Alcoholic Husband Quotes

A man worth being with is one… That never lies to you Is kind to people that have hurt him A person that respects another’s life That has manners and shows people respect That goes out of his way to help people That feels every person, no matter how difficult, deserves compassion Who believes you are the most beautiful person he has ever met Who brags about your accomplishments with pride Who talks to you about anything and everything because no bad news will make him love you less That is a peacemaker That will see you through illness Who keeps his promises Who doesn’t blame others, but finds the good in them That raises you up and motivates you to reach for the stars That doesn’t need fame, money or anything materialistic to be happy That is gentle and patient with children Who won’t let you lie to yourself; he tells you what you need to hear, in order to help you grow Who lives what he says he believes in Who doesn’t hold a grudge or hold onto the past Who doesn’t ask his family members to deliberately hurt people that have hurt him Who will run with your dreams That makes you laugh at the world and yourself Who forgives and is quick to apologize Who doesn’t betray you by having inappropriate conversations with other women Who doesn’t react when he is angry, decides when he is sad or keep promises he doesn’t plan to keep Who takes his children’s spiritual life very seriously and teaches by example Who never seeks revenge or would ever put another person down Who communicates to solve problems Who doesn’t play games or passive aggressively ignores people to hurt them Who is real and doesn’t pretend to be something he is not Who has the power to free you from yourself through his positive outlook Who has a deep respect for women and treats them like a daughter of God Who doesn’t have an ego or believes he is better than anyone Who is labeled constantly by people as the nicest person they have ever met Who works hard to provide for the family Who doesn’t feel the need to drink alcohol to have a good time, smoke or do drugs Who doesn't have to hang out a bar with his friends, but would rather spend his time with his family Who is morally free from sin Who sees your potential to be great Who doesn't think a woman's place has to be in the home; he supports your life mission, where ever that takes you Who is a gentleman Who is honest and lives with integrity Who never discusses your private business with anyone Who will protect his family Who forgives, forgets, repairs and restores When you find a man that possesses these traits then all the little things you don’t have in common don’t matter. This is the type of man worth being grateful for.

The Vine had no jukebox, but a real stereo continually playing tunes of alcoholic self-pity and sentimental divorce "Nurse," I sobbed. She poured doubles like an angel, right up to the lip of a cocktail glass, no measuring. " You have a lovely pitching arm." You had to go down on them like a hummingbird over a blossom. I saw her much later, not too many years ago, and when I smiled she seemed to believe I was making advances. But it was only that I remembered. I'll never forgot you. Your husband will beat you with an extension cord and the bus will pull away leaving you standing there in tears, but you were my mother.

Perhaps people felt there was nothing more they could do, you know? After all, how can someone be helped who doesn’t see the need? A Christian counselor I saw for a while described such situations as, “a White Elephant everyone can see but no one wants to deal with; everyone hopes the problem will just go away on its own.” Just like with my mom. Back then it seemed women were almost expected to go a little loopy sometimes. After all we’re the ones with raging hormones that get out of whack – by our periods, PMS or pregnancy and childbirth – and cause craziness and bizarre behavior. And because of those uncontrollable hormones, women are also more emotional and predisposed to depression. These are things my mom was actually told by her parents, her family, her husbands and friends... even her doctor. Eventually, she made herself believe that her erratic behavior stemmed from PMS, not mania or alcohol.

I suffocated my feelings during our marriage. I doused them with alcohol; I buried them in denial. I tiptoed around my husband’s moods, hoping that if I created a pleasing enough environment—if I said and did the right things—I could control the climate of our household,

Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief. You know that people who live above a certain latitude and experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we'll open the door and let him.

I understood why women went back to their abusers. The monster wasn't your real husband, he was a bad dream - an alien of sorts - who took over the spirit of your beloved one. He entered and left your husband. It was your real love you welcomed back in.

The hybrid idea that a woman can be fully absorbed with her youngsters while simultaneously maintaining passionate sexual excitement with her husband was a 1950s invention that drove thousands of women to therapists, tranquilizers, or alcohol when they actually tried to live up to it.

To him, she was one of the few girls who was nice to him, the stodgy son of a poor alcoholic shoemaker with such little status that he seemed unlikely to even get one wife, let alone the three or more that designated a man of standing.

I was born three drinks short of comfortable...'" "But I knew what that guy meant about the way he was born three drinks short. It made me think about the first beer I ever drank, down at North Beach with a bunch of kids one summer night. It made me think about that first exquisite relief. It made me think about my ex-husband, Scott, who always said I should stop after the third drink. "That's when you get out of control," he'd say. I had no idea what we was talking about. After a couple of drinks is when I start to feel IN control.

As far as he could discover, there were no signs of spring. The decay that covered the surface of the mottled ground was not the kind in which life generates. Last year, he remembered, May had failed to quicken these soiled fields. It had taken all the brutality of July to torture a few green spikes through the exhausted dirt. What the little park needed, even more than he did, was a drink. Neither alcohol nor rain would do. Tomorrow, in his column, he would ask Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, Desperate, Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband and the rest of his correspondents to come here and water the soil with their tears. Flowers would then spring up, flowers that smelled of feet. "Ah, humanity..." But he was heavy with shadow and the joke went into a dying fall. He trist to break its fall by laughing at himself.

A man who lives a part, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself the practice of deception is not particularly exacting. It is a matter of experience, a professional expertise. It is a facility most of us can acquire. But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self defense. He must protect himself not only from without, but from within, and against the most natural of impulses. Though he earn a fortune, his role may forbid him the purchase of a razor. Though he be erudite, it can befall him to mumble nothing but banalities. Though he be an affectionate husband and father, he must within all circumstances without himself from those with whom he should naturally confide. Aware of the overwhelming temptations which assail a man permanently isolated in his deceit, Limas resorted to the course which armed him best. Even when he was alone, he compelled himself to live with the personality he had assumed. It is said that Balzac on his deathbed inquired anxiously after the health and prosperity of characters he had created. Similarly, Limas, without relinquishing the power of invention, identified himself with what he had invented. The qualities he had exhibited to Fiedler: the restless uncertainty, the protective arrogance concealing shame were not approximations, but extensions of qualities he actually possessed. Hence, also, the slight dragging of the feet, the aspect of personal neglect, the indifference to food, and an increasing reliance on alcohol and tobacco. When alone, he remained faithful to these habits. He would even exaggerate them a little, mumbling to himself about the iniquities of his service. Only very rarely, as now, going to bed that evening, did he allow himself the dangerous luxury of admitting the great lie that he lived.

Society gives the image of sexual violators as weird, ugly, anti-social, alcoholics. Society gives the impression that violators kidnap children are out of their homes and take them to some wooded area and abandon them after the violation. Society gives the impression that everyone hates people who violate children. If all of these myths were true, healing would not be as challenging as it is. Half of our healing is about the actual abuse. The other half is about how survivors fit into society in the face of the myths that people hold in order to make themselves feel safe. The truth is that 80% of childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members. Yet we rarely hear the word “incest”. The word is too ugly and the truth is too scary. Think about what would happen if we ran a campaign to end incest instead of childhood sexual abuse. The number one place that children should know they are safe is in their homes. As it stands, as long as violators keep sexual abuse within the family, the chances of repercussion by anyone is pretty low. Wives won’t leave violating husbands, mothers won’t kick their violating children out of the home, and violating grandparents still get invited to holiday dinners. It is time to start cleaning house. If we stop incest first, then we will strengthen our cause against all sexual abuse.

We're commuter wives. These are our commuter lives. We're capable of carrying alcoholic husbands from the kitchen to the bathroom in a fireman's grip. Between trains, we train to fight with enemies we haven't met yet, battling against punching bags, leaping like the world is made of stone walls and we're storming them. There's another version of commuting of course, as in to commute a sentence. This is our sentence, these suburbs, the train that does not stretch to meet them

We deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to factors outside ourselves: Vague, impersonal forces—“I cleaned my room because I had to.” Our condition, diagnosis, or personal or psychological history—“I drink because I am an alcoholic.” The actions of others—“I hit my child because he ran into the street.” The dictates of authority—“I lied to the client because the boss told me to.” Group pressure—“I started smoking because all my friends did.” Institutional policies, rules, and regulations—“I have to suspend you for this infraction because it’s the school policy.” Gender roles, social roles, or age roles—”I hate going to work, but I do it because I am a husband and a father.” Uncontrollable impulses—“I was overcome by my urge to eat the candy bar.

Many novelists fumed at men they saw as jailers. A host of masculine villains paraded through their plots—neglectful fathers, cruel husbands, and assorted gamblers, alcoholics, philanderers, failures, or murderers—with whom courageous and creative women did combat or from whom they fled.

Isms’ are described as transference of addictive patterns of dysfunctional behaviour, passed down from generation to generation. For instance, if a mother was an alcoholic who never made it into recovery, her behaviour would leave a mark on her children, husband, etc. Unless her adult children join some sort of recovery programme and adopt the mindfulness practice, they will have very similar behaviour traits to their mother but minus the alcohol abuse. There is a strong possibility that they will become codependent and form relationships with other codependents or alcoholics.

Liza hated alcoholic liquors with an iron zeal. Dribking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged diety. Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result naturally was that her husband Samuel and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink.

Hart having arrived before them, insisted they lift at least one glass to old Mrs. McCray. "May she, her husband, and our father be bullying one another in the great beyond." "I hope they enjoy it", Mac said lifting his glass. His cut crystal goblet held tea, not whiskey. Mac now drank no alcohol of any kind. "Confusion to them all," Cam said, joining the toast.

The bell of Limehouse Church rang as each of them, in this house, drifted into sleep - suddenly once more like children who, exhausted by the day's adventures, fall asleep quickly and carelessly. A solitary visitor, watching them as they slept, might wonder how it was that they had arrived at such a state and might speculate about each stage of their journey towards it: when did he first start muttering to himself, and not realise that he was doing so? When did she first begin to shy away from others and seek the shadows? When did all of them come to understand that whatever hopes they might have had were foolish, and that life was something only to be endured? Those who wander are always objects of suspicion and sometimes even of fear: the four people gathered in this house by the church had passed into a place, one might almost say a time, from which there was no return. The young man who had been bent over the fire had spent his life in a number of institutions - an orphanage, a juvenile home and most recently a prison; the old woman still clutching the brown bottle was an alcoholic who had abandoned her husband and two children many years before; the old man had taken to wandering after the death of his wife in a fire which he believed, at the time, he might have prevented. And what of Ned, who was now muttering in his sleep?

1)    The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3)    He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4)    He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7)    He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14)   He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17)   He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children).

Yes, of course,” I say. “My father told us stories when I was very young. He talked about leprechauns and fairies. All his favorite jokes started with a priest and a leprechaun walking into a bar. He had what seemed like a hundred variations on the same joke.” She says, “What made him stop?” “What do you mean?” “You said he told the stories when you were very young.” “Oh. He was an alcoholic. He left my mother by the time I was six. He came and went after that, until he passed away when I was a teenager.” “My husband was a dreamer, too.

If all that is not confusing enough, we also use the word love to explain behavior. “I did it because I love her.” That explanation is given for all kinds of actions. A politician is involved in an adulterous relationship, and he calls it love. The preacher, on the other hand, calls it sin. The wife of an alcoholic picks up the pieces after her husband’s latest episode. She calls it love, but the psychologist calls it codependency. The parent indulges all the child’s wishes, calling it love. The family therapist would call it irresponsible parenting. What is loving behavior?

To the night version of her (mother) I owe free-floating anxiety. I am no longer a child in an unsafe home, but anxiety became habit. My brain is conditioned. I worry. I recheck everything obsessively. Is the seat belt fastened, are the reservations correct, is my passport in my purse? Have I done something wrong? Have I said something wrong? I'm sorry - whatever happened must be my fault. Is everyone all right, and if they aren't, how can I step in? That brilliant serenity prayer: God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. To all the children of alcoholics I want to say, Good luck with that. If I don't do it myself, it won't get done (this belief is often rewarded in this increasingly incompetent world). Also, I panic easily. I am not the person you want sitting in the exit row of an airplane. And distrust. Just in general, distrust. Irony. Irony, according to the dictionary, is the use of comedy to distance oneself from emotion. I developed it as a child lickety-split. Irony was armor, a way to stick it to Mom. You think you can get me? Come on, shoot me, aim that arrow straight at my heart. It can't make a dent because I'm wearing irony.

Like Alan, Jep turned his life around after overcoming the struggles of alcohol and drugs. He came to work for Duck Commander and found his niche as a videographer. He films the footage for our Duckmen videos and works with Willie on the Buck Commander videos. Jep is with us on nearly every hunt, filming the action from a distance. He knows exactly what we’re looking for in the videos and films it, downloads it, edits it, and sends it to the duplicator, who produces and distributes our DVDs. Having worked with the crew of Duck Dynasty over the last few years, I’ve noticed that most people who work in the film industry are a little bit weird. And Jep, my youngest son, is a little strange. It’s his personality-he’s easygoing, likable, and a lot more reserved than his brothers. But he’s the only one who will come up to me and give me a bear hug. He’ll just walk up and say, “Daddy, I need a hug.” The good news for Jep is that as far as the Duck Commander crowd goes, one thing is for sure: weirdos are in! We covet weirdos; they can do things we can’t because they’re so strange. You have to have two or three weirdos in your company to make it work. It’s truly been a blessing to watch Jep grow and mature and become a loving husband and father. He and his wife, Jessica, have four beautiful children.

Let me ask you three questions,” he said. “And then you’ll see it my way. Question One: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done to someone? It’s okay. You don’t have to confess it out loud. Question Two: What’s the worst criminal act that has ever been committed against you? Question Three: Which of the two was the most damaging for the victim?” The worst criminal act that has ever been committed against me was burglary. How damaging was it? Hardly damaging at all. I felt theoretically violated at the idea of a stranger wandering through my house. But I got the insurance money. I was mugged one time. I was eighteen. The man who mugged me was an alcoholic. He saw me coming out of a supermarket. “Give me your alcohol,” he yelled. He punched me in the face, grabbed my groceries, and ran away. There wasn’t any alcohol in my bag. I was upset for a few weeks, but it passed. And what was the worst thing I had ever done to someone? It was a terrible thing. It was devastating for them. It wasn’t against the law. Clive’s point was that the criminal justice system is supposed to repair harm, but most prisoners—young, black—have been incarcerated for acts far less emotionally damaging than the injuries we noncriminals perpetrate upon one another all the time—bad husbands, bad wives, ruthless bosses, bullies, bankers.

A late arrival had the impression of lots of loud people unnecessarily grouped within a smoke-blue space between two mirrors gorged with reflections. Because, I suppose, Cynthia wished to be the youngest in the room, the women she used to invite, married or single, were, at the best, in their precarious forties; some of them would bring from their homes, in dark taxis, intact vestiges of good looks, which, however, they lost as the party progressed. It has always amazed me - the capacity sociable weekend revelers have of finding almost at once, by a purely empiric but very precise method, a common denominator of drunkenness, to which everybody loyally sticks before descending, all together, to the next level. The rich friendliness of the matrons was marked by tomboyish overtones, while the fixed inward look of amiably tight men was like a sacrilegious parody of pregnancy. Although some of the guests were connected in one way or another with the arts, there was no inspired talk, no wreathed, elbow-propped heads, and of course no flute girls. From some vantage point where she had been sitting in a stranded mermaid pose on the pale carpet with one or two younger fellows, Cynthia, her face varnished with a film of beaming sweat, would creep up on her knees, a proffered plate of nuts in one hand, and crisply tap with the other the athletic leg of Cochran or Corcoran, an art dealer, ensconced, on a pearl-grey sofa, between two flushed, happily disintegrating ladies. At a further stage there would come spurts of more riotous gaiety. Corcoran or Coransky would grab Cynthia or some other wandering woman by the shoulder and lead her into a corner to confront her with a grinning imbroglio of private jokes and rumors, whereupon, with a laugh and a toss of her head, he would break away. And still later there would be flurries of intersexual chumminess, jocular reconciliations, a bare fleshy arm flung around another woman's husband (he standing very upright in the midst of a swaying room), or a sudden rush of flirtatious anger, of clumsy pursuit-and the quiet half smile of Bob Wheeler picking up glasses that grew like mushrooms in the shade of chairs. ("The Vane Sisters")

Okay, here it goes--bread, so you’ll never go hungry; a broom, so you can sweep away evil; a candle, so you’ll always have light; honey, so life will always be sweet; a coin, to bring good fortune for the year; olive oil, for health, life, and believe it or not, to keep your husband, or in this case, your boyfriend faithful; a plant, so you’ll always have life; rice, to ensure your fertility, but that’s taken care of, eh? Salt represents life’s tears. I recommend you place a pinch of salt on the threshold of every door and window for good luck and according to my grandmother Chetta it also mends old wounds. Oh and... ah, yes, wine, sparkling non-alcoholic wine, so you never go thirsty and always have joy and last, but not least wood, so your home will always have harmony, stability, and peace.

The unfortunate truth is that right now men's voices dominate and we see the results. Popular products from the tech boom - including violent and sexist video games that a generation of children has become addicted to - are designed with little to no input from women. Apple's first version of its highly touted health application could track your blood-alcohol level but not menstruation. Everything from plus-sized smart phones to artificial hearts have been build at a size better suited to male anatomy. As of late 2016, if you told one of the virtual assistants like Siri, S Voice, and Google Now, 'I'm having a heart attack,' you'd immediately get valuable information about what to do next. If you were to say, 'I'm being raped,' or 'I'm being abused by my husband,' the attractive (usually) female voice would say, 'I don't understand what this is.

Eleanor was a member of one of America’s great families, niece to Teddy Roosevelt and a distant cousin of her future husband. But she was not raised to be anyone significant. In fact, it’s surprising she survived her upbringing at all—one cousin called it “the grimmest childhood I had ever known.” Her father was an alcoholic who kept abandoning the family. One of her two brothers died when she was five years old, and her mother, who she remembered as “kindly and indifferent,” died when she was eight. Her father, who Eleanor worshiped despite his endless betrayals, died two years later. The orphan was sent to live with her grandmother, a stern woman with two alcoholic adult sons whose advances caused a teenage Eleanor to put three locks on her door. When she met Franklin, he was a student at Harvard and was known in the family as the not particularly impressive only son of a domineering widow. Eleanor got pregnant right after her wedding and spent the next ten years having six children and wriggling under her mother-in-law’s thumb. (“I was your real mother; Eleanor merely bore you,” Sara Roosevelt told her grandchildren.)

A box of dominoes, a deck of cards, those were under the folded blankets. There are a lot of paperbacks on the shelves in the bedrooms, detective novels mostly, recreational reading. Beside them are the technical books on trees and the other reference books, Edible Plants and Shoots, Tying the Dry Fly, The Common Mushrooms, Log Cabin Construction, A Field Guide to the Birds, Exploring Your Camera, he believed that with the proper guidebooks you could do everything yourself; and his cache of serious books: the King James Bible which he said he enjoyed for its literary qualities, a complete Robert Burns, Boswell’s Life, Thompson’s Seasons, selections from Goldsmith and Cowper. He admired what he called the eighteenth-century rationalists: he thought of them as men who had avoided the corruptions of the Industrial Revolution and learned the secret of the golden mean, the balanced life, he was sure they all practiced organic farming. It astounded me to discover much later, in fact my husband told me, that Burns was an alcoholic, Cowper a madman, Dr. Johnson a manic-depressive and Goldsmith a pauper. There was something wrong with Thompson also; “escapist” was the term he used. After that I liked them better, they weren’t paragons any more.

So-called “battered women’s shelters” have been called “one-stop divorce shops” because they are “extreme militant feminist” operations that exist mostly to separate children from their fathers, even without any demonstration of violence. Erin Pizzey, who founded the first shelter in London in 1971, claims that her movement has been “hijacked” by feminists. Extended investigations by Canada’s National Post and others revealed a violently anti-male agenda, corruption, drug and alcohol use, child abuse, and even, ironically, violence against women. Yet they continue to receive government funding. One woman whose husband “didn’t beat me up or nothing, we just had an argument,” says shelter workers ignored her pleas and pressured her to leave her marriage. “They asked me if I was abused, and I said, ‘No.’ They wanted me to get a lawyer, and I said, ‘For what?’” She maintains shelter employees tried to “trick” her into making incriminating statements about her husband. “Everything negative about him, they wrote it down. If I said something nice about him, they wouldn’t write it down. I kept telling them, ‘No, he didn’t hit me.’” She was offered financial incentives to leave her husband. “They said, ‘If you leave him, we can help you find a place right away.’ But I said, ‘I don’t want to leave him.’ . . . They wanted that so bad. They were trying to break up a family, and I didn’t want that.

But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy there more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

My mother was the alcoholic in my life. I was the eldest of four children and always had the duties of taking care of my brothers and sisters, the house, and my dad. I resented my mother for this. But my dad praised me so much and gave me so much special attention for being the “little mother” around the house for him, that eventually I didn’t seem to mind my mother’s alcoholism. My dad would always let me sit in his lap at night for being “his girl,” comb my hair, and do special things for me. Something didn’t feel right about it, but it was the only attention I got. As an adult, I seemed to have everything going for me and seemed in control. But my husband confronted me one day and said he was dissatisfied with my difficulties in being intimate with him. He wanted changes or a divorce. I was stunned. That’s when I discovered that growing up in an alcoholic family affected my ability to be intimate. I figured if I dealt with my feelings and issues about my mother, things would be fine. After all, she was the alcoholic. Well, I did deal with her, but things weren’t fine. I came to realize that all that special attention from my dad was really a source of pain and the real culprit behind my difficulty in being close to my husband. Now I realize that I’ve lived my life for him. I chose my husband because I thought my father would approve. The career and family I built were intended to win my father’s admiration and love. Even as an adult, I went to him with intimate details of my life, which he invited. God, I began to feel icky all over again. I was scared and guilt-ridden. I knew I had to stop being “Daddy’s girl” if I was going to save myself and my marriage. It was the most difficult decision I ever had to make about my life: separating from the man who had been the only source of comfort while I was growing up. Yet it was also the most freeing decision I ever made.

I don’t drink alcohol even when I’m not in the family way. Never have.” “Never?” “Nope.” “Never drank once in all your life? That’s impossible.” “It’s partly a religious decision. I’m a Mormon. From Utah, you know.” He stared, mouth slightly agape. “How many wives does your husband know.”have?” “Oh please. Mormons aren’t polygamists.” “Yes they are,” the driver piped up. He wore one of those cliché chauffeur hats low over his eyes. “Everyone knows. The men have loads of wives, make them all wear bonnets.” Becky sighed and gave her speech. “Some Mormons were polygamists in the nineteenth century, but they gave up the practice in 1890. There are small religious groups around the Utah area who practice polygamy, but they have nothing to do with the LDS Church.” “That’s not what I saw on TV. Mormons, they said. Polygamists. Loads of ’em.” “I am a Mormon, from Utah, lived there my entire thirty-four years, and I’ve never met a polygamist.” The driver straightened the Mets plush baseball that dangled from the rearview mirror. “You must not get out much.” “Yes, that must be it.” “It’s tragic really,” Felix said. “She’s agoraphobic and hadn’t been out of the house in, what was it, fifteen years?” “Sixteen,” Becky said. “Right, sixteen. Last time was when Charles and Diana wed.” “You’re thinking of the last time I leaned out the window. The last time I actually left the house was for a sale at Sears.” “Of course, the day you bought those trousers. Sixteen years later, here she is! And in the same trousers, but still . . . We’re so proud of our little Becky!” Felix patted her head. “You dug deep, but you found the courage to step out of that door.” “I did like you told me, Felix. I just shut my eyes and chanted, ‘The polygamists are not going to eat me, they’re not going to eat me,’ and I wasn’t afraid anymore.” “She is a rare example of true bravery. Don’t you agree?” “Uh, yeah,” said the driver. “Congratulations.” “Thanks.” Becky smiled politely. “Go Mets.” The driver snorted.

Had she stared at the handsome monarch too long during dinner when the alcohol clouded her mind? Sorcha thought to herself this would be the moment of her death, struck dead by lightning for daring to appreciate the attractive qualities of a witch’s husband. She

Your alcoholics may include some of your brightest stars. The problem is to identify them, protected as they always are by their secretaries and their colleagues. Invite the alcoholic’s wife to join you in a surprise confrontation with her husband. Start by telling him that all present are devoted to him. Then say how worried you are about his drinking. His wife and his children are about to leave him, and you are about to fire him – unless he does what you ask. A reservation has been made for him to enter a treatment center that very day. Most alcoholics agree to go. It takes a week for the center to dry them out, and another four weeks to rehabilitate them. On returning home, they must go to daily meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for at least a year. This procedure works in about 60 per cent of cases. I have seen it salvage some valuable people of both sexes. If you would like further advice on the subject, consult the nearest chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. Written

It's barely 8:00 a.m., but my train mates waste little time in breaking out the picnic material. But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy three more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

Many of my patients respond to stress not by noticing and naming it but by developing migraine headaches or asthma attacks.15 Sandy, a middle-aged visiting nurse, told me she’d felt terrified and lonely as a child, unseen by her alcoholic parents. She dealt with this by becoming deferential to everybody she depended on (including me, her therapist). Whenever her husband made an insensitive remark, she would come down with an asthma attack.

The stab that I'd take with this situation the moment I felt ready I spoke to my mother lately when I'm old be fore I marrid by that I didnt what i expected from her instead she didnt notice the pain that i'd eexperianced through. To heal myself I forgave her,accepted my situation learn to live positive in it.In the side of forgive the group of men that raped me continueosly I decided to live my home town to start new life another town where I meet with my soul partner God provided with handsome suitable guy as I had issued with men it took God's misterious ways to connect us he's my friend and prayer partner God blessed us with two sons and one doughter, he continue on helping us on raising our kids again i deed decision of raing our kids for myself by being house wife thanks God and my husband to be succed i 'm not perfect but i tried with God help and my closest friends,family it heppening.As i developed anger, sensitive and other unneeded personality throught my issue activities like body training,blogging,podcusting,reading bible and other booksk,being author,listing music special gospel help me to be in right position.The thing i can ask or say to other to other people is "Women Please love and protect your kids let stop this take quick action to help them if you see suspetious thing be close to them in a way that you manage to see if there's something not right heppen to them cause sometimes they will not tell you like on my case in any reason usualy strangers or rapist make them not say anything or your communication with them is not strong enough or any reason they make them shut To the community let protect each other be your sisters or brothers keeper on your neighborhood or in house report the susptious act cause tomorrow will heppen in your house.Men you are the master protector not rapist stand your ground as God do trusted you with kids and women protect them stop taking advantage who ever does that.To those who like me the victim of rape I'm your girl to use alcohol,drugs and sex edict throw shame and unclean feeling is not solution it only running away act ask yourself that how long you'll runing away with cancer that eating you alive,face by allowing God to be your sim card, rica him and let him operate in you by rebuid you make you a new creation spiritual by acepting Jesus Christ as lord and your savior, healer and believe that God raised him from death in your special prayer with your mouth loud as confesion as I deed you'll be safe 100% in his arms like I am your story will change completly as mine finely no one knows you better dont allow situation explain you you beautiful handsome valueble God love you more than every one and he cares about you I love you'll take care of yourself youre the hero &herous.

Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols had no history of working for upper-class families in London that I could find while researching her background. I took the liberty of fictionalizing what her life could have been before she left her husband, becoming a prostitute and alcoholic and moving from workhouse to workhouse in the early 1880s. I wanted to show the human side of these women, not just the horrific crime scenes they were a part of at the end of their lives. They were wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters, not just forgotten prostitutes, remembered only in death.

Her husband suffered from alcoholism and an addiction to sleeping powders. He also had a reputation for driving fast horses and womanizing. He was committed to the New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane in Trenton,] and the two legally separated a year later. ( Wikipedia.. page about Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman and her husband)

I’ve come to find as I go back and think about how I got here, about to have a little girl (who we’re calling Nora, and who I’m gonna teach to be choking MFers out from an early age), that I’m a bunch of other things too: athlete, entertainer, storyteller, yes, but also … socially challenged, borderline alcoholic, mildly sadomasochistic, headcase, poor kid, juvenile delinquent, brother, son, friend. I’m also a pretty damn good husband and a supernaturally potent sexual creature.

Liza hated alcoholic liquors with an iron zeal. Drinking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged deity. Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result naturally was that her husband Samuel and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink.

The latter has a poor alcohol tolerance but is happy to spend her husband’s money so our shopping trips are enjoyable. She has since moved to Nigeria, though, and no shopping trip is worth that long a flight.

Islam means “submission.”1 The faith teaches that Muslims must submit to the will of Allah2 and prepare themselves for the final judgment in order to be able to enter paradise.3 Muslims believe that Allah revealed his will through Sharia, which literally means “path” but is generally translated as “Islamic law.”4 Unlike the traditional Western legal system, which is limited to basic civil and criminal elements, Sharia covers everything from religious rituals and private hygiene to principles of conducting business, criminal punishments, and more. Sharia prescribes, for example, how many times a Muslim must pray, how husbands should treat their wives, and what punishments are to be given for different crimes. It mandates flogging for consuming alcohol,5 stoning adulterers to death,6 cutting off a thief’s limbs,7 and executing apostates and blasphemers.8 Many Muslims around the world do not adhere to the jihadist ideology of terrorists. Most Muslims are moderate, peaceful people who, while following their religious traditions and rituals—attending mosques for worship, fasting, witnessing to others—reasonably coexist with followers of other religions. They do not impose their beliefs on others. They have non-Muslim friends, neighbors, and coworkers with whom they socialize on a daily basis. To these Muslims, Islam is a religion of peace. A small but increasingly significant segment of Muslims (some estimate its size as between 10 and 20 percent),9 however, believe in the supremacy of Islam and Sharia law over any other religion or law and feel obligated to force such beliefs on everybody. This

First, while the church shouldn’t affirm homosexual activity (or adultery, idolatry, or greed, for that matter), it should welcome anyone—gays included—to discover who God is and to find his forgiveness.5 Lots of people wear WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets and T-shirts, but they don’t treat homosexuals as Jesus would. He wouldn’t react in fear or avoid them; he would welcome them, sit with them, and tell them of God’s deep interest in them. Many churches treat homosexuals as modern-day lepers—as outcasts; but Jesus came to heal, help, and set all people free to live for God. Surely churches can welcome gays without condoning their lifestyle—just as they can receive adulterers and alcoholics. As my pastor, Bill Stepp, regularly says, “God accepts you the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you as you are.” It’s strange that professing Christians single out homosexual activity as the most wicked of sins. Often those who claim to be saved by God’s grace are amazingly judgmental, hateful, and demeaning (calling homosexual persons “fairies” or “faggots”) rather than being compassionate and embracing. Professing Christians are often harder on homosexuals outside the church than they are with the immorality within the church (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9–13). New Testament scholar Bruce Winter writes with a prophetic voice, “The ease with which the present day church often passes judgment on the ethical or structural misconduct of the outside community is at times matched only by its reluctance to take action to remedy the ethical conduct of its own members.”6 Second, the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexual inclinations, but rather sexual activity outside of a marriage relationship between husband and wife. In fact, no writers of antiquity, including biblical ones, had any idea of “sexual orientation”; they talked about sexual behavior. When the Scriptures speak against immoral sexual relationships, the focus is not on inclinations or feelings (whether homosexual or heterosexual).7 Rather, the focus is on acting out those impulses (which ranges from inappropriately dwelling on sexual thoughts—lusting—to carrying them out sexually). Even though we are born with a sinful, self-centered inclination, God judges us based on what we do.8 Similarly, a person may, for whatever reasons, have same-sex inclinations, but God won’t judge him on the basis of those inclinations, but on what he does with them. A common argument made by advocates of a gay lifestyle is that the Bible doesn’t condemn loving, committed same-sex relationships (“covenant homosexuality”)—just homosexual rape or going against one’s natural sexual inclination, whether hetero- or homosexual. Now, “the Bible doesn’t say anything about ——” or “Jesus never said anything about ——” arguments can be tricky and even misleading. The Bible doesn’t speak about abortion, euthanasia, political involvement, Christians fighting in the military, and the like. Jesus, as far as we know, never said anything about rape or child abuse. Nevertheless, we can get guidance from Scripture’s more basic affirmations about our roles as God’s image-bearers, about God’s creation design, and about our identity and redemption in Christ, as we’ll see below.

Encourage your loved one to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, maintain a reasonable weight, stop smoking, and consume alcohol in moderation. If you can’t get your fire fighter to cooperate, model a healthy lifestyle yourself. A new study of 4,700 couples showed that there is a strong association between the health of husbands and the health of wives. Married people tend to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or worse, or to smoke if their spouse does.

Is God egotistical for desiring love and worship and sacrifice? Not at all, because he is worthy of them. Would we say that a wife is being egotistical for wanting her husband to love her and the kids more than football and alcohol? Absolutely not. She just wants him to live in accordance with the truth. The truth is that his family is much more important than those other things. To live contrary to reality simply doesn’t work. It leads to nothing but trouble, like trying to run your gasoline-powered car with nothing but water in the fuel tank. This is how we need to understand God’s desire for sacrifice and worship. He did not create people in order to have his ego pumped up. He created us in order to have a reciprocal loving relationship with him. He wants to love and be loved. God is not an arbitrary egomaniac for desiring people to value him above all else. The simple fact is that God is worth more than anything else. To keep our relationship with him in tune with reality, we need to ascribe more worth to him than anything else. To not do so is to turn reality on its head, which always causes problems. The

When He Needs Freedom from Destructive Behavior Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. EPHESIANS 6:10-11 IT’S DIFFICULT FOR A WIFE to see her husband exhibit any kind of destructive behavior. In watching him doing something repeatedly that hurts his health or jeopardizes their family, she sees her future going over a cliff. There can be such terrible consequences for his behavior that it could ruin them financially, as well as destroy him physically or mentally. Whether it is drinking alcohol, taking drugs, gambling, smoking, reckless eating habits, or whatever else she observes her husband doing that could destroy him or endanger her or their children, it can be so heartbreaking to her that she cannot live with it. Every woman has to decide what she can and cannot tolerate. Life is hard enough without your husband finding ways to make it worse. And she must decide how much she can allow her children to witness before it seriously affects them too. You may not see behavior as seriously destructive as that in your husband, but perhaps he is taking unnecessary chances with his safety, such as driving too fast, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or being careless with dangerous machinery or equipment, or refusing to see a doctor when he should, or not following the doctor’s orders and thereby jeopardizing his health. There is only so much you can say or do to try to motivate your husband to stop destructive behavior if he is intent on doing it. But God can do miracles when you fervently pray to Him about it. He hears your prayers, and He wants your husband to be free as much as you do. Your prayers can help your husband open his eyes to see the truth. Your prayers can help him to understand how to put on the whole armor of God so he can stand against these plans of the enemy for his destruction. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would set my husband free from any destructive behavior he has acquired. Wake him up to the folly of his ways and show him when he is being foolish. Break the chains that bind him and open his blind eyes. Strengthen him where his weakness controls him. Enable him to see when the enemy has erected a stronghold in his life. Help him to understand how his behavior affects me and our children, as well as other family members, coworkers, and friends. Tell me what I can do to help make this situation better. I know I cannot change him, and I am unable to make anything happen. Only You can open his eyes, deliver him, and set him free from destructive behavior. I know foolish actions are not Your will for his life, and there is a big price to pay for everything that is not Your will. I pray that neither I nor my children will have to pay any price for his careless behavior. Whatever the reason he appears to have little regard for me, our children, or himself by continuing any reckless behavior, I pray You would deliver him from it completely. You are greater and more powerful than whatever draws him away from Your best. I trust You to set him free to be all You made him to be. In Jesus’ name I pray.

LEAVING 101 How To Prepare To Leave Your Alcoholic Husband - Even If You’re Not Ready To Leave Your Alcoholic Husband by Wren Waters

In terms of the three projects, mentioned earlier, that protective parts take on in relationships once exiles have been hurt, it seems that women are more likely to keep plugging away with the first two, while men more quickly retreat to the third. That is, because women want a relational solution to their pain, their inner critics take aim at their husband and, when that doesn’t work, at themselves, in an effort to open his heart. Men, partly in response to what feels like intolerable criticism, will give up sooner on the intimacy-generating projects and will focus instead on distractions that make them feel good, such as work, sports, and drinking alcohol.

She said her name was Cherise. Her accent said she had probably started out life as Sherrie or Cherry. She did not look as happy to see him as he did her. She had no idea what she had let herself in for when she’d run away from an abusive stepfather and an in-denial alcoholic mother who refused to entertain any thoughts about what her husband might be doing to her daughter after she’d passed out at night. Now Cherise struggled with adapting to this new and very scary lifestyle that she’d drifted into. She would soon find out that as bad as her old situation had been, there were worse things that could happen to a girl, especially if no one cared if she lived or died. Her body would not be found for nearly a year, and then only because a task force created by the FBI, acting on the events of the previous year which determined that there were sufficient reasons to search the woods in and around Picketsville, had finally begun to sift through the sector where she’d been dumped. In any case, it would be long after the man who killed her had had his own appointment with destiny. Because of that, the irony of her passing would go unappreciated and her murder, like so many others involving lost children, would go unheralded and unsolved. Hers would be just another life served up on the altar of societal ennui.

Alexander Kluge has offered this allegory about Trumpism, which he ascribes, anachronistically, to the liberal sociologist Max Weber (who was the author of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution that allowed a state of emergency to be declared without the consent of the Reichstag, a provision that Hitler exploited): “Weber had never studied elephants at close range. In a London newspaper he came across a report claiming that certain herbs ferment within the coiled intestines of the huge beasts. It ‘must be a grand sight’ to witness the alcohol making the animals go berserk and thunder forth, breaking all obstacles. For Weber, this was akin to the way self-confident women, forced to live in servitude to their husbands, experience a build-up of mighty wrath. As in the elephants’ stomachs, this process may continue over multiple generations, and this wrath is passed on to their sons (usually the secondor last-born). This ‘innate’ courage or pride is a fury unrelated to any specific character trait, and manifests itself in essentially hideous men. It is recognized by the hate that wells up in the fermenting mental intestines of millions who no longer tolerate their oppression. The sudden drunkenness—the charisma—of their role model seems to be contagious. It takes hold of the masses that look to this essentially smaller man, uprooting trees like a charismatic monster, as their leader. With the light of millions of eyes, he becomes radiant.” See “Charisma of the Drunken Elephant,” Frieze (November 2016).

In the late nineteenth century, alcohol and drinkers were the targets in the United States. It was asserted that the drug “takes the kind, loving husband and father, smothers every spark of love in his bosom, and transforms him into a heartless wretch, and makes him steal the shoes from his starving babe’s feet to find the price for a glass of liquor. It takes your sweet innocent daughter, robs her of her virtue and transforms her into a brazen, wanton harlot.”2 These negative narratives became so plentiful that Congress was persuaded to amend the Constitution, banning the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Historians believe that the women that led the prohibition movement did so because of what alcohol had done to their men. You cannot declare war on loss; cannot declare war on grief [her first husband] died a week before their daughter was born (of alcohol poisoning). And for weeks, for years afterwards she walked into bars all across Kansas, armed with a hatchet and just started breaking shit, and I'm not saying that's okay. I'm just saying, I've seen a mirror before. I'm saying I loved a man for years calling him the bandage only to realize he's the wound. I'm saying I get it. I dare any woman to spend half a century sitting at an ever emptying dinner table without picking up an axe

We make an altar on the base of what was once one of the columns within the temple. We bring grain, seeds, fruits, and flowers. A beautiful pattern emerges as each woman places her offerings on the altar. Someone brings honey and then everything is wet and glistening. We join hands again, this time around the altar we have created. We breathe deeply and draw the beauty, the nourishing power the earth has given and we have brought to the site, into ourselves. Then we reenact the story. Our telling, inspired by Charlene Spretnak, rejects the rape of Persephone as a patriarchal addition. We speak of season and cycle, mother and daughter. As one of us tells the story, two move to the center of the circle and enact the drama. Here at the place of the separation of mother and daughter, we begin to tell our own stories. Our stories of separation between mother and daughter. We speak of daughters taken away from their mothers by angry husbands. We speak of times when our mothers did not understand our lives. We speak of times when we did not understand our mothers. We speak of alcoholic mothers. We speak of daughters who made their mothers fear. We speak of loss. We speak of separation. We speak of anger. We cry. We cry together. We embrace one another. We embrace each other as mother and as daughter. The healing begins. From "Eleusinian Mysteries" featured in The Goddess Celebrates: an Anthology of Women's Rituals, Edited by Diane Stein, published in 1991. The quotes from this ritual excerpt, which are not included here due to length restrictions credit Charlene Spretnak and her book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, published in 1978.

I barely lifted a finger—let alone a pair of swim trunks—throughout the nineties. Alcoholism left me too hungover to get off the couch, and then everything became about recovery, leaving me zero time to exercise. Or so I believed. Combine a new family to care for with ever-present financial pressures and, well, the state of my physical well-being seemed very low priority. For years, as I sought to excel as a husband, father, and entertainment lawyer, the idea of “eating healthy,” hitting the gym, or even getting some fresh air for that matter, rarely occurred to me. Who has time? There are just not enough hours in the day.

Allison thought back to the last dinner she’d shared with Portia and her husband. Alcohol had flowed freely before, during and after. Neither husband nor wife had appeared drunk, at least not the falling-down variety, but their tongues had loosened, they’d become more touchy-feely, their conversation more risqué and, like most inebriated people, they’d become rather boring. Not a heavy drinker, Allison was only ever mildly tipsy. That day, though, she was planning to get totally blotto. The chime of the doorbell, a prosaic ding-dong that matched the house and not the flamboyant owner, brought both their attention towards the doorway to the hall. ‘That’ll be lunch.’ Portia got to her feet, leaving the room in a flash of pink. She popped her head around the edge of the door

Sometimes, codependent behavior becomes inextricably entangled with being a good wife, mother, husband, brother, or Christian. Now in her forties, Marlyss is an attractive woman—when she takes care of herself. Most of the time, however, she’s busy taking care of her five children and her husband, who is a recovering alcoholic. She devoted her life to making them happy, but she didn’t succeed. Usually, she feels angry and unappreciated for her efforts, and her family feels angry at her. She has sex with her husband whenever he wants, regardless of how she feels. She spends too much of the family’s budget on toys and clothing for the children—whatever they want. She chauffeurs, reads to, cooks for, cleans for, cuddles, and coddles those around her, but nobody gives to her. Most of the time, they don’t even say, “Thank you.” Marlyss resents her constant giving to people in her life. She resents how her family and their needs control her life. She chose nursing as her profession, and she often resents that. “But I feel guilty when I don’t do what’s asked of me. I feel guilty when I don’t live up to my standards for a wife and mother. I feel guilty when I don’t live up to other people’s standards for me. I just plain feel guilty,” she said. “In fact,” she added, “I schedule my day, my priorities, according to guilt.” Does endlessly taking care of other people, resenting it, and expecting nothing in return mean Marlyss is a good wife and mother? Or could it mean Marlyss is codependent?

Do you know the old question? Which came first, the alcoholic husband or the long-suffering wife?” “Can’t say that I do, but I know a couple or two it might fit.

But the odds against me were getting higher each day. I, who was my own worst enemy, needed a best friend. I thought booze was my friend. I did not know I was in a fight—not just with my lawyers, not just with my husband, but also with my disease. I didn’t know I could not win this one on my own, that it would take years, and a change of mind and heart, to win the battle with an opponent I could not even see.

In the United States, of all Google searches that begin “Is my husband …,” the most common word to follow is “gay.” “Gay” is 10 percent more common in such searches than the second-place word, “cheating.” It is 8 times more common than “an alcoholic” and 10 times more common than “depressed.

Cass was her husband, and the fragile bond between them had been built not on love or romance, or even sex. It floated on, it swam in, it drowned under, alcohol. They were drinking buddies long before Cass moved in with Dee,

She’d thought of her own family, of how happy she had thought they were. In some ways, they were completely different from the Tyrones. Her family didn’t suffer from addiction or alcoholism. No one had a fatal disease. Instead of two sons, there were two daughters. Her father had not been a drunk, but he had been a liar and a cheat. He had acted the role of good husband and father but was actually a different person entirely.

All these women guard the details of their lives. Like surfacing whales, they arch their smooth rounds only briefly into view. Once a month they appear, breathe one another in, then dive again. There are alcoholic husbands, certainly. There are prescription drugs, cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders. There must be shame in this room dark or darker than Suzanne's own.

I read an online personal ad by a graduate student named Lin Yu in which she itemized her expectations for her future husband: Never married; master’s degree or more; not from Wuhan; no rural registration; no only children; no smokers; no alcoholics; no gamblers; taller than one hundred and seventy-two centimeters; ready for at least a year of dating before marriage; sporty; parents who are still together; annual salary over fifty thousand yuan; age between twenty-six and thirty-two; willing to guarantee eating four dinners at home each week; track record of at least two ex-girlfriends, but no more than four; no Virgos. No Capricorns.

1) The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3) He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4) He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7) He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14) He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17) He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship.

Too soft to go after her estranged, alcoholic husband who’d run off with most of her savings. Too soft to ask her son Ronnie, my good-for-nothing cousin, for help—he was a boy, therefore free to live his own life. Not to say that the rest of the family never lobbed guilt his way—he just managed to dodge it while I took nothing but direct hits.

I did it because I love her.” That explanation is given for all kinds of actions. A politician is involved in an adulterous relationship, and he calls it love. The preacher, on the other hand, calls it sin. The wife of an alcoholic picks up the pieces after her husband’s latest episode. She calls it love, but the psychologist calls it codependency. The parent indulges all the child’s wishes, calling it love. The family therapist would call it irresponsible parenting. What is loving behavior?

Although the preceding examples have been dramatic, codependency doesn’t necessarily have to be so intense. And it doesn’t always involve experiences with deeply troubled people. Kristen is married, has two young children, and knows of no alcoholism or compulsive disorders in her immediate or extended family. Yet, she calls herself codependent. Her problem, she says, is that other people’s moods control her emotions; she, in turn, tries to control their feelings. “If my husband is happy, and I feel responsible for that, then I’m happy. If he’s upset, I feel responsible for that, too. I’m anxious, uncomfortable, and upset until he feels better. I try to make him feel better. I feel guilty if I can’t. And he gets angry with me for trying. “And it’s not only with him that I behave codependently,” she added. “It’s with everyone: my parents, my children, guests in my home. Somehow, I just seem to lose myself in other people. I get enmeshed in them. “I’d like to do something about it—this thing called codependency—before it gets any worse. I’m not terribly unhappy,” she said, “but I’d like to learn how to relax and start enjoying myself and other people.” A minister summarized the condition this way: “Some people are really codependent, and some of us are a little bit codependent.

Liza hated alcoholic liquors with an iron zeal. Drinking alcohol in any form she regarded as a crime against a properly outraged deity. Not only would she not touch it herself, but she resisted its enjoyment by anyone else. The result, naturally, was that her husband Samuel and all her children had a good lusty love for a drink. Once when he was very ill Samuel asked, "Liza, couldn't I have a glass of whisky to ease me?" She set her little hard chin. "Would you go to the throne of God with liquor on your breath? You would not!" she said. Samuel rolled over on his side and went about his illness without ease. When Liza was about seventy her elimination slowed up and the doctor told her to take a tablespoon of port wine for medicine. She forced down the first spoonful, making a crooked face, but it was not so bad. And from that moment she never drew a completely sober breath. She always took the wine in a tablespoon, it was always medicine, but after a time she was doing over a quart a day and she was a much more relaxed and happy woman.

That my husband stopped drinking with me was powerfully romantic, even if Hallmark doesn’t have a card for it. Or maybe they do. It saved our marriage, or at least saved us from the stupid fights that didn’t need to happen. Things said that didn’t deserve to be said because it was the alcohol talking, not the heart.

During the worst time of Jesse’s cycle, the “worry” region of her brain was overactive, which caused her to become fixated on things, and the judgment and impulse control part of her brain was underactive. The alcohol likely further dropped her ability to control her behavior. That’s why she was so distraught with her husband and why the idea of grabbing the knife wasn’t properly processed and filtered out. During the best time of her cycle, Jesse’s brain was much more balanced. The answer to this woman’s problem was not just anger-management therapy. It was to get her hormonal fluctuations under control. During the days prior to starting your period, estrogen and progesterone levels hit rock bottom. On scans, I see the worry center of the brain (the anterior cingulate gyrus) start to fire up; as a result, women can get stuck on negative thoughts or give in to behaviors they think will make them feel better, such as reaching for wine or cookies.

Her colleague is back, sitting quietly on the other side of the desk, but of course Kira can remember all the things she’s said about Peter. “He’s an addict, Kira. You might think addicts always drink or take drugs or gamble on the horses, but your husband hasn’t got a problem with alcohol or gambling. He’s got a problem with competitiveness. He can’t stop trying to win. He can’t live without that rush.

My heart is full of devastation, but I’m not going to numb it with alcohol or anything else. I will pull the pain out by the roots. Nero’s done me a favor. He’s killed the last of my love for him, and all that’s left for me to do is move on without him.

In one life she was a travel vlogger who had 1,750,000 YouTube subscribers and almost as many people following her on Instagram, and her most popular video was one where she fell off a gondola in Venice. She also had one about Rome called 'A Roma Therapy'. In one life she was a single parent to a baby that literally wouldn't sleep. In one life she ran the showbiz column in a tabloid newspaper and did stories about Ryan Bailey's relationships. In one life she was the picture editor at the National Geographic. In one life she was a successful eco-architect who lived a carbon-neutral existence in a self-designed bungalow that harvested rain-water and ran on solar power. In one life she was an aid worker in Bostwana. In one life a cat-sitter. In one life a volunteer in a homeless shelter. In one life she was sleeping on her only friend's sofa. In one life she taught music in Montreal. In one life she spent all day arguing with people she didn't know on Twitter and ended a fair proportion of her tweets by saying 'Do better' while secretly realising she was telling herself to do that. In one life she had no social media accounts. In one life she'd never drunk alcohol. In one life she was a chess champion and currently visiting Ukraine for a tournament. In one life she was married to a minor Royal and hated every minute. In one life her Facebook and Instagram only contained quotes from Rumi and Lao Tzu. In one life she was on to her third husband and already bored. In one life she was a vegan power-lifter. In one life she was travelling around South Corsican coast, and they talked quantum mechanics and got drunk together at a beachside bar until Hugo slipped away, out of that life, and mid-sentence, so Nora was left talking to a blank Hugo who was trying to remember her name. In some lives Nora attracted a lot of attention. In some lives she attracted none. In some lives she was rich. In some lives she was poor. In some lives she was healthy. In some lives she couldn't climb the stairs without getting out of breath. In some lives she was in a relationship, in others she was solo, in many she was somewhere in between. In some lives she was a mother, but in most she wasn't. She had been a rock star, an Olympics, a music teacher, a primary school teacher, a professor, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a glaciologist, a climatologist, an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hair-dresser, a professional dog walker, an office clerk, a software developer, a receptionist, a hotel cleaner, a politician, a lawyer, a shoplifter, the head of an ocean protection charity, a shop worker (again), a waitress, a first-line supervisor, a glass-blower and a thousand other things. She'd had horrendous commutes in cars, on buses, in trains, on ferries, on bike, on foot. She'd had emails and emails and emails. She'd had a fifty-three-year-old boss with halitosis touch her leg under a table and text her a photo of his penis. She'd had colleagues who lied about her, and colleagues who loved her, and (mainly) colleagues who were entirely indifferent. In many lives she chose not to work and in some she didn't choose not to work but still couldn't find any. In some lives she smashed through the glass ceiling and in some she just polished it. She had been excessively over- and under-qualified. She had slept brilliantly and terribly. In some lives she was on anti-depressants and in others she didn't even take ibuprofen for a headache. In some lives she was a physically healthy hypochondriac and in some a seriously ill hypochondriac and in most she wasn't a hypochondriac at all. There was a life where she had chronic fatigue, a life where she had cancer, a life where she'd suffered a herniated disc and broken her ribs in a car accident.