One aspect of being involved with a charming alcoholic with an excellent social facade, is that I have people telling me all the time how wonderful they are. For most of the marriage, rather than say anything to the contrary, and regardless of how poorly they may have been treating me at the time, in the privacy of our home, I would smile weakly and agree.
I heard someone at an Al-Anon meeting recently, refer to this behavior as "polishing the halo" of a passive aggressive spouse. This person's spouse isn't their qualifying alcoholic, a parent is, but their spouse has some serious problems, none of which are ever displayed in their public persona. And this Al-Anon member has, as I did for so many years, gone along with the public facade, and agreed when people talk to her about how lucky she is to be married to such a great guy! He's so laidback, and so mellow!
When alcoholics have such a great public face, we spouses can feel that we have no-one at all who can understand, believe or relate, to the truth of the matter.
We polish the halo from shame, pride, embarassment, unwillingness to indulge in conflict or argument, many reasons. For me, it's been a lot about pride, and shame.
I've decided I'm not going to do this anymore. Next time anyone suggests that I'm married to the best of all possible spouses, I'm going to politely comment that as a human being, they have their own faults and frailties, just as we all do.
And if, (as has often happened if I've not responded with immediate eagerness to a comment of that sort praising them,) the speaker keeps nudging me with words, wanting me to agree that my spouse is just the most perfectly amazingly wonderful person, I'm going to reply sweetly that actually, the shoe is on the other foot; they're lucky to have me.
I like the very last part of this post ;)
ReplyDeleteI guess I am lucky/unlucky enough that everyone in my circle knows that my son's father is far from perfect, so I don't really have to pretend. The problem then comes when he is acting in a decent manner and no one believes it....
Amen to that sister.
ReplyDelete"When alcoholics have such a great public face, we spouses can feel that we have no-one at all who can understand, believe or relate, to the truth of the matter."
ReplyDeleteThis is so true and has caused deep anguish.
Robin
Excellent post. I had not heard that expression before "polishing the halo"
ReplyDelete"We polish the halo from shame, pride, embarassment, unwillingness to indulge in conflict or argument, many reasons. For me, it's been a lot about pride, and shame."
ReplyDeletePride and shame. There it is. And what's so amazing when you really stop to think about it is how really unappealint AND incompatible those two traits are. And yet so powerful.
I like this post because it speaks a great truth. I actually had people tell me a long time ago that C. was much better than I, etc. That really stung and made me feel a lot of resentment. I now consider the source and also realize that alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful and so are alcoholics.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to me the other day. Someone told me how great is must be being married to a (insert profession). And after talking a bit about our home life she said that we would be just fine. What she doesn't know is that my husband is an alcoholic. And that my charming husband is having an affair and it just came out of hiding. I kept thinking how much I felt the opposite of being lucky. I felt hurt, betrayed, embarrassed, insecure. I'm the honest and true one, he's the one who is fake and puts on a 'show'. Why is he so great? Cause he's really not.
ReplyDelete