Marriage lacks caring, sharing
Q: My husband often goes to town for coffee. If I want to go along, he says he has an appointment with the person renting our land. I don’t ask much of him, but he refuses a lot of things that I want. He never suggests we fix up the house or go on a trip. He refuses to be a lover, a friend or even company for me. If I ask him to go out with me somewhere, he says, “What for? Go yourself.”
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I have begged him to change. But he wants nothing to do with me. I asked for a divorce. He said, “Then, go to a lawyer and get one.” I have never wanted another man. I know I can’t be kicked out of my house. But there hasn’t been any communication at all, except for what has to be said, since two years ago. That is when he stopped drinking, which happened after the police picked him up and he lost his license for the third time. He said he would never drink again. I tried to be a good wife. I drove him to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and to an alcohol rehabilitation centre, trying to help him as much as I could. He finally got a $1,000 restricted driver’s licence without discussing it with me. I haven’t spent that much on clothes in more than five years.
I try not to bring up the past. It is water down the drain. But let me do anything wrong at all, in his eyes, and the whole country knows it. I once put the stew on the stove, forgot it, went to town and burned the pot. I felt ashamed at my carelessness and cleaned everything up, but he still points the finger at me.
A: You are obviously an older couple. You have also put up for years with an alcoholic husband who needed several impaired driving charges to stop drinking. He may have stopped drinking, but it sounds like he hasn’t sobered up with his thinking or attitudes. You are living with what is commonly referred to as a “dry drunk,” someone who continues to act in the self-centred way of an alcoholic without having a drink.
If he is disrespectful of you now, I’m quite sure he’s been that way for years. You drove him to AA in the past. It’s now time to drive yourself to Al-Anon, which is a program to help people heal themselves from the hurt and damage they have experienced while living with an alcoholic, dry or wet.
Al-Anon can help you to learn to take care of yourself and not feel responsible for the marriage. He is responsible for himself and it’s up to him to decide if he too wants to work on the marriage, or have a marriage.
But until you heal yourself, which the 12 steps of Al-Anon can help you do, you likely won’t be strong enough to take steps to remove yourself from the marriage, if that becomes necessary.
It appears your husband believes he has the right to do whatever he wants, an abusive behavior called male privilege, part of the power and control wheel that I have discussed in this column.
There are many Al-Anon groups in rural areas. Check with your pastor or public health nurse for locations. Most cities have telephone answering services to give you the locations of both rural and city meetings, and usually a telephone contact so you can talk with someone before going to your first meeting and not feel so self-conscious.
Your letter to me was your first step in taking care of yourself. Keep walking on that path.
