‘I don’t love my husband. I care for him and don’t wish him ill health, but I’m struggling’

Question

My husband is in his late 50s, an alcoholic and has had two heart attacks. Over the years, I’ve tried talking to him about his health, but he is just not interested. Since his heart attacks, he’s become more angry and more negative about everything.

I don’t love him and I haven’t loved him for some time. I care for him, and don’t wish him ill health, but I’m struggling.

I can’t leave him as I’ve nowhere to go. We’ve three beautiful children, late teens, early twenties – who still live at home. All at college and, between us both, we pay their fees. I’m broke at the end of every month, just going from bed to work.

I feel my life is just shooting past me. I just feel so deflated, with nothing to look forward to any more.

‘Although my current job has a structured career path and is secure, I find it meaningless’

‘I am divorced at 60, envious of my ex-husband’s new life and struggling with loneliness’

‘I’m dating a previously married man but I feel sad that I will always come second to his children’

‘A stranger entered our family and turned them all against us’

Answer

Your self-awareness is admirable and this is always the first step in creating some change in aspects of your life. It seems that there are two very unhappy people in your marriage and your methods of dealing with this are not helping.

Your husband has had two brushes with death and his method of coping seems to be avoidance (via alcohol) and his fear is being expressed with resentment and anger.

His avoidance is also expressed in his distancing from you and this is something you are mirroring back to him in your own response to this ongoing crisis.

You are expressing guilt and hopelessness and these are the pervading characteristics of your relationship now. The romantic capacity of your marriage is gone, or is smothered by fear and trauma and the energy for action is used up just struggling to stay alive.

What is needed is conscious, compassionate communication. This starts with small changes, and what drives these changes is that your shared responsibility for three young adults goes on regardless of the stability of the marriage.

If you have not done so already, a good starting place is Al-Anon, a support group for those living with alcoholism. This will immediately offer you a sense of shared experience and you will benefit from the knowledge of others. The HSE also has good resources and support for families suffering from alcoholism.

[ I thought that after a month of not drinking, my relationship with alcohol would fix itself. I was wrongOpens in new window ]

If you have private health insurance, your GP should be able to guide you towards other resources that may offer support for you, your husband and/or the whole family.

One of the most important things a parent can do (for their children) is to be happy, or as close to this as is possible. Your children will immediately benefit if you are functioning and outward looking so this is not a selfish or small task.

Join something that doesn’t cost but that offers you some excitement or joy: a drama group, tidy towns committee, something outside of yourself and your home. As with most things, it will take some time to connect and enjoy whatever you join but if the project or group shares a spark of something that used to have interest for you it will ignite again. The main thing is to commit to simply turning up as your current sense of deflation will be hard to overcome.

Tell your children about your aims, as this will add to your motivation and they are all of an age where they need to risk creating a bigger life for themselves and so they too will benefit from your efforts.

Your husband’s avoidance is a well-known response to overwhelming difficulties so help him face his fears by you facing yours; in this way you cannot just talk to him about what needs to happen but show it via your behaviour and actions.

Even if you are no longer in love with him, you care for him deeply and it hurts to watch him suffering. Your fear is that you are stuck with life passing you by.

Get involved, be brave and join something that is beyond your immediate life. Your children are all in college and are about to go and build lives of their own, do not make them stay for fear that you cannot cope. Show them how to overcome adversity. Whether or not you stay with your husband, you need to live a life that is deliberate and meaningful for you – so find out how this might be.

Real communication starts by listening and trying to find out what it is like for your husband to be living this life. If one of your children was massively afraid, you would know how to approach them and help draw them out to safety, so this knowledge can be drawn upon now. Your husband will need professional help but he will need some faith in life in order to reach out and this is something you may be able to help with.

Start with yourself, seek to find your own worth and meaning and then support him to begin recovery. As you gain in strength, options for your own life will open up and you can then make conscious healthy choices for yourself.