Women with Alcoholic Husbands

Ambivalence and the Trap of Codependency

Ramona M. Asher

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780807860151
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Marriage & Family Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In this important study of women with alcoholic husbands, Asher vividly describes the process of coming to terms with a profound crisis in one's private life. From interviews with more than fifty women, all of whom were participants in family treatment programs, she assembles a composite picture of the experiences shared by wives of alcoholics. The testimony given by these women illustrates the steps they must take to regain control of their lives. The first step is figuring out what is happening and deciding what to do about it. Asher argues that the vogue of using the label "codependent" may actually hinder rather than facilitate emotional health. Led to think of themselves as addicted to their husbands' addictions the wives of alcoholics may be persuaded that their own problems can't be overcome. But, Asher shows, these women can take command of their lives. Originally published in 1992. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Part 1

The Early Problem Phase

1: Recognizing the Ambivalence

During the first interview the women in my sample were asked to think back to their first inklings of problems associated with their husbands’ drinking. They described this early period and how it differed from times when they had felt no problems involving alcohol. In this way, they designated the social beginnings of the process of becoming the wife of an alcoholic.

These beginnings comprise the early phase of this moral career and give rise to the challenge of recognizing the definitional ambivalence that is starting to emerge. Certain incidents, because of incompatibilities or contradictions of expectations, begin to be questioned. Questions about actions and attitudes evoke explanations or what Mills (1940) called motive offerings. A number of explanations can potentially be offered for a given situation (Scott and Lyman 1968), and the act of questioning evokes these possibilities. (This can take place solely within the mind of the questioner, as when we ask and answer our own questions about a situation or someone’s behavior, or it can be actual dialogue between the questioner and the person being questioned.) The significance of a situation in which several explanations are available to account for what has occurred is that it sets the stage for the ambivalence of definition, for there can be no ambivalence if only one explanation exists.

Researchers report that it is common for family and friends to “normalize” the early-questioned behaviors of a “deviant” significant other (Yarrow et al. 1955; Goffman 1962). Behaviors are normalized in the sense that, despite their unfavorable or doubtful character, they are defined as being within a normal range of behavior. The untoward actions and actor are “brought back into the fold,” so to speak. The following excerpts from the present study illustrate how this might work:

With a group of friends, it seemed like normal behavior.

For some reason, I just thought, well, this is the way that it is, because most of the people we were with would get pretty bombed too.

There were things that bothered me but I didn’t think that much about it. And I didn’t feel I really should say anything about it because I was raised in the era that dutiful wives . . . he was the head of the household and pretty much the way he did [things] was all right. . . . I didn’t like him getting drunk. I didn’t like him after a certain point.

Even though these women defined their husbands’ drinking as within a normative range, the first stirrings of definitional ambivalence were present. Noting that the time, setting, or amount of drinking is inappropriate is tantamount to noting contradictions and incompatibilities in their husbands’ performance of social roles—particularly the roles of husband and responsible adult citizen. Normalizing these beginnings of definitional ambivalence allows social interaction and family life to proceed more smoothly than it otherwise might.

It is common in this early period of ambivalence that the wives note behavioral changes and simply draw their own inferences about their husbands’ actions. In doing so they are assuming flexible attitudes that allow them to view their husbands as mostly competent role performers, as shown in these excerpts:

Towards the end of the second year of our marriage I noticed that when he became stressed from the discipline of going to school, he would go out and drink with his buddies to release the tension. He’s very smart and he’s always been able to drink the night before, cram for two hours before the test, and just ace it. In the beginning I thought it was just [the] stress factor, and then I saw a pattern that he was drinking really heavily during that time. But it was new to me, and, like I said, he catches himself; when he starts drinking heavily in a certain period he’ll stop himself, and you’ll think, well, it was just a little patch where he was needing a little help.

He didn’t drink until he was twenty-one, so I just assumed he was going through a late adolescence when he was drinking, you know how kids drink and get drunk. . . . Since he didn’t start drinking till so late, I thought he was doing just that.

Some of the women associated specific behavioral changes with their husbands’ drinking and the first awareness of ambivalence. Observing, for instance, that “he always would hold his cigarette differently,” or noting a “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde” or “a lot of bullshit, big talk,” dramatizes early contradictory or incompatible performances of roles. The following perceived changes were typical:

[I noticed] personality changes, just from the nice guy that he is to this stupid acting person, which he wasn’t. . . . He just became a different person, something I just didn’t like at all. And physical changes, slow reactions, the way he walked, the way he talked—everything just changed.

Like six months after we were married, I can remember my going to work and my coming home and not having him home in time for dinner, because he would stop with the guys and have a beer, which I could always understand. I thought, that’s fine; my father would stop after work and have a beer—he was working for my dad at the time, part-time, and he would always come home at six-thirty or seven, and my dad would be in the driveway at six. That was a problem right after we were married.

These kinds of observations feed into emerging definitional ambivalence about the men’s role performances and are perhaps more difficult to normalize. The women then begin to experience incompatibilities and contradictions between their expectations for their husbands and their husbands’ actual role performances.

Recognizing their definitional ambivalence, some of the wives in this study confronted their husbands with the discrepancies. Some women spoke up the first time they noted an untoward behavior, others after observing a pattern. It is notable that in this early phase the women tended to play down their own perceptions of situations, apparently giving more credence to those offered by their husbands. For example:

When he would drink he didn’t change much—drink a lot and never get drunk. He was up to like a twelve-pack a night, and that is when I started getting concerned. After he . . . got kind of angry, I just assumed, well, he doesn’t think that it is a problem; [it] must be okay, he can handle it.

The summer before we were married, I got really concerned because he was high on something and he denied it. And I said, “But you’re staggering and your speech is slurred and you’re acting real strange.” And he said, “Well, that’s my allergies. I get goofy in the summertime with my allergies.” I said, “Well, get allergy shots.” I was young and in love, and I believed him.

I accidentally came across some bottles he had hidden. I thought, Why does he hide it? Why? It just didn’t make sense to me. And I wasn’t sure. . . . I mentioned something to him [about] what the bottles were doing behind the furnace. He just gave me some answer. I thought, Okay, fine, I’ll let it go with that.

This practice of generally accepting the line of action (even if inaction) that their husbands present to them can be understood in the sense that we are socialized to give others the benefit of the doubt (Goffman 1967). This is particularly so in close relationships and when social power is unequal. The wives in this study conformed to these norms of interaction. Though these forms of confrontation did not lead to open conflict, patterns of ongoing open conflict were being established in some of the marriage relationships.

Conflict, especially in this phase, is not necessarily associated with drinking or directed at drinking behavior. The following comments are typical not only because they illustrate a pattern of generalized conflict but also because they characteristically highlight jealousy, which was reported by many of the wives in this study:

We used to fight a lot, immediately. We were both young; we thought that is the way you have fun, you drink. We weren’t really fighting about the alcohol; we were fighting about, oh, jealousy, things in general, but it was always when we were drinking that we would fight.

He was jealous, very jealous, at that time. When you [I] did go out, he was very possessive, and he would get upset if I talked to another man.

The core of sociological ambivalence—incompatible or contradictory expectations for social performances—is highlighted in these illustrations of general conflict among relationship partners. We might think of a conflict situation as a generic situation of sociological ambivalence. As such, we gain a more pristine perspective on how awareness of ambivalence comes about. Whereas conflict explicitly points out ambivalence of definition, everyday interaction may implicitly suggest it.

A single memorable episode, as recounted by some of the wives, can dramatically bring incompatibilities and contradictions of expectations into the forefront. In retrospect, the troubles associated with their husbands’ drinking stemmed from this first notable encounter. Demonstrating such a pattern of the mustering of ambivalence are these recollections:

He would never go into a bar or anywhere without me. We always went together. And the first time he stayed out all night, I just couldn’t believe it. Because he had never done anything like that before. He came strolling in about seven in the morning. I was just frantic.

Right around twenty-eight years ago, I was going to go on a trip with my girlfriend. Well, he came home wiped out that night, just like telling me “hey.” I was upset, because he was supposed to take me in that evening to meet my girlfriend. . . . So as long as he came home that way, of course. . . . The next morning he took me in. He had never come home like that before, never, no, not that I remember that he had come home like that. When I think back, that’s about when I first noticed. I would say that maybe that was about the start of it, of being a problem.

The excerpts of interviews presented in this chapter illustrate ways in which ambivalence initially arises for and is recognized by wives such as these. For the most part, they do not have the faintest idea that they are embarking on a very special path—a moral career of becoming the wife of an alcoholic. Recognizing ambivalence in this early phase means embracing the existence of some problem, but usually not drinking per se as a problem and seldom drinking as the problem. Designation of problem drinking and alcoholism will come later—it came anywhere from a few months to over thirty years later for the women in this study. In this early phase of the moral career, the women are just beginning to recognize and respond to discrepancies about their husbands. They are only beginning to deal with definitional ambivalence, still wondering, What’s going on here? There is much ahead for them as their domestic problems and attempts to deal with them intensify in the problem amplification phase of the moral career of becoming the wife of an alcoholic.

Part 2

The Problem Amplification Phase

2: Sorting the Ambivalence

Acknowledging

As untoward incidents and their unpleasant consequences increase, the character of the moral career changes. The early phase, characterized by the initial mustering and recognition of ambivalence, gradually gives way to the problem amplification phase, distinguished by expansion of problems and efforts to sort out what’s “wrong” and why. There is an increasing sense that there is some problem, but drinking, at most, is seen as a consequence of problems, not as the problem itself. The wives instead focus on their husbands’ and their own behaviors as well as outside stressors as possible sources of problems. In effect, they attempt to sort out the variability and viability of definitions and questions about themselves, their husbands, and their marriages, weighing the meaning of various answers to these questions.

Definitional ambivalence arises when there are contradictory or incompatible social performances or expectations. Sorting, arranging, or classifying thoughts, feelings, observations, and interactions into resource material for understanding and defining experience—sorting ambivalences of definition—is an attempt to render one’s life more comprehensible. Such efforts to sort through ambivalence include the three activities of acknowledging, valuating, and personalizing. Though closely associated, these activities are separated for purposes of discussion here and in the next few chapters.

Acknowledging refers to recognizing the existence of disparate meanings of selves and situations. It especially entails noting changes in one’s self, husband, or marriage in ways that challenge familiar definitions, perhaps accompanied by reality testing of ideas and perceptions. There may be reconstructions of incidents from the early phase that now serve as evidence of contrasts and changes.

During this time the women attend to cues from friends and family about whether or not these people also perceive a problem and the nature or degree of it. They may compare the present with a previous period of “no problem” or “less problem.” It is a period in which a wife engages in a major dialogue that will be with her for some time to come. It is a dialogue with herself, or her husband, or others—often all of these: a dialogue of seemingly incessant queries and explanations, a dialogue of definitional ambivalences that tends to keep her wheels spinning, so to speak.

One of the best illustrations of such a dialogue comes from an interview with a woman who was being treated in a family program for her “codependency” on the basis of counselors’ estimates of her husband’s chemical dependency. He had not yet been officially evaluated and diagnosed as alcoholic. It is precisely this lack of official designation that spotlights the throes of definitional ambivalence. It enables us to sense the wife’s typical struggle with definitional ambivalence in her quest for precise information:

He would drink so much he would be sloppy drunk, falling down, whereas, now it’s getting to the point that he. . . . One night, I talked to him and I would say, yeah, that he drank some but not that much; he appeared to be that straight. Then I found out he drank that whole quart by himself.

I noticed that it’s hard for me to tell if he’s been drinking and if so, how much. I can see where people live in a home, and don’t have outside resources, can really get hung up . . . because, well, I’m fairly active, [get] some counseling, go to work, but I’m still like swaying back and forth. When he becomes angry, see, my thing is then I’ve got something to say.

Sometimes he is really nice and sweet, but see. . . . Before, he was so nice and sweet and loving; now, it’s a feeling, the guy is just seducing me. And once he sucks me under, he’s going to start giving me all that shit again. And see, I don’t want that, so that’s a change in me. He doesn’t hit, but he screams enough, embarrasses me a lot.

You go through a weekend when he drinks, I’m madder than hell, he’s being just a total. . . . I guess a lot of it is that he doesn’t seem to care about me and the kids; he’ll be gone for a long time. And then I turn around and I say, “Am I being selfish?” I mean, if I mention [it] to him, then I’m nothing but a selfish bitch.

I wish there was something that could say yes, because right now it’s like I’m fighting something that isn’t even there—you know, Does he have a problem? I can’t live with it, I know that, and I won’t; but, what the hell can I [live with], what am I living? If I knew. . . . People whose husbands finally go to evaluation and treatment, they know what they’re fighting, they know what direction to go [in].

I sit here and say, “Does he have a problem, or is it that my dad had a problem?” And I’m looking at my husband, and I’m thinking, this is my dad. It seems to be an awful lot like my dad. Who am I fighting, or who am I trying to help? What way do we go? He says, “My work [working shows] I’m not chemically dependent.” He refuses to discuss it. He does get angry sometimes, or he laughs, makes me even more angry. So I sit there in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Outlining the Moral Career
• Part 1: The Early Problem Phase
• Part 2: The Problem Amplification Phase
• Part 3: The Proximal Treatment Phase
• Part 4: The Post-Treatment Phase
• Conclusion: Sociological Insights, Implications, and Speculation
• Appendix: Research Design and Methods
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index