The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
A husband and wife are at a dinner/drinking party at a bar with a room full of friends. The husband and wife are both drunk. The husband ends up slow dancing and making out with another woman (who knows the man is married, knows the wife, has also been drinking) in front of everyone at the party. Normally when there is music at this bar when the husband and wife are there the wife is unable to get the husband to dance with her at all. The wife left immediately once the making out happened. The next day the wife tells the husband what happened the night before. The husband claims he doesn't remember doing it or the woman he danced and made out with. When he talked to two of their friends (who were there and do not drink at all so they were 100% sober) later they tell him that the woman grabbed him when he came out of the bathroom and started the dancing and making out, which he later relays to his wife.
The questions are:
Who should be believed - the husband, the wife, or the friends? What should happen between the couple?
Personally, I would be inclined to believe the wife. I will out line my reasons below.
1) If both the husband and wife were not too drunk to want to dance (in the wife's case) and actually dance (in the husband's case), and not only dance but also make out, then they were probably not too drunk to remember. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and I have not really heard about it creating false memories, it usually causes blackouts or lack of any memory. To my knowledge and experience alcohol does not cause hallucinations or false memories in people who are sober enough to dance which takes some coordination.
2) I totally belive that the husband had a blackout and does not remember, especially if he continued drinking after that dance.
3) The friends would likely have an ulterior motive to downplay what happened so I would think that their testimony is questionable. If they truly are mutual friends and care about both the husband and the wife this is the only thing they would feel comfortable saying. They must be somewhat wise, but not too wise since then they would mind their own business and not say what they knew. Anyway, they are wise enough to know that people seldom like the bearer of bad news, no matter how truthful.
Their story lets the husband off the hook and presents a different "villian" to the wife, the other woman, who she does not know and so is not a real threat. Oh, her husband was not responsible, he was a victim of this bold and assertive woman who could not keep her hands off him...right. The wife should sympathize with her poor victimized husband rather than be angry at him...right.
That is unlikely that a woman just came up and grabbed a man clearly with his wife or SO, women seldom do that in the first place, they seldom have too, there is rarely a shortage of men eager to go after women in those scenarios. Secondly, women almost never physically grab men who are clearly with their wives, that can be dangerous, and once again, men willing to dance with women they dont' know in a bar are rarely in short supply.
The woman has three choices:
1) Begin her own recovery and become sober so that she never has to question her memories again and can see her husband with clear and sober eyes and see it ALL so she can make a rational decision about how faithful/unfaihtful he is or is likely to be.
2) Decide she is willing to overlook her husband's drunken dancing, making out, and groping of other women right in front of her as this is likely to happen again unless he gets into recovery.
3) Decide that wether in recovery or not she is not going to put up with this behavior from a husband and leave him.
Hope this helps. I am not telling you what to do, you asked for our personal opinion and I am giving it to you.
Is this a one time incident? Then it should be let go.
If either of these people are accustomed to drinking to the point of blackout, where they need to ask their friends what they did last night, then the problem is much bigger than slow dancing.
It's not usually very useful to focus on the details of any one incident. Instead, look at the pattern that the incident is part of. To me, the big red flag here is the blackout. To normal (non alcoholic) grownups, drinking to blackout is very rare - it should happen maybe once every ten years or so, if that. To alcoholics, it happens as often as a couple of times a week. If he is an alcoholic, one little slow dance with a stranger is hardly noticable, among the train wreck he is making and will make of his personal relationships.
Another pattern to look at is the apparent lack of trust and basic manners between this couple - signs of playing "gotcha" in a mariage do not indicate a healthy marriage.
Personally I have a zero tolerance policy on any form of adultery. Therefore, who initiated it is irrelevent. If the husband willingly participated, he is guilty, drunk or not.
Alcohol reduces inhibition, it does not reduce morality or responsiblity. Forgiving this would be the equivilent of forgiving drunk driving...he was drunk, he didn't know any better!
