| By :
Mark Etinger
My husband used to write me love letters and bring me flowers when I was at work. We went out together and had fun at concerts and Broadway plays, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA. When I met his family, I didn't exactly click with his mother, but who does, right? A couple of years later we were married. He was in construction management at the time, and he'd come home while I was cooking dinner and have a beer or two. Then I noticed the bottle of whiskey he had in the pantry. The kids were getting older, and he was getting drunker. Now it was every night he came home and sat in front of the TV for three hours and drank, before groggily going to sleep. He often yelled late at night when he didn't get what he wanted, and doors slammed, and the kids would wake up, and I'd have to comfort them and sleep in their room because I didn't want to sleep with him. I was afraid. Eventually it was too much. He was never physical, but the mental strain of humoring him, of seeing him stutter and waver at social events—it all became too much to bear. I began preparing for divorce. There is plenty of divorce information available, but relatively little that applied to my exact situation—non-abusive alcoholic husband. I talked to my family and friends about it, and they told me it was the right thing to do, the best way for the kids, who were teenagers then, to grow up healthily. When I finally sat down with him to talk it out, he bawled. He apologized and said he would change, that he would go to AA meetings and become a different person, the person I once loved. But I stood firm. If I gave in, chances were he would just fall back into his routines. He had done it all before and I wasn't going to be suckered in again. He left meek as a lamb. That was four years ago. It was tough on the kids, but the divorce wasn't that messy. He still drinks, and I'm all the better for not having to deal with it. I'm still proud of myself for standing up to him and not backing down under pressure; and that's given me the courage to move on with the rest of my life.
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