Letters to the Editor
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Baby sis is a "Barfly" and is also an adult...
Now, now, everyone knows that it takes two to tango (AKA: groping) in private or even public at the local watering hole. It sounds like all three of you got problemos (drinking; insecurity; self-esteem; loneliness; jealousy, etc.). Take your pick. Hubby needs help and an ultimatim. Sis need to find her own man/grouper. Mama needs to talk to a good "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" lawyer and get the papers drawn up for future use. Even Tammy Wynett figured it out after so many episodes with "No-Show George". You don't have to always "Standby Your Man"...but you do need to take care of yourself and your kids. Hubby will just move on and find another "Mama" to accept him and cook and clean for him or drink himself into the grave. Pack your shit and git!
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Alternate response
Dear Too Hurt For Words,
I've long stopped reading Cary's inane responses to people letters, as the letters themselves are far more interesting and insightful.
So ignore whatever dribble he spouted and take my advice to heart.
Jealousy will kill you. It eats your heart and leaves a black pit where it used to reside. This is your problem, not your husband's.
Your husband is guilty of having a normal sex drive and lacking the super-human ability to shelf it everytime he's "supposed to." The real problem here is you. It's your response. You can choose to focus on your jealous feelings and excise them from your life. Your partner's sexuality is not your property. His spirit and flirtatiousness was something you once found attractive. Don't forget these things.
This is about self-improvement. Your husband's rather innocent spurts of his restrained sexual expression have provided you with a chance to grow and improve. You can use these experiences of discovering that your husband has a sexuality that doesn't reside 100% inside your ego to grow.
Work on it.
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All of these answers are virtually the same, but this one is slightly different...
I'll start this off by telling a little story about a good friend and colleague of mine...
My friend (let's call her Jane) used to be married to quite a louse of a human being. She had 3 kids with this guy, and put up with a lot of shit...most of it stemming from drug addiction...A difficult life moving from one place to the next, blowing whatever money they had on drugs...she may or may not have been a participant, but I do know that she always gave her husband the benefit of the doubt for the "sake of their marriagge"...to a fault.
Well, one day she got pulled over and the cops found her husband's drugs in the car...since Jane's husband was not in the car (and wouldn't take the fall for it), she got put in jail and convicted of a felony for possession of narcotics. There's a lot of details that I still don't know, but once she was clear from jail, she took the kids and left his dirt-bag ass and that world behind, never to be seen again. From then on, she spent the next 15 years rebuilding her life...which, if you have a felony conviction, is not very easy to do, because a lot of places won't hire you because of that prior conviction.
Just to give you an idea of how much of an asshole her ex-husband was, it took almost that entire 15 year period of time for her to nullify her divorce...something that could have been done much sooner had her ex just signed the paperwork before staggering out of town to some other place...She had to hire a detective on more than one occasion to find this guy to serve the papers, but the fuck wouldn't even give her the satisfaction of finalizing the divorce (again, long story, can't go into detail as to why getting the divorce was so hard). Somehow, she was able to legally nullify it..but it took a long time to do it.
So now, after all of these years, she finally has her act together. She has a nice home, 3 fairly well-adjusted kids (considering how their first few years of life were just awful), and a loving, loyal boyfriend that has been by her side for many years now.
So...here's the moral of the story for the LW: Your FOOLING yourself if you think sticking around with this loss-of-a-human-being called your husband is going to get any better. People can change, but only if they try...and your husband has demonstrated that he can't/won't change, despite the numerous chances you've made for him. So do yourself a favor, before you end up doing (or not doing) something that f's up your life and your kids' lives even more. This guy is now just a sperm donor, he no longer is their daddy...your lack of mentioning "how good he is with the kids" kinda confirms that aspect.
I also will add that you and your sister, whore that she is for allowing this to happen, were cut from the same cloth. And there's something in both of your backgrounds that allows you to allow men to treat you this way...again, knowing what kind of childhood you had would explain a lot here. But the simple fact is this: you need to grow some balls and move on with your life, without your husband...and probably without your sister, unless she truly is deserving of forgiveness. It's really best for you and your children to do this now, before you end up doing something you REALLY regret and have to spend the rest of your life trying to fix...
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A drunken alcoholic can't count to four
At first it's just one drink. I'll have one, like everybody else, then stop. That's all I want anyway. Then it's: two isn't very much, even social drinkers have two. Then three, just to round it out. Then something begins to happen: the phenomenon of losing count. That's when it really starts to get good: blurry, euphoric, disinhibited. It's the point of no return, the point of heedless sexual violation and violent, often fatal car crashes, the sickening point of a longstanding marriage finally giving way.
It's the point of four. Four drinks, the gateway to a flood. Four gropes, as if counting them carefully somehow legitimizes them. Four means "I lost track because I was having such a good time". Four means "I can't control my behaviour, I'm so drunk." Four means, "I think I'll be okay to drive." Four means. . .
Eventually, four means everything is gone, but not before the steamshovel of addiction tears its way through several more codependent relationships. Cary is right: the steaming wreckage this can leave behind is truly horrifying, and potentially fatal.
This woman needs to get herself to Al-Anon, NOW. She can't "fix" him; in fact, it isn't even her business what he does. Her responsibility/loyalty is to herself. She's been through enough agony. Al-Anon isn't a fix, but it may help her to become stronger in herself, and to see how she has enabled her husband's abuse for years and years.
These words are from an actual meeting: "My husband used to get home at 3 in the morning and pass out cold on the living room floor. I would put a pillow under his head and cover him up with a blanket. Then it occurred to me: I make it so comfortable for him. Why should he get sober?"