Booze and Marriage

Last week it was our fifteen year wedding anniversary.

My marriage was one of the things that worried me the most about quitting the booze, and I know from many of the e-mails I receive that I wasn't alone in this.

I thought Mr SM would be horrified at losing his drinking partner and I mourned, in advance, all those romantic evenings over a bottle (or several) that we'd no longer share.

No more giggling like children over terrible jokes, clinging to each other as we stumble up the stairs and slurring I really, really love you, I do.

(Click here for my posts from back then: Not the Girl he Married and Not the Girl he Married, Part 2).

I confess, there are still a few moments that I miss. But the truth is those fun moments are fleeting, and they are followed by hours - if not days - of grumpiness and recriminations.

I may not be the wild party child I once was, but I'm much nicer, more thoughtful, even tempered... I'm a much better wife.

And as for Mr SM - he's transformed!  I never asked him to stop drinking around me, but, because I'm no longer egging him on, he generally only drinks at weekends and has lost at least a stone in weight.

The new healthy living regime has spurred him on and he's even taken up pilates! He keeps muttering about 'six packs' (not the booze related variety) and 'ab cracks'. My husband is starting to look seriously hot.

The day after our wedding anniversary, (when we still giggled like children over a fabulous dinner out, just with less stumbling and slurring), Mr SM sat down on our bed (purchased just before our wedding) which promptly collapsed beneath him.

I do hope this is not a sign.

Mr SM found some old bathroom tiles in the cellar and used a stack of them to prop up the broken corner of the bed, which means I'm back to spending every night on the tiles. Ho ho.

It's really hard to nurture a marriage when you're spending all your time wrapped around a bottle. And if you're not careful, you'll find that you left it too late.

Liam Neeson, whose wife Natasha Richardson died in a ski accident five years ago, says it much better (in a recent Facebook post) than I ever could:

Spend time with your spouses. Treat them well. Because, one day, when you look up from your phone, they won't be there anymore.

What I truly learned most of all is: live and love every day like it's your last. Because one day it will be. Take chances and go and live life. Tell the ones you love that you love them every day. Don't take any moment for granted.

Life is worth living.

And so say all of us.

Love SM x