QuestionHi.
I have been married 12 years.
My wife and I have a 5-year old boy together.
We have been arguing, and she said she wants
a separation.
I disagree. The issue is her drinking.
She likes to drink beer every other day,
to relax. She doesn't get drunk or violent,
but her personality changes in a negative way, and I don't like that.
She can't understand why the problem is, because
she takes care of all her responsibilities, and
doesn't cause any problems, etc.
She says she is doing nothing wrong, and that I should accept her the way she is. If we get separated, it may end up in divorce, which would include a very very bitter custody battle, and we would lose our house, and go into debt with lawyer's fees.
Should I just accept that she likes to drink, and stay married? Our son loves us both dearly, and is very close to us both.
Thanks for any help..
~A
AnswerArthur,
You have to find a way to expose the results of her drinking to her in a reasonable way. Why does she drink, what are the pressures on her, can something be done to relieve that? Drinking can be a lot of fun, and it can kill you. Does she want the result of her drinking, your both fighting, to be displayed to your son. She must realize it changes her dispositon? Or is it your reaction, that changes her disposition. If she's not doing anything else wrong, you might just want to consider it an idiosyncrasy and live with it. I know you know most fights in life are over foolish things that don't matter much. If it gets worse, then you might have a better basis for having a problem. One thing you both should consider is that if the "mailman" happens to sense something wrong and tells the wrong person, Social Services might be rapping on your door. So work these thoughts into a polite discussion. I would ask her if she is happy in the marriage, aside from this business. You don't want to find out the wrong way, that the seperation was design so that she could run off with someone else.
Bill
