by Leah Curtis

Created on: March 26, 2009

I knew my husband was an alcoholic before I married him. I lived with him for eight years before we even got married. I do not think I was in denial about his alcoholism. Before we got married, I would go out with my friends, go away on vacations with my sister. My friends all got married around the same time I did and my husband never wanted to do anything as a couple. He would go out drinking with his friends but he had never met most of my friends.

After a while, I just did not care anymore. I worked seventy hours a week, as did he, and when he got home he would drink until he fell asleep. He was a very passive drunk. Back in those days, I had too much to do and too little time. I do know that we never did anything as a couple. Many people just assumed I was single. I might just as well have been.

After twelve years together, we had a daughter. She became the center of my existence. She still is. I always wonder how I endured life before she came along. Her father loves her dearly but nothing changed for him. I did think he would cut down on his drinking but he is an alcoholic and I am a realist.

There has never been any family life at our house. It has always just been my beautiful daughter and me. We have always done everything together. We have taken vacations, picked out pets, gone to ballet classes. Her father was never interested in family life. He has missed knowing a truly wonderful person. The loss is his. My daughter is now a teenager and she is not interested in knowing her father. He is just someone who lives in our house.

My husband is a hard worker. He has an upper level management job. He has never missed a day of work. He is an excellent provider and we lack for nothing. Nothing that is, except a man who wants to be a father and a husband. It is almost as if he is alternating between two worlds, that of a competent, hardworking man and the other as a drunk.

The intimacy went out of our marriage years ago. We live in separate parts of the house. We do nothing together. In twenty-five years, we have never gone to a movie together. I can count on one hand the number of times we have gone out for dinner.

Alcohol has always been the third person in our marriage. I call it a person because it is akin to a lover that never leaves, that constantly comes between my husband and me. It is as if my husband has had a twenty-seven year affair, except the party he is having an affair with is alcohol.

I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting once, even though

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