A bit of a pipe-in-- for what it’s worth, marriage counselors aren’t the end-all-be-all they’re made out to be. In case you do get funds together to try one, you’ll likely have to visit a number before you find one that works for both of you.
When our marriage had issues, we tried one- and she was all on my side. Which you’d think would have been a good thing (hey, W/w is always right ;)), but did have a side effect of getting hubby to feel ganged up on and completely shut down/withdraw from therapy. So… YMMV.
And counseling takes time and commitment. And each of you have bigger issues to work on than your marriage. You can live without each other - continue your patterns of drinking and you’ll each die young.
This is not for the OP, because he doesn’t want to hear it. This is for those who may not understand why so many responses are “fix your problems, OP” and “lose the wife”.
People who drunk post and the next day when sobered up assume the posting was a trainwreck are rather like people who crash the car on the way home but avoid going to look outside the next morning because they don’t want to see the damage: they both in denial and refuse to face either their problems or their consequences.
The OP has been given several suggestions and actually does know what to do, he just doesn’t want to do it. That’s because it would mean giving up alcohol forever and disassociating from drunks, including his wife, who don’t want to reform. If you love alcohol more than a stable life or even life itself and don’t have the honesty to admit that then things aren’t going to change.
This is why the OP is a functional alcoholic - he is able to exercise some self control. Most of that results in arranging his life so his drinking doesn’t fuck things up too badly, enabling him to keep drinking. Because he has this level of self-control it makes me think that he could give up the booze and/or resolve other problems in his life if he truly wanted to do that. But he doesn’t. He likes alcohol and apparently is getting something out of this marriage so he continues along as he has in the past.
I don’t think you’re naive, I think you’re in denial. So, even if you’ve got a decent IQ and what my in-laws call “book smarts” yeah, you’re an idiot in this area.
First thought: why doesn’t the wife have her own debit card? Why is there a need for her to borrow one from someone else? There could be a good reason, but it was the first warning flag for me.
The fact that you felt a need to ask that question at all is another warning sign.
That is NOT normal behavior. It is, however, behavior typical of those with an addiction problem who have done something naughty and don’t want to face the consequences. This is the point at which I realized it wasn’t just the OP with a substance problem.
This is the point at which I would say “honey, you need to cool your jets here in the jail for awhile.”
Were you or were you not aware that your new wife had Problems? If someone has a history of substance abuse in the past they are always vulnerable to it to some extent. I mean, I get the notion that something in the distant past may not be relevant to the present, but you’ve never seen your spouse’s license? I mean, c’mon, you live together, right? You’ve never seen your spouse open a wallet or purse and seen the license while she’s digging through something else? Never had an occasion to use it as an ID, ever?
I know it’s not romantic to discuss thinks like past financial problems and/or driving problems but it sounds like you married someone you knew nothing about.
Wow. Boy, howdy, was she lying her ass off or what? Please tell me you did NOT bail her out of jail, because someone doing shit like that needs some consequences. Also, the rest of us need protecting.
This is the point at which you stop trusting your wife. Anything she says you need to back up or confirm via third party or objective facts.
If you’ve been relying on either donated and/or used cars the airbag may either be nonfunctional or even absent due to a prior crash you are unaware of.
And right there, boys and girls, combined with everything else, is the damning evidence that this woman is not just a drunk but a dangerous drunk.
Don’t get me wrong - she may have all sorts of horrific things in her past, she may be a wonderful person when she’s sober, it doesn’t matter: she’s a danger to those around her.
Of course she did. She wants to continue drinking with minimal hassle. So she’ll borrow your car (because she doesn’t have one or can’t get one) and your debit card (so you pay for her booze) and try to sneak out of hospital (to avoid arrest) and make puppy eyes and sad noises from her jail cell but, you know what? She doesn’t love you. She loves alcohol. In fact, she loves alcohol so much she’s willing to hurt and maim and kill other people to keep drinking.
And that’s why, boys and girls, when you have a person like this in your life you have to start cutting ties. It’s for YOUR good. And sure, it sucks for the drunk, but their love of alcohol does not give them the right to fuck over other people or put them at risk - which their love of alcohol WILL do, again and again, until they get sober and stay that way.
Yeah, I get it - that sucks. Maybe you should have done a bit more research before you leant your wife your car, like confirming such basics as whether or not she had a valid license to drive. Granted, she lied to you, but when you own a car your responsibility doesn’t end when you lend it to someone else.
No shit, Sherlock. Question is - are YOU in denial about some stuff here?
And she should. And she should serve some jail time (just like the OP did). Is it going to make her see the light? Haven’t a clue - maybe, maybe not. But maybe it might get through her skull. Regardless, the rest of us need to be protected from asshats who get drunk using someone else’s debit card, and get into head-on crashes while driving someone else’s car drunk, then tries to deny she’s in any way responsible for the resulting mess. Whether she changes or not, she’s a danger to other people.
^ And that, boys and girls, is why you need to look into a prospective spouse’s background a bit before legal marriage. Or even loaning someone your car.
For the life of me I can not believe you didn’t see some warning signs. You yourself have an admitted alcohol problem. You’ve had a DUI yourself. I think there were signs of deceit and drunkenness but you refused to see them.
You are NOT responsible for your wife’s drinking and crashing the car. You ARE responsible for loaning your car to someone you KNOW has problems, some serious.
.
She’s not “whack”. She’s an addict. That’s what an addict is like.
That is what YOU are like, OP, when the booze is in control.
Now, as you state, you’re a “functional alcoholic”. That means the alcohol isn’t always in full control. But when it is you are just like that. ALL alcoholics are like that. All addicts are like that when the addiction is in full swing.
And that is the most sensible thing you’ve said in your entire post.
That makes it THE most important question in the thread. Everything else is addressing symptoms, you need to treat the disease with something other than alcohol.
Quoted for truth. Clawing my way out of a hole of co-dependency myself, without any of the addiction complications(thank og), but it’s not going to work if you don’t work on it. And you have to do something different than you’ve done in the past, which means you can’t use alcohol.
There’s one in every thread, and it seems it’s usually you. Nice work.
I’m new here, and have never read another of the OP’s threads. So I’m going to answer without any additional background.
DTMFA
That’s Dan Savage for “rescue yourself, get out now.” That’s not something for her, that’s for you. Don’t kid yourself that you are doing it for her. But you should do it anyway.
If you really love her, maybe there’s something you can do to help. I’m sure it would involve professional counseling.
But counseling doesn’t always work. And it rarely works when a person doesn’t want to change. So even if you love her, that’s a long shot.
You do seem to want to improve yourself. So do it. Leave her. Get counseling. Lay off the booze.
Can someone with insurance knowledge fill in this detail:
When the better half and I got together, we maintained separate car insurance policies on our respective cars, but added the other as a covered driver. Eventually I transferred my car to his policy because it was cheaper. Throughout each process, we knew what the other brought to the table as far as driving history, because the insurance company pulled out records. And, incidentally, we aren’t even married.
In the case of the OP, the only insurance on the car was liability, and probably the minimum amount required. Wife wasn’t on the policy, because if she was this would have been a much shorter story. She didn’t have her own car, so she wasn’t covered for his car with her policy. Does standard liability cover you letting a completely uninsured motorist drive your car? I know “uninsured motorist” coverage addresses what happens if someone without insurance hits you, but what happens when you hand your keys over to someone with no business driving who totals your car?
Standard liability covers the driver only, not the car, and follows the person(s) named on the insurance. It pays out if you damage someone else’s car, and pays nothing for your car no matter what - if you get in a wreck that is someone else’s fault, you collect from their insurance for your car. This is the insurance that you’re generally required to have to operate a car. Collision insurance protects the car (and follows the car), it’s what will pay to repair/replace your car if you total it and someone else isn’t at fault. Generally it won’t protect your car if you let someone who you know doesn’t have a valid license and insurance drive the car, but there wasn’t collision insurance here.
So if you just have the minimum liability insurance and you total your car, you get nothing from the insurance company. Same if another driver drives and totals your car, though you can probably sue them or their insurance company. Oddly, the OP probably isn’t going to have much trouble with his insurance company, because they don’t have to cover anything in this case.
However, even if your policy will cover your butt when you loan your car to someone else it will NOT cover someone who is not legally able to drive whether that’s due to no license or due to past legal issues (or, in the OP’s wife’s case, both).
So no, I expect that the OP’s insurance won’t cover him for this at all.
The company might also cancel his policy in response and refuse to insure him again, but that is dependent on the rules of the jurisdiction the policy was issued under.
Bottom line, yes, if the other party or their insurance decides to go after the OP’s wife he might, due to being her legal spouse, also be a target for a lawsuit especially as he willingly lent her the car and can’t claim she stole it from him (that claim might work under some circumstances but it would be rare).
Right. As I said, it was addressed to potential readers, not the OP.
Although if the OP did stick around and listen to the replies maybe, just maybe, something useful would sink in… but the odds are against it. Nonetheless, because I’m an optimist I am willing to offer help to anyone ready to hear it and heed it. I’m just not convinced he’s ready. Would love to be wrong on that.
I think you’d need a lawyer and possibly a civil trial to really determine that.
He’s not responsible for her getting drunk and the car crash, but loaning her the car does open him up to liability. Would depend on the laws of the state/jurisdiction and whether or not there’s a civil lawsuit (I don’t think he’d be on the hook in regards to legal charges but I am neither a lawyer nor a judge).