[In4Ride2]

Angelica,

Thanks for your support here and on my thread. Very interesting what you mention about possible incident in his past. I have wondered many times that something like this might have occurred. I always felt H was hiding something and whatever it was triggered his drinking, which started as a teenager.

In all these years, H has never been able to discuss why he started drinking, just says it's genetic (but of course never made the connection of who's genes - never admitted anyone else might have a problem until very recently). But his self medicating seemed to start very early, and he seemed to drink as another form of running away.

H also does not show much emotion, or facial expression, and is very passive-aggressive. His family certainly looks perfect from the outside but I think both parents were emotionally absent, and all 5 kids were expected to just follow a pattern and never, never cause any kind of upset for MIL. They have an entire family history of keeping things from MIL, they say so they don't have to hear her bring it up forever after.

Interesting comment about AA Step 8-Amends. H started drinking again about 10 years into our M, and then went into full blown MLC about a year after new sobriety. I always thought the drinking was part of his MLC. I was with him through all of it and his medical problems, but H has never performed this amends step explicitly for me. H seems to have a pathological aversion to thanking me for anything, or believing that any of these things were really difficult for me to deal with. Believe me, I have never acted like I expected any thanks.

H seems to be constantly searching for an answer to something. In some of his writings that I've seen, he seems to always be trying to overcome some kind of 'fear'.

This is a great thread. Yes, we all do a lot of speculating why they are the way they are, but as long as it doesn't prevent us from moving forward, it's interesting. When I'm in a down mood, I sometimes think that the MLC theories are self-delusional crap. But I also saw so much of it hold true, I'm willing to suspend final judgment.

Angelica - 4 times? My heart aches for you.