Each week i asks experts to answer readers’ questions about love, sex and relationships
My husband and I have been married for 20 years. We have had a brilliant relationship but it has involved us both drinking a lot together and having a lot of fun. However, three years ago I stopped drinking entirely because I was worried about my health. After that my husband began to drink excessively and our relationship suffered. Six months ago I told him that if he didn’t go and get help I would leave him. He entered AA and has been to daily meetings ever since.
However, I thought our relationship would take an upwards turn but it really hasn’t. I feel I have lost him to AA and I feel completely left out.
Also when he is not at the meetings or talking to his AA fellows he is morose and downcast and I find it really difficult to manage. I know how this might sound bad – I do applaud the fact he’s managed to get clean – although I’m not totally convinced that will be forever – and I don’t want to rain on his parade.
However, I really don’t know how to manage this situation and I need some help.
Counsellor and author of Extraordinary Relationships Lucy Cavendish says:
Thank you so much for sending this in. I see so many people in this position whereby they are in a relationship with addiction and with an addict and then, once people get clean, all the parameters change. It’s as if you were all doing one dance and then someone starts doing another dance and the other partner doesn’t know how to follow the steps and feels left behind.
There are so many things to address. First of all is the fact that you had a brilliant marriage. However, I get the feeling that part of the brilliance was that you bonded together over drinking. Lots of people drink together and have a great time. Many couples can’t imagine what it would feel like to not have the lubricant of drink. This is why our relationship with alcohol gets tricky.
This is what we know about alcohol or any drug that alters our state – it takes us from one place and puts us in another place. Shy people become loquacious. Nervous people become more confident. Couples who are not sure if they want to have sex with each other suddenly want to have sex with each other. People laugh and cry and say crazy mad things and all emotions are heightened.
Then someone changes the dance steps and you decide you’re drinking too much and it’s bad for your health – which it is – and you stop and, because you’re not an alcoholic, you can cease drinking without having huge side effects.
But this leaves your husband alone and somewhat abandoned because you have stopped doing what the two of you have done for 20 odd years. Now he is a single drinker at that doesn’t feel any fun. As you say, his drinking becomes excessive.
It is a very positive thing to know that he values your relationship so highly that he went to AA and is sticking with it. Of course you feel bad “complaining” about it because in many ways you are getting what you wanted. You gave an ultimatum and he took the bait and ran with it. But he is an addict and the thing about AA is that it wisely replaces one crutch with another crutch.
At the moment he needs this and I’m sure you are aware of that. Sometimes though what the non-addict really desires is a functioning, active, happy, joyful partner back in their life regardless of whether or not they have actually experienced their partner in that way ever. This is the longing and the dream. The unspoken deal goes something like “once my beloved stops drinking we will be happy”.
But this is not necessarily what you get. I know a lot of couples who break up when someone gets clean and it’s because the relationship has fundamentally changed.
I don’t want to make any aspersions as to why your husband is an alcoholic and he may not know himself. But many people who fall into addiction have ACE (adverse childhood experiences) and those experiences are modified by alcohol but when there is no alcohol it may well be that, in his essence, your husband is actually not a very happy person.
People start drinking for all sorts of reasons but one very obvious reason is that it turns you into somebody else. This might well be because you don’t like being the person that you actually are so once that “other” person (the one you don’t like, or the damaged one or the hurt one) comes back into your life it can be pretty shocking. One client once told me that when they gave up drinking they thought they would find a joyous little soul within them but they actually found out they were a cantankerous, miserable, depressed pessimist. It was a terrible revelation to them and to all those around them.
So what help for you? I think you need to tread carefully because whilst I always advocate for communication, this is early days and your husband may not be feeling particularly robust right now. I do think, however, that you could let him know you feel a bit left out. This is something I feel it could be useful for him to hear even though he may not be able to change it. There are two practical things I suggest you do; one is to read In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate which is brilliant on addiction. Also you could find a very good Al Anon group who could support you in this as you are not the only person going through it and many people have been before and you could benefit from their wisdom.
It is also an opportunity to actually get to know your husband better and for him to get to know you better. Who are the two of you now the crutch has been taken away? It might be a rather beautiful and gentle thing to quietly get to know each other better and to find support and love and tender moments through this difficult period.
In time things might look a bit clearer.