, like not shopping at the cheap market, not buying generic. To keep him happy, I would scrimp on other things, sometimes use the credit cards, to make life the way he wanted it. I was trying to please him, but in reality, it made things worse.

In 1995, we bought his parents house. They had to sell it so that my father-in-law would qualify for medicare to cover his moving to a convalescent hospital. They gave us a great deal, and we were able to pay off our debt. Despite this, our marriage began to falter. My husband was critical of everything. He would admit that he had a need to be in total control of everything around him. When I cooked, his comments always had a corrective tone. It was always, "That was good, but..." "but I would have done this." "but I think this would have been better." "but you hold the knife wrong when you chop the onions." It was never just "this was good, thank you." I am not the worlds best housekeeper, this is god's honest truth. Yet, he would just cast blame, not help. I had to clean up the yard, the house, the laundry, do the cooking, care for the kids. And always, be criticized for what wasn't done, instead of appreciated for what was.

He didn't like to socialize. When we would go to one of my co-workers for a dinner party, he would sit and glare at his wristwatch until i felt so guilty we would leave. I would suggest he stay home so that I could go and enjoy an evening with them, but he would insist on going with me. Eventually, I just stopped going anywhere. At home, he became increasingly controlling. As the children got older, he turned his criticism on them. Smart, smart kids they were. Yet, if they didn't get a 100% on their schoolwork, they were berated. Instead of being praised for a B, they were told they hadn't tried hard enough, that a B wasn't good enough. In hindsight, I think that his dissatisfaction with himself was projected onto his family. If he could make us perfect, he would be better.

During this time, I almost became an alcoholic. I was so desperate to avoid him, that first I tried going to bed way before him, so I would be asleep when he came in. Then, he began to go to bed earlier, so I started staying up half the night. After he went to bed, I would drink wine. (thanks mom). At first just a glass or two, but then on occasion, I would get stumbling drunk. Now, when I was the party girl, I was often stumbling drunk. This drinking alone thing though... It scared me... It was at this point that I took a hard push for counseling. I had tried to get us into couples counseling before, but he would decline, saying our problems were my fault because I was abused as a child. So, I would go off to therapy, and it would be a band aid for our marriage for a while. This time though, I knew it was make it or break it time. It was time to stop being married for the kids, and start being married because it was good.

We tried various counselors, but by this time it was too late. We tried our church first. The pastor said that our marriage was failing because we weren't having sex often enough. He said that if I were to fulfill my wifely duties, it would heal the rift in our marriage. Ok, next! The next counselor I liked, he seemed to address both sides of the story. My husband couldn't hear what I seemed to hear though, and we made no progress. I decided that I had to move out. My husband tried to use money to hold me. He offered to let me live in the house rent free as long as I didn't go out with my friends. That wasn't a solution for me. I was so stifled. I had put on so much weight, I had become a shell of who I used to be. All I lived for was the kids, and had completely lost all sense of myself. I had to get out.

So, I left. I packed the few things he would allow me to take.. Yes, allowed me to take... and I moved onto my girlfriend's couch. At this point, he began to fall apart. He began to exhibit dependent behavior. He would call me constantly, trying to bribe me into moving back. He would keep the kids up late at night, telling them that mommy didn't love him anymore and didn't want to be a prat of the family. Then, when they were worked up, he would call me and tell me that I needed to come talk to the kids because they were upset. I had to clean his house for him, because he couldn't seem to get it together. I paid the bills, because he would forget. I would handle all the kids arrangements, because he hadn't a clue what to do. Even though I lived and worked miles away, I would drive into town in the morning to take the kids to school, and watch them in the afternoon until he got home. He couldn't adapt to not having someone else take care of him...

Finally, I decided he needed to learn to be independent, and be a responsible father. I had to get away from his manipulation... I had to get strong, and stop being used. I joined the Army on September 10th, 2001. Yes, I signed the papers one day before 9/11. I left, and he had to pull his own weight. This is when his active alcoholism began, although it would remain hidden for the next couple of years.