For an alcoholic who truly desires to quit for his/her own sake, the reward for quitting drinking is sobriety. For an alcoholic who quits for any other reason, no reward is going to be sufficient to make it worthwhile to him/her to stay sober.

It’s not the same as giving a dog snausages to teach him to sit, stay, and roll over.

#1 I really feel compassion for this woman. Her love and desire for her husband to be sober, she sounds like she was willing to agree to whatever intent he put behind becoming sober. On the other hand, I think he played upon this knowing in return for living out a fantasy, he could always fall off that wagon later and she could not take this from him afterwards. If he doesn’t stay sober, I would say leave. How much more could she give him in chances and shallow agreements. Many drunks would line up to take a wish being fulfilled and worrying about staying sober later.

#2 My brother-n-law has always had female friends, they are like family in thier home, but are just friends. My sister has never worried they were anymore than friends and they have a strong marraige. Male or female, a wife can sense if the friend is bad news to thier home, family or relationship. Gender alone should not be the dividing point in friendships either way.

The general response to letter number two bothers me.

I suspect that if a male had written in that his wife had male friends and he wanted her to stop talking with them, there’d be a bunch of people accusing him of being controlling.

Her letter doesn’t seem to indicate any cheating. The "emotional connection" she mentions seems to be that they’re close, as friends, and she doesn’t like it. As some other people pointed out, that’s insecurity.

Now mind you, I’m speaking as someone who does get jealous of her partner’s female friends. There’s one in particular that I don’t like, because I know she’s interested in him. I also know that he’s extremely loyal, and I trust him. And I know she’s honorable enough to respect that he’s not on the market. I’m jealous nonetheless, but it is an insecurity thing, and I know that. He deserves to have his friends, regardless of their gender. On the flip side, I was friends with a male (who incidentally was about twice my age) who was interested in me, but we never did anything at all; we were friends and nothing more. And my partner was jealous, but again, he knew we were just friends. (We’re no longer friends because he moved and we fell out of touch, not because my partner was jealous.)

So to me, saying that you should demand your partner give up his friends or give up you is pushing it. Therapy should be sought, yes, both to see why she’s so insecure and why he’s unwilling to comrpromise to make her happier, but I don’t think he should be forced to give up his friends.

I’d like to share something I was told years ago regarding addicts.

"How can you tell if an addict is lying?  His lips are moving."

The reason a 12 step program has the best success rate is because it requires the addict to be totally honest with himself and others.  An addict is almost incapable of dealing with reality and will escape into one fantasy after another, change from one addiction to another, etc.  The stripper was just another addiction in the making. 

The other addiction is the wife’s, she’s addicted to the addict.  Get Help.

#1: Huge mistake on your part even allowing him to meet with a stripper in a hotel, alone. If it’s not something he can do with you there, then he shouldn’t be doing it. The end result of this situation falls into the category of human nature. You can’t put a young kid in a toy store without them wanting something for themselves. If you don’t want the kid to insist on a new toy, you don’t take them shopping for a gift for someone else. Consider this a life lesson. Be thankful that he was honest with you and feels horrible about it. That is a sure sign it won’t happen again. Also be thankful he is no longer drinking. My father was an alcoholic and my ex still is. That is no way to live. Get outside help if you need to, but I believe you can save your marriage.

#2: I smell a big rat. Yeah, my BF gets the occasional call from a female co-worker or his supervisor at home, like maybe once every few weeks. Those conversations are short and to the point, they are also taken with me in the room. Totally acceptable. The only females he hears from “regularly” are his daughters and sister, also totally acceptable. One co-worker was calling almost nightly, drunk off her behind, crying because her husband and son were in jail for drugs. I calmly told him that I didn’t like it. For one, this was cutting into our time together. Two, she might take his friendship the wrong way which could cause problems at work. And three, it was the same sob story every single time she called; she refuses to take an active part in cleaning up her own life and doing what she has to do. Dealing with a person like that gets on the nerves and is not worth the time. So………….if your husband isn’t respecting your feelings and putting a stop to these calls there is a whole lot more going on than he is telling you. What was not mentioned was if he leaves the room to talk to them. That would be a huge red flag.

Addiction is all about control, and what alcoholic wouldn’t want to believe that he can quit and stay off the sauce?  Bargaining with his wife about a reward sounds like another control game, and if I were the wife, I’d opt out of playing.   "It’s wonderful that you want to quit!  I wish you luck.  And if you want to reward yourself, that’s up to you.  I’ll help you celebrate your first month of sobriety."