Please read this advice column (Note: this is an HOF thread)

[gollygee]

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/05/my_wife_is_emotionally_dead/

He's blaming his wife for his alcohol abuse and then complains that she doesn't have sex with him enough. If my husband blamed me for something like that, I don't know how much I'd want to have sex with him either. Am I reading this wrong? I read it and expected the answer to at least mention that it isn't OK to blame your wife for your alcoholism, but I didn't see that. The assumption is that her history of abuse causes her to be "emotionally dead" and that is the cause of all the problems in this relationship. I think it's possible that his alcoholism, and then his decision to blame her for it, might have caused her to emotionally check out of the relationship. I would love to hear the wife's side in this.

Read and tell me what you think of the answer in this advice column.

[elleng]

1. I'm not impressed either with the writer's list of complaints or the response.

Alcoholism can and does drive partners away, into coldness; it's our defense mechanism. 'Why he abuses alcohol' is likely genetic, it is called alcoholism, and the ONLY solution is to stop drinking COMPLETELY. I hope it happens, but the wishy-washy response he received won't do it, imo.

[seabeyond]

2. women are far from perfect, we know this. this man sounds like men i have come across over the years

thinking they are so smart in their "psychoanalysis" of their partners and everything is the partners fault, one way or another.

what i really took from this (i did not read the answer, cause the man writing the letter bug me enough), instead of in anyway accepting his wife as she is, and working with that, he is demanding, for his needs and wants for her to change and be what he wants her to be. actually demanding it.

he is asking for a different person that what he married. and i am sure he has been making that demand for a while. if you want to see a person close up, and hide out within self, continually tell them they are not good enough and need to change, constantly.

this man has been unemployeed and drinking issue. he continually points the finger at her and demands she address issues, because he thinks she should.

the letter just did not feel good to me at all.

i dunno. i do not like trying to guess... i can actually ask questions and listen... but, who knows. i would tell the man to fuck off, personally. condescending. i do not like his.... tone.

[F4lconF16]

8. "he is asking for a different person that what he married."

That is what I got out of this, too. He married someone who he doesn't understand (I think the psychobabble shows this clearly), and now he wants a different person. He takes no responsibility for his own problems and how they could affect her, but rather insists that she change who she is so that he doesn't have to change himself. He sounds like he feels entitled to a woman who will take care of his every need without his having to reciprocate.

[mopinko]

3. sounds like my ex

not only the drinking is not his fault, but the fact that she has walled herself off from him is not his fault, either. 48 hours after he got a job it is supposed to all be better?

yup, a dick.
i agree w the columnist to the extent that there is probably no point in them staying together. she will be better off without him.

[djean111]

4. I think the advice given - to walk away - is best for both parties.

From personal experience, once a relationship has been dissected down to its unsatisfactory bones, and blame has been assigned, there really no way to recover whatever the attraction was in the first place.
My childhood was scarred by verbal and physical abuse from my father. Nothing sexual. When my husband, and then the guy I lived with after the divorce, were quick to exclaim that the only reason I did not want to have sex ALL the time was because of my childhood, and then wait for me to brighten up and say YES! I see where I am wrong! Let's have sex right now!
It certainly is not your temper tantrums and controlling nature that turn me off! - but, sadly for them, I just got out of the relationship.

Whenever someone lists all the faults of the other person, and pretty much says their own faults are caused by the other person - do everyone a favor and get the fuck out.

There is no point in addressing the alcoholism. The guy has made up his mind that he is the wronged person, and both people deserve someone who understands them better and fits with their emotional baggage. The almost clinical dissection of the relationship by this guy creeps me out big time.

You cannot talk someone into loving you. Not really. You can badger, explain at great length, give a power-point explanation or make a Venn diagram of the relationship's problems. But you cannot make someone love you if they do not.

[ismnotwasm]

5. He thinks he's a psychologist

Argh. Did the words "marriage counseling" come up? No. He's also a dry drunk, which mean he's even though doesn't drink, he'll continue to have several unfortunate characteristics. He mentions unemployment, it would be interesting to know what caused it. He sounds very needy, and far more interested in his own dilemmas--one of which is his relationship with his wife, than he's wifes actual issues.

Since we don't know her side of the story, we can only guess; I'm a person who completely understands emotional detachment and being "cold" and the reasons why. Yet my husband and I constantly flirt and play, and have a happy marriage.

My guess is that he's a fuck up and is blaming his wife, who probably does have her own issues-- one of which is an over-analytic, finger-pointing chickenshit of a husband, who used an advice column" to address very serious marital problems, with little apparent insight of his contributions to them.

[mercuryblues]

6. Sounds to

me like a man who takes his socks off and shoves them under the bed instead of the hamper, then blames his wife for not having any clean socks.

one of 2 things is happening here. She was not like this when they married. However with his blaming the wife for his faults and everything else is sending triggers to her and she is retreating into a safe emotional area.

the other. She was like this when they married and he thought he could "save her". Well with the abuse and trauma she experienced as a child she stays in her safe emotional zone. And dammit! it's all her fault she won't listen to me. He tells her this, he tells her that. She is to blame. Not once did he say he loved her or ever loved her.

[seabeyond]

7. And dammit! it's all her fault she won't listen to me.

that is what i was feeling, and that is what was bugging me about this.

[ismnotwasm]

9. Yup