Things at a stalemate with drunk-driving husband

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Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m livid! My husband has become an alcoholic and a drunk driver. This week he proved it beyond a doubt by driving home from the bar dead drunk and staggering into the house. When I jumped on his back, he said in this ingratiating baby-talk voice, while he tried to touch my face, “I thought you’d be glad I made it home safely.”

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2015 (3991 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m livid! My husband has become an alcoholic and a drunk driver. This week he proved it beyond a doubt by driving home from the bar dead drunk and staggering into the house. When I jumped on his back, he said in this ingratiating baby-talk voice, while he tried to touch my face, “I thought you’d be glad I made it home safely.”

Honest to God I felt like turning my own husband into the police. He drove home plastered in a state where he could have killed himself, someone else or even a carload of innocent people on the road. So, I took his keys, just as I would if one of our teenagers had done this. He does not have another key ring with spares and my keys are not anywhere he can grab them. He works out of the house on the computer so has nowhere pressing to go. Bottom line: I’m keeping them and he’s fit to be tied.

When I took his keys, he was still drunk. He then staggered into the bedroom and threw a pillow and blanket at me and said, “Go sleep on the couch if you’re going to be such a (witch).” I said “I’ll go you one better.” I took the full set of bedding and went upstairs to the third floor bedroom that’s almost finished being renovated and made up that bed. I have slept there every night since. He isn’t driving anywhere, we’re barely talking and he isn’t getting sex either. I am not missing sleeping with him or having sex with him. In fact, I kind of like it here, but this can’t go on forever. Now what?

— Still Seething Over My Drunk, North End

 

Dear Still Seething: “We need to talk,” are the four words you need to say if you don’t want to apologize, but do want to work out a problem like this. If he’s tired of the stalemate, he will readily agree. If he doesn’t, wait a few more days and say, “We need to talk with a counsellor to work through this,” and then call a relationship counsellor and make it happen. You might also call Al-Anon, for the loved ones of alcoholics, as who else would have as much experience with this degree of drunken driving and key confiscating?

Do you want to stay with him? Then he has to give up drinking and/or driving. What if he drove one of your teenagers somewhere and he had been sipping alcohol all day and was stewed, but they couldn’t really tell? If you’re actually ready to split with him, tell him. If he’s desperate to keep you, he might be ready to see an addictions counsellor at the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba or attend his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

 

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6

Miss Lonelyhearts

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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