I started drinking at age 15. I was a binge drinker through college, but never had a daily problem. I got a great job and got married to a good guy who I thought loved me and would care for me forever. We loved beer and loved going out to be social with our friends. I didn't think about alcohol unless we were at the bar.
We bought our dream house and I started working from home - same great job. We redecorated and finished the basement. My husband got deployed for 6 months here, 9 months there. It was tough to keep up the property by myself, but it made me drink less, not more. I was just too tired to drink, seriously.
I'm not exactly sure where everything started going wrong for us. He quit his job due to drama that he can't explain to this day. He started a business and almost immediately ended it. He got back the same job he was doing when we met (better pay, luckily). He hated the commute. To be fair, the road he traveled is seriously dangerous. I offered him other solutions - find a different route, stay with my family a couple nights (they live close to his job), stay on post. Nothing was good enough. So we had to give up our dream house and move closer to his work. I accept full responsibility for my part in this. I don't resent him for this but he thinks I do.
We don't like where we are now, but it's OK. I have occasionally traveled for work over the years. I've been to some awesome places and I'm very grateful for my experiences. I traveled more in 2011 than any other year, culminating in living in Mumbai for 3 months (Oct - Jan 2012). It was an incredible, wonderful, life-changing experience. I'm so grateful for my time there.
But I'm not the person he married. I couldn't be that even if I wanted to be. I was a person who had never left my time zone when he met me. Now I'm a world traveler who has caught the travel bug (he hates to fly).
I'm not sure when alcohol took over. I think it was in the dream house, towards the end of when we lived there. It was a very stressful time, but the alcohol took over prior to us deciding to move. One glass of wine turned to two, then three. It's insidious. It tasted so good I didn't realize. 6 years later I'm desperate to get out. That was that.
Just before I went to India my husband told me I needed to spend my time in India deciding if I wanted to be married or not. Well, of course I did, so that was that - no thought required. I drank at least a bottle of wine a night while in India. Shortly after I came home my husband told me he wanted a divorce. That was last June. We have been going to counseling but I'm not sure where we'll end up. Sometimes I think I'd be better off without him and sometimes that makes me very sad.
As I said - I don't have many friends. It's hard for me to get close to people. So I don't really have many people I can trust with what I'm going through.
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