I met with a new couple for the first time last night. They've been married 27 years and for most of that time, his drinking has been a problem. He drinks, she gets mad. He drinks and lies about it, she gets madder still. There is a blow up she pulls out all the stupid hurtful things he's ever done and he feels like the world's biggest loser. She simmers and sulks. He gets drunk. And on it goes. They perform a well-established dance, the sadomasochistic tango. One psychiatrist stated that when you treat such a couple, you are in fact treating four people because they take turns as sadist and as masochist. I'm not sure yet why she needs to be punished. She almost growled when she said "I don't believe in divorce." No one in the room had brought up divorce!
But she gets to punish him all the time for being such a bad boy. My antennae went up when I found out that he'd been a Roman Catholic altar boy as had his two brothers. They are also drunks. He denied anything inappropriate happened with a priest or seminarian, but I still leave this open as a possibility. It would certainly explain the booze. There is something called repression and drinking suppresses dreaming. And dreamland is where those repressed memories are alive and well. I can't jump to conclusions after just one hour. As my training analyst says "Go for history, history and more history". And so I shall.
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