Tag: marriage pain

Evolution Series: You’re Right, I Am the One Who Changed

Alcoholism, Evolution Series By Kelly 3 Comments

You're Right, I Am the One Who Changed

It’s true. I have changed, and I do remember how much fun it was.

 

I remember college, flooding the doorway of Bullfeathers with friends, my fake ID and phony confidence persuading the bouncer that my blue eyes really are brown, just for tonight.

 

We’d dance, laugh, maybe kiss a boy and then head home – well, those of us not going back with a boy. There’d be late-night pizza and late-morning snoozing before loading up the backpack to hit the stacks and study ourselves silly.

 

I remember the nights with you in Paul’s Club, the tree in that bar, the antique velvet couches and moody lighting. We’d share a pitcher seated criminally close, constantly in conversation with locked eyes and wandering hands that eventually led us back to my apartment. The drinks only added an element of magic, a surreal film over the evening. I loved those nights and those mornings.

Gentlemen Only Wear Suits to Funerals

Alcoholism, Marriage, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS 2 Comments

Gentlemen Only Wear Suits to Funerals

While watching a movie about college basketball in the 1960s, I noticed most of the men in the crowd were wearing suits and ties. In 2025 can you even imagine dressing up to attend a sporting event? I hate the confined feeling of a suit jacket, and I’ve never understood the purpose of a piece of colorful silk dangling from my neck. If it was there for me to clean the spaghetti sauce from my mouth, at least there would be a plausible purpose. I’m certainly not proposing a return to wearing church clothes to basketball games. I like to say, “Once you find hoodie-town, you’ll never wear a button down.” (I’ve actually never said that, but maybe I’ll start now.) The point is that when the camera scanned the crowd at that cinematic basketball game, I was certain that every man in those stands held the door for someone else entering the arena. I’m equally certain that hands were shaken firmly, people stood graciously to let the people seated in the middle of the rows pass, and pleases and thank yous were abundant.

 

It is hard to argue but that we’ve devolved.

Evolution Series: Is This Emotional Abuse?

Evolution Series, Family, Marriage, Parenting By Sara 2 Comments

Learning About My Trauma by Helping Others

I opened the door and saw Javier, the sixteen-year-old son of one of our tenants, standing on my doorstep. His was not a face I expected to see, but I was fond of his family, and he looked distressed. I asked him if he wanted to come in and talk. He was breathing hard as he perched on the sofa. Javi told me, his face reddening, that his dad had started hitting his little sisters. “I could put up with it when it was just me. But them? No. I can’t stand it.” He knew I was a lawyer (though unbeknownst to this desperate kid, I hadn’t practiced in years, and never in family law). He’d come to me to understand his options for getting his dad out of the house. He even brought evidence in the form of cellphone videos of his dad’s violence he had bravely recorded inside the apartment. What would happen if he called CPS, he wondered. 

 

A couple of hours later, I reluctantly sent Javi home, breathed a big sigh, and opened my laptop to do some research. This was my first (and hopefully last) time being the trusted adult a kid came to with a big problem, and I was determined not to let him, his mom and his sisters down.

Evolution Series: Distortion

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Family, Marriage By Melanie 6 Comments

Distortion

After alcohol killed my husband, I looked through years of text messages from him, looking for clues. There was no mystery, and I’m not sure what I was trying to solve. Somehow, knowing the truth wasn’t enough. I compiled his messages to me – often repeated over and over again – in search of answers.

 

These are his words:

 

“I know that I am not what you want anymore. I know you are unhappy in our marriage. I know you are pulling away and preparing to leave me. I have never been enough for you. I know you are looking for someone new to replace me, if you have not already found him. You and the kids don’t want me around anyway. I’m best served to just stay quiet. It all seems so fragile sometimes. You guys were fine until me. Being quiet doesn’t work. Should I move further away?

 

“I will just work. That’s all I am good for.

Evolution Series: Don’t Ask About Him

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Marriage By Rene 1 Comment

Don't Ask Me About Him

Please ask about my cats. Elvis and Carson are my loyal little companions, but even more importantly, they are my family. They are my comfort, my unconditional loves and my best friends. Ask about them and enjoy my smile as I tell you all about their perfect little furry faces.

 

Please don’t ask about Louie. I’ve distanced myself, and I don’t know the everyday details of how he’s doing. You asking about him reminds me of the distance, the detachment and the walls I’ve had to build to protect myself. You don’t know all of this, and I know that no malice exists behind your innocent question.

Intimacy Series: What a Turn On

Alcoholism, Intimacy, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

What a Turn On

When it comes to sex, my wife, Sheri, could dump a bucket of ice down my pants, and I’d still be ready to go.

 

I despise ambiguity and hidden meanings, and there is no room in this message for subtlety. So rather than bury the lead, let’s get right after it.

 

I experience spontaneous arousal. I can be changing the filter on our furnace while listening to a recording of a gospel choir singing “Amazing Grace,” and if the wind shifts out of the northwest in my basement, I am turned on. I don’t really listen to gospel music (I’m more of a Broadway show tunes kind of guy), and the last time I checked, our basement is almost entirely wind free. But that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t have to be doing something sexy to be ready for sexy time.

Intimacy Series: The Rejection Inherent in Consent

Alcoholism, Intimacy, Recovery By Matt Salis, MPS No Comments

The Rejection Inherent in Consent

Perhaps the worst prevailing relationship advice is that women in committed romantic partnerships should feel compelled to have sex with their partners, whether they want to or not. Let me say this in no uncertain terms:

 

Obligatory sex destroys relationships.

 

It doesn’t matter if she is giving him sex because she is told it is her duty by the church, their couples counselor, societal messaging, some study in a magazine, endless cinematic rom-coms, some call-in radio psychologist, cultural arranged marriage practices, the family court system, or even her own mom. Consenting to unwanted sex is the absolute enemy of trust building, and it is toxic to the very connection we seek in pursuing sex in the first place.

 

You might be easily convinced that obligatory sex isn’t fulfilling for the woman who feels obliged. But here’s the counterintuitive part: Obligatory sex is even worse, in the long run, for the person who is asking for it.

Intimacy Series: Another Mother or a Lover?

Alcoholism, Intimacy By Matt Salis, MPS 6 Comments
Attraction?
Attraction or Contempt?

One of the worst days of our marriage, for both Sheri and me, was July 14, 2021. Since we are a couple who experienced my active alcoholism for 25 years, you might be surprised to learn I was four-and-a-half years sober on that traumatic day. Even without alcohol, Sheri and I make occasional trips back into the pit of hell with emotional relationship relapses.

 

Relationship relapses often spin out of control as both partners revert to deflection, manipulation, overreaction and self-protection – all skills learned during active addiction. But before we pull out the old tools of dysfunction, there has to be a spark. An impetus. A new or refreshed wound around which the spiraling decline can revolve.

 

On July 14, 2021, I was hurt because Sheri no longer found me attractive.

Evolution Series: There Was Before and then There Was After

Alcoholism, Evolution Series, Marriage By Karli Illes No Comments

There Was Before and then There Was After

We lie to ourselves and others about minor things, major things, and all the things in between. There was before, then there was after, and again, everything in between.

 

The things we wished we had said and the things we ended up saying that weren’t quite right and didn’t land the way we wished they would, and possibly their feelings wouldn’t have been so hurt, or there wouldn’t have been such a misunderstanding if only the words had been right.

 

But the right words are for the right situations, and when things are messy, and misunderstandings are already the tapestry that has been laid, that encloses and surrounds a relationship, it doesn’t seem to matter how one says anything.