03/28/2026
Michelle, 38, is married to David. David has a job in sales. He’s charismatic and fun. But he also drinks too much too often. Michelle has talked to him about it many times. He makes promises to stop. But they never last long.
Now that they have children, Michelle needs him@to stop drinking. When he’s out with co-workers or traveling for work Michelle is on high alert. Always texting him about when he’ll be home. Always nervous something might happen to him. At home, he drinks around his kids. Michelle doesn’t like it. But David argues with her. He isn’t a “mean drunk” and he loves his children. Why can’t he drink in his own home? The more she pushes him to stop, the more sneakier he is about drinking. Every day, at some point he’ll drink. Michelle smells it on him or see the change in his eyes. She dreads it.
She watches as he’s exhausted on the couch when his kids want to play. She seems him slightly slurring at times wondering if the kids notice it.
Michelle wants David to acknowledge how much she does. She wants him to see how his drinking has affected his parenting. She wants him to notice how they’re growing apart. She wants to make plans for their future. She knows part of the reason he’s drinking is because he hates his job. She wants to help and support him. She wants to be a team.
But David sees it differently. He’s developmentally frozen at age 16 when he started to drink to cope with his difficult home life. He views Michelle as overbearing and his way of shutting her down is through avoidance. Avoiding her pain, avoiding talks about the future, and most of all avoiding the reality of how drinking impacts him and his family. He’s a rebellious teenager internally, and being held accountable is the last thing he wants from his wife. He doesn’t want to think about the modeling he’s providing his children because all he can think about is getting through the day— and quieting his mind with alcohol throughout it.
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