GAMES FOR ANGRY COUPLES – TREATMENT
One such couple who came into treatment consisted of an alcoholic man and his equally alcoholic wife. He was a failed musician who blamed his failure on his wife: “If it weren’t for you, I could have been somebody.” He held her responsible for holding him down, including in his rationalization her bringing their four children into the world. (His wife had become pregnant when they were only seeing one another, and he’d felt obliged to marry her.) He felt his life had been literally destroyed by his wife, and he continually lambasted her for that. He would typically come home drunk after work and begin hammering away at her, verbally and sometimes physically, taking out any daily frustration on her and always ending up by blaming her for everything.
The wife, meanwhile, was a martyr type who also blamed her spouse for everything: “I don’t know why I put up with this hell,” she would moan again and again, each time her husband battered her. She clutched her four children tightly to herself and turned them against their father, telling them he was an evil drunkard and that she should leave him. But when they gave their permission for her to do so (even urged her to), she could not do so. Down deep she was too insecure to separate from him because she had had a disturbing childhood, yet had never been able to separate from her psychologically abusive parents. Nor could she refrain from talking back to him, and sometimes instigating quarrels—both of which actions her children begged her to avoid.
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