After I was falsely accused of giving my niece pills one night when I was druck, no one believed me when I said it DIDN'T HAPPEN...not even my wife. She said that I do & say stupid things when I'm that drunk. We were going to Jacksonville this weekend to see her Father and she let me know WED night she was going without me and needed her "space". On the night I was accused of this (TUE) and out of my fight/flee personality...I brought up divorce. My wife said she doesn't want divorce and even went so far as to call my Grandmother and talked for about an hour and told her the same thing several times during the conversation. Thursday, before she left for Jax, she called and asked if I would be leaving (moving out) while she was gone. I told her I didn't know what I would do. After it was clear that she was, in fact, making this trip without me, I told her if she felt like she needed to do what she needed to do...I should do what I need to do--and I hung up. Her Dad called me THU night to let me know they had arrived safely. We've had NO CONTACT since she left. She sent me a text message asking if would pay our cell phone bill on-line which I simply replied "Planned on it" and she replied "K. Thank you". Why would she send this message? She could have just as easily gone on-line and paid this bill! Originally, we had planned to come back from JAX this Sunday, but now I've learned her sister (who lives with us) went with her and doesn't have to be back to work until WED...now I don't know if they'll be back SUN or TUE. Anyway...I just don't know what I should say or do if she calls (which I doubt she will) or when she comes back. If she really doesn't want a divorce, she's not acting like it!
I have come to accept the fact my drinking is a "love buster" and I'm going to stop (or drastically cut back) on my drinking. But beyond that...I just don't know what to do.

Steve, I think the very first thing you need to do is QUIT DRINKING. Altogether. And I forget what kind of pills these were...any way you can get rid of those, too? Or switch to something that's a little less, erm, recreational?

Like skelaxin instead of soma, tylenol instead of vicodin, wellbutrin instead of zanax. There are a lot of substitutions that aren't so abusable.

You're aren't going to be able to do ANYTHING until you come out of your self-medicated fog. You're not even really YOURSELF right now. And your wife has no reason to believe that anything will be improved until the drinking and pill-popping stops. Every beer, every dose, will be a trigger for her.

I read this thread the other day:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2176651&fpart=1

Maybe you could read it, too.

Steve, how are you doing?
I agree with the last person, give up the drinking. You have obviously already recognised this is an issue. Whether you gave the pills or not, she thinks you did. So she thinks you are capable of that. Not a good thing. But you can own this. You know and believe you did not. But the fact is your wife thinks you did. From a female perspective I can tell you that we women sometimes 'punish' men by going to Jax on our own or some such similar thing. What she may be looking for is for you to realise that she is concerned about your drinking. From what you have written I feel like your wife would love to hear from you that while you did not give the pills, that she thinks you are capable, while it hurts and offends you, you also recognise that this is something you need to own, and that you will stop drinking.

You said you would stop or cut down. If cutting down is possible, so like 2 beers on a Saturday or something like that, and you can stick to it - great. But if you can't stick to it, it might be a good decision to stop altogether. Maybe you can stop altogether and once things are back on track between the two of you and you know you can actually stop and be ok, with her being ok with it maybe you could then start to drink very moderately with the agreement that if she thinks its getting out of control, you will stop. You can work on this together. I am not saying you have a drinking problem, but as you pointed out, the drinking is potentially a marriage buster for you. And to answer your question about why she tested you about the phone bill when she could have paid it, it was likely a way of her reaching out to you. You could have responded "Yes, planned on it. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Love and miss you lots". That would have worked a charm on me

Definitely! She was reaching out for you, maybe she was wanting you to reach back out to her. That definitely would have been a good opportunity to tell her that you love her. Have you attempted to contact her?

As the posters above me stated, you need to quit drinking. At one time, I had a problem with alcohol and, while I wasn't considered an alcoholic, it changed my personality and made me do things that I wouldn't do and act completely unlike myself. It was a huge burden on my marriage because I was LBing my husband left and right. My advice is just to stop and tell her that your quitting and if you need her help, tell her that, too. You sound as though you love her, so make sure she knows that.

Good luck.

I have stopped completely. We did have a couple of glasses of champaign on New Years Eve. It's still very tough around the house. I feel betrayed, hurt, angry and I'm starting to feel insecure (which I HATE that feeling). I found myself looking at our cell phone bill and the number and length of calls she had made to my step-daughters father since all this has happened. Nothing major, 10-15 minute calls. I don't think that means anything and I could certainly NEVER bring this up. I'm not all that sure that I want to save this marriage. She has no intention of asking her sister & niece to move out. She implied that her sister would probably move in a couple of months. I asked her if that was what her sister said and she said no, but couldn't tell me why she said that. It makes me wonder if she really didn't mean that I would be moving out. After all, I receive a bonus in a couple of months. Maybe she's thinking I will use that money to move out and get an apartment or whatever. I don't know. I'm just uncertain about anything and everything right now. I HATE THIS FEELING!!!