Hi,
I am so glad you wrote & posted what you did. I was the alcoholic with a husband that drank but could take it or leave it.
My first husband & I divorced & it was mostly to do with the alcohol & my clinical depression. I would quit my meds so I could drink. I did quit for a year here and there only to marry another drinker. That marriage ended in divorce due to another matter involving my husband not the drinking because we kinda watched what we drank.
My second husband was retired from the Army...20 years & he ran the household like the Army including my son. He psychologically abused my son and me every day. He wouldn't let me work or go anywhere shopping without timing how long I was gone & I didn't dare stop for a beer....that was a big NO NO!!!
I finally got him to agree to let me go back to college & I had our three year old daughter in the college daycare & would be home before my son got home from school.
I divorced him when our daughter was six when he was arrested for abusing her...long story....I quit drinking four years later & a year after quiting I went back to college to get my BA Degree & got a very good job.
This was 20 years ago when I got help for my drinking & depression. But when you speak of wine...my Mother had a problem with her appetite so her doc suggested she drink a small glass of wine before dinner and she did this until my Dad went to an Alcohol Treatment Program....he had problems after my brother & I left home & married so his drinking became out of control & he almost lost his job a year before his retirement.
My Mom went to the family program & I went with her...she decided not to have her glass of wine anymore since Dad wasn't drinking....he never had another drink. My Mom was telling me one day that she really did miss that simple little glass of wine & wondered if she could have been an alcoholic like her Mom & Dad were.
I have been back with my first husband since 1990 and we have been married six years + 14 years before I divorced him & time between 1984 & 2002 we spent weekends together. I was scared of another marriage and he had kept on drinking when I quit so one week night after we were home from work he called and asked me to move back in....I, of course, said I would have to think about it & talk it over with Kathy (my daughter 12 by then). Then he talked with her and told her he had quit drinking.
It didn't take long for me to make my decision. He is 71 & I am 68. He retired from a Social Work job helping the elderly & I retired from a Geriatric Mental Health Counselor job helping the elderly. Life was hard for us with many sad things happening & the alcohol caught up with me until I was HAD by the alcohol & needed professional help.
kelsh