Why

I received a lovely anonymous comment on my post about Jim. Thank you for your kind words, Whoever You Are.

Whoever You Are thought he/she would like to know why I married an alcoholic in the first place. As I think about it, I realize that the story is not complete until you know the prequel and the sequel. So here they are:

Jim had been my friend for three years when we started to look at each other differently, as more than just two people who happened to hang out occasionally. I was dating his roommate (I know, kind of icky) and Jim was usually out and about. But after he had been picked up on his third DUI after a terrible car accident (Semantics. That was no accident.) and spent three weeks in the local jail, he was home a lot more. He had stopped drinking, both because the court had told him to and because he had finally been stunned into realizing that perhaps all that alcohol consumption wasn't doing him as much good as he had apparently previously thought, legally speaking, at least.

It was April 1985. I was 20, Jim 25. We fell hard for each other. Before I knew it, we were spending almost all of our free time together and by August he had asked me to marry him. I loved him, so what else would I do?

Slowly, he began to drink again. He ignored the court-mandated order that he attend therapy for his drinking problem. There were two reasons for this: he HATED being in therapy (Jim was a very private person and resented like hell the idea of being forced to tell someone he didn't know about his life) and he believed that he didn't need it. He either sincerely believed that his drinking was not a problem or was in some of the deepest denial that, to this day, I have ever seen. I vote for the denial. By the time our wedding day arrived, Jim was a full-blown drinker once again.

I loved Jim with all my heart. He was a wonderful person and he treated me well. He loved me and that was so incredibly important. I came from a fatherless home with a mother who abused me daily. I believed the things she told me, how worthless I was, how no one would ever want me. And because I believed those things, it was such a relief to see that she may not have known what she was talking about, that she may have just been wrong. Jim wanted me, and he didn't think I was worthless and terrible. How could I give that up?

I was so nervous the day of our wedding. Deep down I knew that I was doing the wrong thing, that as long as Jim denied his alcoholism we could not have a strong marriage. But where else would I go? I had left home to live with Jim after a particularly horrid fight with my mother and I knew that if I went back to live with her that things would just continue in the same abusive vein as they had before I left. And calling off my wedding would just prove to her that I was the failure she believed me to be. And how can you call off a wedding the same day? I know that it happens, but I could not see my way clear to that. And I really did love him.

Perhaps on some level I thought that he would change after we got married. After all, can't love do wondrous things to people, work miracles? If he loved me enough, maybe he would want to work hard to make our marriage as great as I hoped it would be. This is the age-old mistake that so many women make. I fell into it face first and neck-deep.

For three long years I waited up for him when he stayed out all night. I put up with his drunk-talk when he did decide to come home and spend the night with me. I put up with myriad hangover days and no money because he wasn't going to work. Finally I told him to get the fuck out.

He was arrested again after our divorce was finalized. He came to me one day, scared, wondering how he was going to hold his life together, keep his business if they took away his driver's license. I told Jim that he was not my responsibility and that he'd have to figure this problem out on his own. Hurray for me.

The last time I spoke with Jim was right before moving to Chicago in 1995. He had lost his driver's license and his business. He was working at the counter of an auto parts store down the street from the condo that we had shared. His father had gotten wealthy on that business and had handed it to Jim on a silver platter. He could have done so well. He was married to a woman who loved him and was willing to stick by him while he worked out his life. Instead he drank it and me away. I've never spoken to him again.