I am choosing to post this on your thread and not my own because it think it may apply.
Two nights ago, Sunday night, my W had too much to drink. I know we have covered this issue a million times on my threads and it's something that we are working on in our marriage. If my W has a real drinking problem, well, that's something she will have to get help for eventually, and I will support her.
Anyway, she had too much to drink and ended up sleeping on the couch. This has never really happened. When I got up to get the kids and myself ready to leave, she was still crashed. I quickly took stock of the situation and realized that it represented a very visceral point in the way things were going, and could go from here. I am VERY aware of anything I may do to enable her to drink irresponsibly (i.e. when she has to get up to take the kids to school in the morning) but I am also aware of my lack of control over her...as am I finally aware of the fact that how I behave, how I react COULD, in some way, influence the situation.
I thought about the past and how many times I have blown up in a similar situation. I thought about how many times I blew up for much less. I thought about how many times I got angry for things that were not really even worth it, or deserving of my anger.
While I thought that I was NOT responsible for things that were done on her part, I was responsible for a lot of the tension that followed. I needed to detach from this behavior, and in some way, if I am going to be honest, I did feel a bit like making up for my past transgressions.
So, I decided to approach this situation from the 180 of how I "normally" would, i.e. with anger, disdain and sense of superiority.
I decided to be kind, loving and just move on with my day. I left her sleeping, got the kids ready and when it was just about time for me to leave, asked her if she wanted me to take them, which I do from time to time but I always make an issue of it because I am usually late to work when I do. She said no, that she'd handle it, but I told her it would be no problem, that she'd had a rough night and I would take them, no drama. She said that would be nice and went back to sleep.
Later that day, work was slow so I decided that I would take the rest of the day off. I called her to ask her if she wanted me to come home and she was taken aback. She sometimes asks me to do this if she's feeling sick or when she used to have her anxiety attacks. I usually resisted, but today, I just decided to anticipate that after such a bad night, she may want company. At first, later she would say how genuinely surprised by my offer, she declined. She said she felt fine. I said "Ok, call me if you change your mind."
I ended up calling her back and said "Just to be clear, that was an offer to come home. Things are slow and I just thought you may want to have some company." She said sure and asked me to bring lunch for us too. I got home and she asked me in a very serious tone "So, what's wrong?"
You see, to this point, QUITE unlike me (Mama, I am like you, I can't seem to NOT talk about things) I had not even made one little comment about her drinking or sleeping on the couch. I'm SURE she expected me to lay into her. Instead, I just smiled and said "Nothings wrong. I just thought after last night, you may not be feeling so hot so I decided to come home and keep you company. You have asked me to do that in the past..."
She gave me a big hug, said no more and we had a nice afternoon on the couch watching movies.
Neither of us said a word about the night before but later on she seemed to make a big display of taking the remaining wine from the fridge and dumping it down the drain. I got the message.
Anyway, all day/night she seemed to be VERY happy to have me around and VERY happy not to have to answer the same attacks I have leveled on her 1000 times before.
When this kind of thing happened in the past, it would ALWAYS, 100% of the time, end up being a VERY angry scene, with both of us getting angry and resentful of the other. I would say, these confrontations (sure, honestly a fruit of her drinking habit to be sure) have been a MAJOR problem in our marriage. I decided to try to end the cycle as a place to start working on the core issues.
This relates, Mama, to your idea that your H may feel afraid to talk to you or come home. I think my W feels the same way and my little experiment seemed to prove that.
I reacted with love instead of venom and in return, I got love instead of resentment. Does that mean the original "problem" is gone? I doubt it but I do know that my reacting the same old way to the same old situations is not doing either of us any good. I had to decide to be happy and just live, love and let things/my W have a chance to sort themselves out. I realize that some of the issues she has may need more support/pushing/love/professional help than I can give right now, but that's a bridge to cross when she walks up to it. Until then, I am going to try a change of course, one that I think may make me much happier...and allow her some breathing room.
It's, as usual, a damn fine line between enabling certain behaviors and letting go of control but in my case, and maybe yours, it's necessary to do something different.
I am with OT, I don't think it's necessary to compromise our needs or desires any more than it's necessary to constantly undermine our own goals with anger and unnecessary drama.
Either fish or cut bait and I guess we can't complain about not catching a fish every 5 minutes if we decide to take that new boat out for a spin.
