Well, I awoke this morning to my wife proffering a deal. Her deal was that if I quit gambling and smoking (cigarettes), then she would quit drinking. I asked what would happen if one of us broke the deal, and she said that would mean the other could, also. I told her that I had no interest in a quid pro quo arrangement, and I said that I thought it would be best if she and her son took an apartment (which she had previously talked about doing). Immediately, she turned everything into my problem again.
The end result was that... well, I'm not sure we're there yet, but we're moving in a positive direction and she is not moving out. I'll go through what I left out for those who want to read, not because I particularly care to type it, but because it may help somebody.
Thanks to those who posted. The responses here were much different than those in the alcoholics group. There's probably a good reason for that, but it's another thread. Alcoholism is her problem as well, because she is my wife. She may or may not be an alcoholic, but it is a problem in her life that requires management on her part. I would submit that if a reader disagrees, then the reader is either not married, will soon change his/her opinion, or won't be married for very long. I suggest that she take an apartment not because I wanted her to, but rather to enforce some boundaries that I had previously made clear but never gave consequenses for breaching. After her initial reaction, she took her son to school, which gave her some time to think. When she came home, we talked about it some more. We reached an agreement that we both needed to make some changes in our lives, but we didn't exactly settle how best to do that. She seems to still favor a quid pro quo approach. To me, that doesn't work. When one person engages in destructive behavior, that should not be license for another person to engage in destructive behavior. The end result will be... destruction. As an addict, I'm all too familiar with this type of bargaining. For now, she has agreed to discuss this independently with our marriage counselor. Hopefully, she can interpret messages from a third party differently than she does with me. She has agreed to stop drinking, but I'm skeptical because of her motivation and because she is very much a score keeper. It's hard enough stop an addiction without having the threat of "if I blow it once, then she will do something to get even" looming overhead.
In answer to the question about her keeping the kids: she doesn't. I'm a stay at home dad, at least until the next school year (I was a teacher). As a man, I feel this testosterone laden need to give a lengthy explanation for that, but I won't. It works out well, and I feel much better not having my babies in day care. I think it's important, when at all possible, for kids that age to have a parent give them full time care. Well, a sober parent
