Caller: “My Husband Can’t Accept My Boundaries”
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What is the caller’s main struggle with her husband’s alcoholism and boundaries?
My husband is an alcoholic. We've been married for 10 years and around year three, he started drinking and it quickly progressed. He's not violent or abusive, just very absent and a little rude, which leads me to clean up every mess, financial, emotional, physical, and be a married single mom.
What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thanks for being here. I hope wherever you find yourself, today's going pretty smooth and pretty smooth would be a win for all of us these days. And so I hope wherever you happen to be, wherever the show's popping up in your earphones or in your car or somewhere in your house, wherever you happen to be, hope things are going well for you. This show is about your mental and emotional health, your relationships. I'd sit down with real people and talk about real things going on in their lives. And we try to get to the next right step. If you want to be on the show, I would love to have you click the link in the show notes and it will send you right over.
And if you have an Apple phone, I was going to say an Apple phone. Some call it an iPhone, right? If you're hip with it or whatever. My wife tells me I was born in the wrong century. But if you have an Apple device, I would love for you to consider going over to the App Store and getting the Together app. I'm biased, but I think it's the greatest marriage app on the planet. And we are constantly making some pretty amazing improvements to it. But here's the deal. Here's what it is. It's micro habits for your marriage. It's an action plan for you and your spouse. You can do it in one-player mode or two-player mode. And... Your spouse can join for no extra cost. And the cost of the thing is so low anyway. I just want people using it.
That's the main goal. But it's micro habits. It's a small action step you can take every day. Plus we've added new learning tracks, new frameworks in there for dealing with conflict, with communication. We've added so much more cool stuff and there's a ton left to come, but it is pretty extraordinary. And the feedback we've received from thousands of people all over the is that this thing is working well. So go over to the App Store and check it out. And you Android folks, we're coming for you. We're coming for you. Let's go out to Santa Barbara, California and talk to Danielle. Hey, Danielle, what's going on?
Hi there, Steve Delaney. How are you?
Awesome. How are you?
I'm okay.
What's going on?
I wrote down my question so I could get this out coherently and give you a little background if that's okay.
This show is probably not the place for coherence because I don't usually make two sentences work together, but I would, you know what? It would be good if one of us was coherent. So yes, that's perfect. Go for it. Whatever
you feel comfortable with. Got it. My husband is an alcoholic. We've been married for 10 years and around year three, he started drinking and it quickly progressed. I know why he drinks. It's a coping mechanism for severe childhood trauma and stress today. He's not violent or abusive, just very absent and a little rude, which leads me to clean up every mess, financial, emotional, physical, and be a married single mom. It's our biggest marriage battle, and I really believe all the small ones stem from it, too. About three weeks ago, I laid out an ultimatum, stop drinking or I'm leaving. His response was, I'll think about it. That response itself, of course, was a gut punch. The next night, I came home to him having a case of beer, and he explained to me that he needed one bath, two raw, and then he'd quit.
Night two, he's still drinking, but asked for time to wean off as he knows the dangers of alcohol withdrawal. We don't have health insurance, and I cannot afford a medical detox. So I agreed to a one-month plan of weaning. We're living like roommates. Any conversation turns into a fight and him walking away from me. I used your verbiage of laying out what I need to feel love, but I see no effort and the drinking doesn't seem to be flowing. How do I get through to him that I don't want to leave, but my kids and I need a sober present dad and he's going to have to start having some hard conversations with me.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the caller’s main struggle with her husband’s alcoholism and boundaries?
0:05–11:41
2
How can a spouse set healthy boundaries when an alcoholic partner refuses to change?
11:41–21:16
3
Why does Dr. John suggest admitting powerlessness for both the alcoholic and the spouse?
21:16–30:05
4
What actionable steps does the Together app offer for couples facing addiction?
30:05–39:31
5
How should a mother protect her teen daughter from an abusive alcoholic father?
39:31–48:17
6
What does forgiveness look like when dealing with a parent’s repeated harmful behavior?
48:17–53:37
7
How can first‑responder couples navigate the unique stresses of their professions?
53:37–54:37
8
What final advice does Dr. John give to listeners about hope, hope vs. wish, and next steps?
54:37–54:39