1976–1996 | Alcoholism, Silence, and the Slow Unravelling of a Sixteen-Year Marriage

Alcoholism is a relentless disease that strips away dignity, trust, and stability. For sixteen years, I lived inside its shadow, trying to hold together a marriage that was quietly and steadily coming apart. Alcoholism is ten times worse, ten times more harmful than any cancer. It ruins your life. It ruins relationships, families, friendships and societies. I would much rather live with cancer than with alcoholism.

I was married to an alcoholic for sixteen years. When we met and eventually got married in 1976, everybody used to party hard and drink too much. Drinking socially was expected in our circle of friends. I enjoyed the freedom of sharing in the merriment with friends, in contrast to the strict, religious background I was raised in. I also enjoyed Daniel's company. He was always the soul of the party. He made me laugh, and I never had any doubt that he loved me.

But after a few years, the merrymakers grew up and drifted into the typical boomer-era pastimes of buying houses and furniture to raise our children. Everybody started partying less, drinking less and taking careers seriously. Everybody, that is, except my husband. He hit the bottle harder than ever.

Having had no prior knowledge of alcoholism, it took me a long time to realise that Daniel was addicted, that it was a medical problem that was not going to be solved either with harsh words or beautiful promises, that he was unable to help himself. I sought advice from his family, our friends, his employer, the pastor, and, of course, my doctor. His family made it clear that they did not believe there was any problem, except that I was not the wife they would have chosen for him in the first place. His friends thought I was a little hard on him. My friends urged me to leave him, as if that were so easy with three children and the salary of a bank official. The pastor encouraged me to be a more supportive, submissive and loving wife (i.e. not refusing sex and to always be “ready” when he claimed his marital rights). The doctor referred me to professionals in this field, who all agreed that Daniel needed professional help, but he would have to agree willingly to go to a rehabilitation centre or to enter a programme where he could receive treatment. But Daniel was never ready to take that step, because according to him, his drinking was no problem at all – the problem was his wife, who kept nagging about his drinking.

He always loved spending his free time fishing, hunting, racing pigeons, and driving fast cars. Such pastimes are expensive, and financially, we were always in a hole we could not dig ourselves out of. He was very rarely home on weekends to join in family outings that I arranged for the kids. He faithfully promised the kids that we would go to the beach on a Saturday morning, but then his friend with the fishing boat called to offer him a place on a fishing outing, or his gambling friend let him know that he had a tip for a certain horse to win, or a colleague invited him to his gaming farm for the weekend, women and children excluded. The children questioned me about another broken promise, another disappointment, and I had no satisfactory answers.

I started struggling with the additional responsibilities of a full-time career and not receiving adequate financial or emotional support from my partner. I tried my best to hide the embarrassing truth of living with an aggressive drunk, juggling unpaid bills, spinning tales about my overdrawn accounts to my bank manager (who also happened to be my employer) and covering up the fact that our home had turned into a verbally aggressive war zone. In the beginning, I cried and begged, then I got angry, and then I turned very aggressive. I did not see alcoholism as my problem, as I did not drink, and I no longer wanted to play second fiddle to a bottle of brandy in my marriage and my marital bed. Then started the accusations of the numerous affairs I had with other men – why else would I not want to sleep with him? In hindsight, I just wish I had the names and telephone numbers of all those men – I could have had a little fun – but they never materialised. It seemed I was, after all, not the perfect wife I was supposed to be, and neither was I a suitable candidate for an affair.

I pushed through a divorce in 1992 when I could no longer handle the abusive behaviour and the shame and embarrassment of living with a drunkard. The court gave me custody of the children. The divorce decree included a court order prohibiting him from having contact with the children or me when he was under the influence. Daniel still had a good job at the time and moved into a house on a street one block from where I was renting. His excuse was that he wanted the children to visit him as often as they liked. But this also meant he could sneak over his dirty washing while I was at work, stay for meals, and keep an eye on the myriad men I was having affairs with. Yeah, I wish! We could just as well have stayed married and continued to have spectacular battles.

I didn’t want him in my house or in my life, and after a few fallouts during which I had to call the local police to enforce the court order, I realised this was not going to work for me. I had to leave Cape Town, or I would never be able to create a decent life for myself and my children. I accepted a transfer to Bloemfontein and took the children with me. They were fourteen, thirteen and eight years old, respectively.

Not long after the divorce, Daniel let me know that he received a substantial government pension payment when the state's meat-grading services were privatised and was then offered a position at the private company that took over the former government function. I heard through the grapevine that he entered a rehabilitation centre and was no longer drinking, but he did not mention this. Then he met a woman to whom he proposed marriage. As far as I was concerned, that was great news – at last, it seemed I would be free to get on with my life, without an ex-husband clinging to me like Velcro.

I expected the children might have a few problems adjusting, but at least we had peace and quiet at home most of the time. They became quieter, more well-behaved, almost fearful, as if they were waiting for the next bomb to drop. I worked long hours during the day, but I spent evenings and weekends, all my free time, in fact, at home with them or acting as Mom’s Taxi. Soon, they had a new circle of friends from school, and we also had lively social time with colleagues and their children on weekends. During the school holidays, I allowed the children to visit their father, and we split the cost of their air or bus travel. I thought everything was going well. The children were settling down.

But Daniel was not yet ready to let go. I have not yet been punished sufficiently for having the gall to walk out on him. He started insisting that the boys return to Cape Town to live with him. He was no longer willing to pay maintenance for three children. We relied on these sporadic payments to get by. I had to buy food and clothing, pay school fees, pay the bond on my townhouse, and pay for utilities, etc., from my meagre salary. This, even though I was still paying off the overdraft and loans taken on to try and survive during the disastrous marriage. All loans were in my name at the bank where I was employed, which means I had no choice but to accept responsibility for repayment when we were divorced. I was, in any case, so desperate to get away from this toxic relationship that I would have agreed to any stipulations in the divorce order. And, of course, he was right; financially, they would be far better off with him. If I agreed to these arrangements, they could return to their previous school and would be back amongst their old friends, living in luxury compared to what I could offer them. I was not prepared to go back to court and turn this matter into a tug-of-war in which the children would be the ones to get hurt in the end. I decided to leave the decision to go or stay to them.

Once they were back in Cape Town, the boys rarely contacted me and were conveniently not available when I called. I was genuinely taken aback that they found it so easy to leave, and I was devastated when it seemed my children did not want any contact with me. I found out years later that they believed that I had initiated their move to Cape Town. These were the kind of distorted truths that almost broke me. But I had another very young child to care for, and I turned my attention to her.

Featured photo: AI-illustrated photo of an alcoholic sitting at a table drinking while his wife turns her back on him.