When Love Isn’t Enough: our Alcoholic Marriage is still in Recovery.

“I know you love me,” I said to my wife. “I just don’t think you like me.”

Her eyes shifted down and her empty stare fixed on her feet. I’d just stumbled onto her deepest, darkest, most tormenting secret.

“I know you love me, Sheri,” I continued. “We have four kids together, we have a business together, both of our names are on the mortgage. We’ve built this life together and we depend on each other because neither of us could do this alone. We’ve been together for so long that I can’t remember life before you.” Sheri was staring at the wall, at nothing in particular while I spoke. She just couldn’t bear to look at me.

She could say she loved me, because she did.

After what we’d been through, there was a bond, an eternal respect, and, on some levels, an unbreakable trust. It was unlike the unconditional love a parent feels for a child, but it was deep and permanent in a different way.

There really wasn’t anything romantic about the love Sheri felt for me. We’d been battling to restore intimacy since shortly after I quit drinking years ago. The love was about fulfilled material needs, division of chores and responsibilities, coparenting, and mutual respect. Frankly, from my best…