Total honesty with spouse or not?

[Adam777]

Hello,

 

Just joined and first post. I've read the stickys so hopefully wont commit any etiquette errors.

 

The quick version of this post is.....

 

I asked my wife for a divorce as most of my attraction to her and need for her companionship (in retrospect) was driven by excessive alcohol use. Now I am sober I've realised I have very little in common with this woman. I no longer love her due to years of verbal abuse she inflicted on me, even though she has struggled to change her behaviour as well, but the changes are too little too late.

 

I don't want to hurt her more than I am already and tell her that my love and attraction to her was driven by my drinking. But is there an argument to say that I should do so to help her better understand my angst and my decision to divorce her. My gut says don't kick her when she's down.

 

 

 

The longer version of this post is below.....

 

 

 

 

 

I've been with my wife for seven years, married for 3. We got married because we had to, we were trying to adopt children (which didn't happen) and that process eventually required us to get married. I'm 47 she is 45, this is my second marriage.

 

Today I asked for a divorce. I've asked twice before, once 18 months ago which she didn't believe as she was sure I was depressed and/or having a mid-life crisis and once about three months after that which she took seriously after a month or so of counselling (which I later changed my mind on and gave the marriage another go). We've now been in counselling for about 14 months.

 

My unhappiness was mostly because for most of our relationship she was verbally abusive and once threatened physical abuse (it was more her raising her hand to slap me to stop me articulating my point during a particularly bitter argument). She didnt follow through with the slap as I packed a bag to leave the house and told her that the marriage was over at that point, in retrospect I should have stuck to my initial reaction and started the divorce process then.

 

However like many verbal abusees I didn't realise it was abuse until a pattern built up over time and I started reading about the concept online. I spent a few years wondering if I was at fault for the many various reasons she would flare up at me.

 

When I tried to get my wife to acknowledge the abuse she refused to engage with me, I should 'man-up' and not be so sensitive and she was only joking at other times (classic abuser self-justifications). She even took pains to make sure I knew she was refusing to read materials online about verbal abuse that I had sent her to read.

 

I used to try to communicate with her (after bad arguments) by email as if we had conversations she would cut me off and not let me speak (which I hate) so those conversations would escalate to arguments quickly. Also she would not talk to me for a couple of days after bad arguments (another form of abuse) so email seemed appropriate.

 

Anyone who has lived in this environment will tell you it is not only the abuse that takes a toll, it is the potential for abuse to occur that is worse. You walk on eggshells constantly as you know how little it can take to trigger an episode (I wont recount any of the episodes or we'll be here all year).

 

Since January this year when I decided to give the marriage one more try I've come to accept I don't love my wife and actually don't like her company for a lot of the time, particularly when she is drinking.

 

You see for the first few years of our relationship I was a routine, heavy drinker, probably 40-60 units a week. I was (and am) an alcoholic. I now drink almost nothing and use meds to control my alcohol cravings/use. I've cut down on my drinking for about two years now.

 

Since I sobered up Ive come to realise that there were three of us in the relationship, me, the Wife and the Booze. This realisation came during a family visit when my alcohol intake increased (in comparison to usual) and I drank two to three beers or glasses of wine an evening for about 3 evenings in a row. My tolerance for booze is now far lower and I experienced the same physical effects as I did during my time drinking far more.

 

Oddly I became far more amenable to my wife when under the influence, in the mornings after drinking I was more physically attracted to her (and we had sex for the only time in 6 months that week) but I also felt very insecure and anxious about life in general and wanted my wife close to me to help me combat those feelings.

 

You can imagine how hurt she would be if I said these things to her, but to not tell her about the effects of alcohol and to only focus on the verbal abuse is only half the story.

 

She deserves the truth but at the same time as abusive as she has been in the past she does love me and I am hurting her with the divorce.

 

I had to go out today and chain-drank esspresso....it will be a late night for me I think.

 

Thanks for your time to anyone who read this far.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Adam777

[wizer]

Yes be honest with her and tell her you can't do it anymore, the years of abuse have taken it's toll and you've lost the attraction you once had.

 

You could leave out that the only reason you were ever attracted to her was because of the drinking that's just not productive and won't help the situation.

 

I do wonder why you don't bring this up in therapy.. you've been in counseling for over a year and your wife has no clue that you're so unhappy that you want to divorce, and she has no idea why you're divorcing her.

 

What if anything has been accomplished in therapy?

[Adam777]

Thanks for the reply, I felt a little self-indulgent posting in the first place.

 

In therapy we went into the verbal abuse in great depth and my wife fully understands that is the route cause of my unhappiness. The realisation about alcohol came quite recently and has not been discussed in therapy as its just a nasty thing to say.

 

However my wife didn't take to therapy very well. We changed counsellors once as she didn't like the first counsellor (she felt the counsellor was sympathetic to me, thats a long story), then when my wife heard things in counselling she didnt like she would run out of the room and be physically sick (or pretend to me perhaps..and then wouldnt talk to me for a day or two afterwards).

 

So even in counselling, early on, I was economical with the truth as my wife shaped the conversations with her reactions to what was said (a common trait in our relationship over the years, some things were simply off-limits for discussion).

 

My wife eventually came to address the verbal abuse when I told her I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life being shouted at, so she stopped shouting (this was the behaviour change I talked about).

 

We never did get to the reasons for the verbal abuse and I still don't believe my wife thinks it was actually abuse, I am sure she still thinks I am just over-sensitive.

[wizer]

Well at this point it probably doesn't matter what she thinks, you just want to exit the marriage with a clear conscience (and I'm sure try to minimize the ensuing conflict).

 

So tell her as clearly as you can without being insulting (such as telling her you were only attracted when you were drunk), and she can either believe it or more likely twist it around in her head to make it all your fault, which is ok, if that helps her cope, it's not your problem anymore.

 

But again, you want to try not to piss her off, best thing for everyone is a fast, mediated, inexpensive divorce where you both walk away feeling like you got a reasonable deal with no hard feelings. Well there are always hard feelings but some are harder than others.

[Adam777]

Yep, thats sound advice. She will have to engage with me soon enough in a meaningful way when the legal process compels her to. Until then I just have to put up with it being all my fault (which it already is in her head apparently).

 

Thanks for your time, it helped just to write it out and have someone consider it.