Dear Amy,
How do you deal with a verbally abusive alcoholic spouse? Dear Dealing, Dealing with an alcoholic spouse is a challenge in itself and adding verbal abuse to the mix makes this a very precarious situation. How to deal with the spouse depends on a lot of different factors. First and foremost, are you physically safe with your spouse? If not, then I would advise seeking help to distance yourself from the situation, either temporarily or permanently, while addressing the core issues. Next, and also very important to consider, is whether you plan on staying in the marriage. Addiction and recovery can be a very long and painful process and if you want to stay in your marriage, you need to understand what that might mean. Does your spouse acknowledge that they have a drinking problem? Are they willing to seek help? Whether or not you choose to stay in your marriage, you should focus on getting yourself as healthy as you can. Do you have children? I would suggest counseling and/or Al Anon for both you and your children. As the daughter of an alcoholic, I can tell you that, even if you don’t drink, you pick up behaviors and habits are a result of dealing with your loved ones alcoholism – some that you may not even recognize until many years down the road. Visit Al-Anon and Alateen to find groups in your areas and start getting support. If your spouse is ready for help, check out local AA meetings as well. But beyond the alcoholism, let’s talk about verbal abuse. Verbal abuse can be as damaging or even more so than physical abuse. In many cases, we don’t even begin to understand the emotional toll until we start having nightmares or having trouble concentrating, suffer from depression or even PTSD. Is the verbal abuse related to the drinking or is it more engrained in your spouse’s pattern of behavior? The verbally abusive behavior is definitely a huge problem and it needs to stop. If you and I were chatting about this problem over coffee, I would ask you a lot of questions about your situation to try and understand more about the dynamics of your relationship, but here I am stuck dealing in generalities so here is my advice based on what I know about addiction and interpersonal violence. This problem is not going to go away on its own and you need to reach out for help. Find a counselor in your area that specializes in addiction and ask for help. Call your local domestic violence agency and talk to them about their programs and services. Sometimes they offer programs to work with abusive partners with the goal of helping them better manage anger and keep relationships intact. Go to Al-Anon and talk. You’ll get serious doses of perspective and helpful resources from people dealing with similar situations. Whatever path you choose, make sure it involves seeking the help you need to be as healthy as you can be in this very daunting situation. My thoughts are with you and I invite you to reach out anytime you need a sympathetic ear. Amy Dear Amy,
My live-in boyfriend would make the ideal husband, except that he doesn't want to get married. He's kind, generous, thoughtful, gentle, handy around the house, gets along well with my children, and is fun to be with. Whenever strangers see us together, they just assume without asking that we are married. He's never been married before and he has had some commitment issues in our relationship. I could just accept the status quo, which is almost as good as being married, but I'm too traditional to let it go at that. Your thoughts? Dear Itchin’, Your boyfriend sounds pretty fabulous, perhaps a little too much so (your glowing description hints at a bit of tension – don’t worry, you don’t have to convince me). Have you always known he doesn’t want to get married or is this a recent development? In thinking about your problem, I find myself wondering about you and your position on marriage. Why is marriage important to you? These days, it’s not unusual to find all sorts of relationships that work perfectly well, but its undeniable that marriage holds special significance. I can understand why you might not be able to let it go, despite having a pretty ideal situation. The question is, will marriage be a deal breaker for you and your great guy? I would challenge you to consider two things. First, what does marriage mean to you? Is it simply an ideal? Or does it represent a level of commitment that you feel is missing from the relationship? You mention that your boyfriend has had commitment issues in your relationship, so I imagine that you might equate his unwillingness to marry you to a faltering in his commitment to your relationship. Second, is your boyfriend’s desire not to be married about you at all? If he’s never been married before, is it possible that he’s afraid of marriage, not because of what it says about your relationship, but more because of what it says about him as a person? Maybe he’s never seen himself as the marrying kind and it’s a tough transition for him to make. If this relationship is one that you hope will last forever, it would be wise to consider carefully your motivation in wanting to get married. And, of course, you need to talk to your boyfriend, at length. Unfortunately, this is not a small problem and it sounds like one or both of you will have to do some compromising to work through this hiccup in your otherwise stable life together. But that’s the nature of relationships, rolling up your sleeves and doing the work together. All that being said, I want to remind you that your wants and needs are valid and important. You may simply have to think about how you can reconcile those needs within the scope of your relationship. If your boyfriend loves you as much as you love him, he’ll be willing to listen and to try to understand your feelings. A happy marriage (or relationship) is one in which you both feel that your needs are met and your wants are important to your partner. Amy |
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