Just when I had decided to get a divorce and end my alcoholic marriage - and was grieving it, but feeling hopeful (don't get me wrong, in my grandiosity, I was still blaming myself for ruining Mr. M's life), I got an email back from a known Christian author on divorce & remarriage. Here is his email and my rainbow of responses:
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HIS EMAIL
"Thank you for sharing your difficult situation with me. From what you say, you have been suffering for a long time.
As you know, the Bible does not say anything about addiction, and drug use is not listed as a ground for divorce. His addiction has clearly caused him to neglect you in all kinds of ways, but it is difficult to know whether one can call this deliberate or not. However, even if you accept an entirely medical model of alcoholism, and regard your husband as sick and incapable of supporting you, the fact that he has denied the problem and refused treatment for so long makes him at least partly responsible for his addiction and for the neglect which this addiction has caused.
But now that he is finally in treatment, wouldn't it be perverse to divorce him just when he is getting straight?... Either way, you have the space of time during which to put your life back together. During this time you should make a decision, but not one which makes him into a victim.
At the end of treatment, you may assume that he will be clear of alcohol, and so if he then chooses to start using this or any other drug, it will be entirely his own choice. At that point you would be able to clearly say that he was continuing his neglect deliberately. Given the many years you have already suffered this, you may decide that this would be, for you, the point at which your marriage can't go on.
If this is so, you should warn your husband, preferably in writing, that the first time he touches alcohol after his treatment (whether or not he becomes 'drunk') you would leave him with view to divorcing him. Although this sounds very harsh, it may be that this kind of ultimatum may help him resolve to quit completely.
As I say, I have no useful teaching on this from the Bible, and this suggestion comes merely from myself, albeit based on Biblical principles.
God be with you at this difficult time."
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MY RAINBOW OF RESPONSES
A) What are the odds he will really get "straight" this time??? and
B) Perverse? Isn't the definition of "perverse" telling your wife and children that you love them and are going to quite drinking and then drinking again over a 20 year period?
I really like & agree with this point!
However, doesn't every alcoholic ALWAYS feel like the victim, all the time - any time they have to suffer the consequences of their actions? (For example, this last bender, when he spent all Christmas week drunk, it was MY fault, because he was depressed, because I didn't include him in all my family's Christmas festivities, not his choice, because he had driven the children to a public place drunk and high and then PASSED OUT in front of 3,000 people!)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Need I even clarify why I am laughing???)
Might one think that after 20 years of this sh**, I possibly:
1 - have given him every ultimatum in the book?
2 - believe it IS deliberate neglect?
3 - am already at the point where my marriage can't go on?
4 - want to leave him NOW with the view of divorcing him?
No it doesn't.
See "HAHAHAHA" above.
Yet even knowing all this, it threw me into a funk of despair because I just want everyone to applaud and agree and even help. (My tap-dancing, people pleasing again.)
On top of this, my 17 year old - whom I'll call "Drummer" (he marches to the beat of his own drum, that one), came to me last night with tears brimming in his eyes. Although he knows it is time for divorce and although he knows it was dad's choice, he is still heartbroken and he still can't help thinking that I am quitting!!!! He wasn't trying to be mean and he knew he wasn't being logical, but that was how he was feeling.
Gloomily,
Eeyore
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