Married to and Living with an Alcoholic Spouse: a Detailed Guide.

If you are married to an alcoholic spouse then this article can be your first step in stopping this nightmare and getting your husband/wife sober.

First of all, I want you to know I was ‘there’ – my father was an alcoholic, so my mother spent a decade trying to cure him and I know how to live with someone, who seeks to solve their troubles on the bottom of a bottle. I'm fairly sure that if YOU are living with an alcoholic spouse, you are too tired of never being able to rely on them to do what they say, sick to death of their “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” behavior and so on.

Being married to an alcoholic wife/husband is a heavy burden and I am going to help you solve problems you probably already face. I shall write on how to:
- care about children and protect them from your spouse,
- learn what is right and wrong in your relationship,
- learn about obligation feelings and should you abide them or get yourself free from them,
- decide how to deal with the consequences of their drunk actions,
and how to solve other problems you might experience as someone living with an alcoholic spouse.

Before you start to move, it is a good thing to understand where you are right now and then – where do you want to be. Why are you in this situation? How it came to be this way and how can you solve this problem? Maybe you put your partner’s needs and wishes above your own? Do you think you have to keep relationships at all costs? Such attitude leads to nowhere. Do you really want to continue to run around in circles like a tired circus horse? I hope that you do not.

So what exactly should we begin with? We have to deal with our own issues, to understand what is right and what is wrong. We have to get back in touch with reality. It would be very good for you to talk with people surrounding you and/or understand the problem and how to solve it. Your friends, psychotherapist, AL-anon support groups – everything can help. In “Tears and Healing: The Journey to the Light After an Abusive Relationship ” (the author of this book - Richard, 21CP - lived with an alcoholic wife and he wrote this detailed book about his experience and how he has passed through this and healed himself) there are addresses of the mailing lists of AL-anon groups. Well, speak with them, read similar stories in mailing lists and on forums, you could even write yours and see what other people say about it. This should help you to get a better understanding of your problems, feelings, etc.

To reduce the harm you get it is good to detach yourself from your spouse’s influence, his/her words, actions and wishes. Are you in doubts? Do you think you should keep intimate relationships and stay spiritually and emotionally close to your partner? In “Tears and Healing” I, as a religious person, liked one moment. I shall quote it: “Could God really love you so little that he would intend for you to slowly destroy yourself in depriving and hurtful relationship?” I'd like to underline that I'm not asking you to become egoistic or egocentric. Wanting to protect oneself and her feelings and wanting to foster your relationship are not mutually exclusive things. Moreover, without being physically and emotionally healthy, how can you foster your relationship, look after your children and help your partner?

It's not some sneaky tactic, rather it's a change in how you perceive things. It's a step towards independence and self-assurance. Like any other psychological advice this might be hard to follow, just remember not to stop halfway towards your goal. Continue reading books, articles, continue studying yourself and your needs and wishes, talk to people who have similar problems as you do. Sooner or later that shift towards detaching will happen.

So, the right and healthy way to look at this is by understanding and accepting that you too have needs. What do you have to do to be happy and healthy? I am fairly sure if you seriously think about this, you will be close to tears, which is a signal from your mind that what you're thinking of is something that would be healing for your soul. You can look at “Tears and Healing” for a lot more on this stuff (including on what your alcoholic wife/husband is likely to do after you detach!) but I’ll be short: your next step is to decide whether you are getting that, or whether there is any likelihood that you'll get it in the reasonable future, if you stay in the relationship.

If the answer is ‘yes’ it is very good, but you probably would not read this in such case. So, let’s assume the answer is ‘no’.

Dealing with obligations

Well, now let’s talk about obligations – the ‘glue’ for many abusive relationships. Even after you figure out that you are living with an alcoholic wife/husband you often have to stay with them due to an obligation. Or rather a feeling of obligation. Yes, in my opinion these are, in most cases, more feelings or beliefs than they are true obligations. Simply because they come from within, rather than being written somewhere as a law. It is something that forces you to stay in depriving and painful relationship without letting you change it.

And like any time when we talk about feelings, each of us has her own, personal ones. And the best way to deal with them is to visit psychotherapist, who will work exactly with your feelings of obligation to help you overcome them and become healthier. I’ll mention two very common obligation feelings and explain how you can ‘bypass’ them.

First one is “staying with your spouse to be faithful”. Our whole culture forces us to think about marriage as if it were something lifelong, as if it was an obligation. When you vowed to stay with your partner until you die, this feeling of obligation probably was born within you.

However there are two problems with this. 1. First, I want you to realize that marriage as well as any other long-term relationship is something, which should be built by both partners. And as long as you are obligated, your partner is obligated as well. So if she dropped her vows, should you really keep yours? Why should you suffer and keep working on in a relationship in which you are trying to meet your wife/husband endless needs, yet she/he does nothing to meet yours? 2. You can never be responsible for another person's deeds. So whatever your spouse did or does, it is her and only her responsibility. Our partners must own their problems and we only might help them to deal with them, but we are not responsible for them and therefore we are not obligated to.

I realize it is very hard to keep things clear and well explained in a short article, but I at least hope these words make you continue reading stuff and explore your own feelings.

Okay, so let’s talk about another obligation – ‘staying for the children’. Again this feeling is very common and strong. By many it is viewed that ‘any family’ is better than ‘no family at all’. But let’s take a closer look. In such a family your relationship with children is often affected by your sick spouse. It is often limited or restricted in either way. Also consider the impact your spouse's behavior has on your children. He/she can rage, be egoistic, show unhealthy behavior and your kids will see and hear all of this. In a dysfunctional family kids learn dysfunction. And do not forget about the safety of your children.

Healing your heart from abusive relationship

So after you found what is right and wrong, after you detached yourself, after you freed yourself from unneeded obligations, after you explored your own feelings and experience - and it is quite a long way you passed – it is time to move further and heal yourself from abuse. It is often said that ‘time heals’. True, but with proper determination and work it will go much faster. There are different ways to recover from unhealthy experience, I’ll just mention a few including my favorite. You can engage yourself in some activities like sports or hanging out with friends. You could work it out with a psychotherapist. But as for me, I – without declining all the aforementioned ways – prefer meditation. There are many kinds of it existing and you certainly will find the one suitable for you. It requires no money or doctor, it is easy and you probably will like it after first few attempts, since it will lead you to relaxation, healing and good mood.

As an ending I want to tell you that it is impossible to describe such a complex and hard to solve problem as living with an alcoholic wife or husband, but I really hope I gave you some better understanding on how you could solve it or, at least, lessen the harm. If you want to read more detailed guides or books, there are plenty on Amazon including the book I personally found useful – "Tears and Healing: The Journey to the Light After an Abusive Relationship".