It's surprising when you can make a change in your relationship dynamics. On Friday, my wife had planned on going out with some coworkers for drinks after work since a colleague was moving on to another job. I came home a bit early to watch our Ds, said goodbye to W and spent the night having fun with my daughters.
Turns out my W had a "predrink" with one of her girlfriends at 3pm, then picked up our kids from school. Strike one.
Next, while she never said when she'd be home, she implied that it would be around 7-8. She comes home, with no phone call, at 11:20pm. Strike two.
When she comes in, I'm watching a movie, and can smell booze before she even sits next to me. After a few minutes talking to her, it's pretty apparent that she's hammered, and that she drove herself home. Strike three.
Now, I'm no teetotaler. I like a drink when it's a good time, but I'm death on drunk driving. So normally this would have resulted in a huge blowout, either right then, or in the morning. But we went to bed, talked for a while, and I realized it wouldn't be a good time to bring it up.
When we woke up, I didn't wait very long to tell her that I was upset about last night; picking up our girls after drinking, staying out later than planned without a phone call, and driving drunk. I was calm, just expressed my concerns, and she listened without getting defensive. She apologized, didn't make any excuses, and it was over. No hard feelings, I didn't feel angry, she didn't feel controlled.
Kind of how I always envisioned a healthy relationship would deal with a problem.
