My husband and I have been together 13 years but married 6.  He comes from a long line of addicts.  He choose alcohol.  He dealt with this for about 80% of our relationship.  It got especially bad after our son was born a few years ago. I wouldn’t see him for long periods of time as he would binge drink nearly nightly. I was active in Al-Anon and practiced disconnect.

A little while back, he was arrested while under the influence of alcohol and possibly pills.(That’s still undecided to this day.)

For many years, he would call his out of state estranged family (he wasn’t raised with his biological father’s family) and apparently complain about me.  When I’d threaten to move out with our son  or if I’d threaten divorce, they all heard his intoxicated side of the story.  He even blamed me for his law troubles and his estranged family of course took his side. A lot of nonsense was said about my character and because he was intoxicated quite often, he can’t remember all that was said.

In the last year, we moved, unwillingly, to the same state as this estranged family.  We suffered major loss in a weather catastrophe and had to relocate quickly.  I’m now exposed to these family members who openly disrespect me.  My husband’s estranged father passed away shortly after we arrived, really hating me.  There was once incident where he told my husband to leave me for someone he could trust.  My husband attempted to correct the nasty things said about me but too much damage was done.  The gossip spread like a virus and distant family members we didn’t know existed, have asked me if what they’ve heard is true.

My problem is my husband still behaves like a victim.  He’s been sober for almost 6 months but he’s not attempting to protect me. He still calls his family or visits them, allows them to belittle me and just tells me he doesn’t want to cause drama by sticking up for me. I have to stick up for myself and that travels through the family and I’m “crazy”, dramatic” and “rude”.

I carry a lot of angry towards my husband.  I live 20 hours from my family and being isolated is causing depression.  While he goes to family gatherings and socializes, I feel discomfort about what’s being said about me and I know he’ll just nod his head and change the subject.  I’ve looked into divorce over this. I put him 100% in front of my family.  Sadly, he behaves like a scared child, in too deep.