Betrayal: A Case Study
Beverly and Chris were married for 7 years. Chris was a
recovering alcoholic and drug addict who had been clean and
sober for several years before he met Beverly. Beverly was a
successful professional and Chris was a hard-worker in a blue
collar job. After several years, Beverly suggested that the
couple start a business of their own. They decided to invest in
rental properties which they hoped would help grow their savings
and allow them to travel and enjoy life more. They got a second
mortgage on their home and bought several fixer-uppers in the
same town where Chris worked. Things did not go as smoothly as
expected, but they kept working on it and trying to deal with
the stresses of a new business together.
After about a year, Beverly came home to find Chris crying and
upset. She asked him what was wrong and he said he had to move
out and "see what he wanted in life". Beverly was caught totally
off guard and was devastated, but had no choice but to let him
go. He left immediately and, in a week, came back to pack up his
personal belongings. He told Bev he was staying with friends. In
the meantime, Bev worked the business on her own. About a month
after Chris left, Beverly received a call from the bank that her
business account was overdrawn. After meeting with the bank, she
discovered that Chris had been funneling money out of their
business account for some months before he left. When Beverly
finally reached him, he minimized the theft, but said that he
would reimburse the account. A couple of weeks later, Bev found
out from friends that Chris was seeing another woman, someone he
had mentioned as a new acquaintance at work. After two small
checks, Chris stopped paying Beverly back.
Can This Relationship Be Saved?"
There is not much hope for this relationship. Chris has a
history of addictive behavior in the past. While he had been
clean and sober for some time before he married Bev, he is
fragile to reacting to stress with a relapse. Obviously, Chris
had been secretive about his feelings for some time. By the time
he decided to talk to Bev about it, he was ready to leave. Not
talking is definitely a red flag for relapse.
It looks
as if Bev was the codependent in this relationship because she
was the one who made the suggestion to start the business.
Reading between the lines, she takes the lead in trying to
"help" Chris by trying to make him into an entrepeneur. She
married a blue collar worker and then wasn't accepting of the
limitations that might mean in terms of their lifestyle.
When the business started to flag, Chris wasn't equipped to deal
with it in a direct way with his wife. Instead, he started
seeing another woman and lying to Bev about it. Alcoholics are
extremely adept at rationalizing destructive behavior. I'm not
sure how Chris was justifying betraying his wife, but by the
time he began to steal money from her, there is a very strong
chance he had started drinking, drugging, or gambling. This was
the point where he was in in a complete relapse, and it was only
a matter of time before he would be found out. Chris bailed out
with more lies before he had to face that consequence.
The negative prognosis for the marriage is cemented by the fact
that, even after he was found out, Chris made no attempt to be
honest, apologize, or take responsibility for his actions. He
resorted to addictive behaviors like rationalization,
minimizing, and more lies.
Bev should move on and deal
with her own issues around this marriage. Let Chris continue to
run the course of his relapse. Hopefully, he will get back into
recovery before he hurts anyone else.
A postscript for
Beverly: She can take some steps to stay out of the codependency
role by being completely honest about Chris's behavior to family
and friends. To do otherwise would be a continuation of
caretaking, "protecting" Chris from having to face the
consequences of his actions. By the same token, Beverly will be
extremely vulnerable to Chris's "charming" side should he try to
reconcile with her. Chances are also strong that he will attempt
a reconciliation because addicts are very dependent on their
codependent partners.
Another postscript: I don't want
to give the impression that recovering addicts are bad partners.
Recovering addicts who are actively working a program can be
very good partners because they have been forced to look at
themselves closely, are used to talking about and listening to
feelings (in group meetings) and can be insightful about
behaviors and motivation.