When we first met, I worshiped the man who was to become my husband. He is ten years older than I am, and I looked up to his experience of life – and everything that he had survived.

My father’s drinking had always troubled my mother and I; my husband was in recovery from alcohol use and I pinned my hopes for my future that there would never be a shadow of alcohol on my life on his recovery.

I put him on a pedestal.

A year or two into our relationship, things happened that caused him to behave in ways that I never expected or thought he could. By which I mean somebody whom I thought would never misuse alcohol was put in a situation where they felt they could cope in no other way.

He fell off his pedestal: it was a very long way to fall.

I had set him up with standards – expectations – way beyond those I placed on any other person. It was inevitable that one day he would fail and fall.

When he relapsed and began to drink, I feared the very worst.

To be sure, things did get very, very bad. I took verbal and physical abuse.

But the first sin was mine.

It is cruel to put somebody on a pedestal – no human should have that burden put on them.

I made him pay for disappointing me. I made him pay for hurting me.

I made sure he felt the shame of that fall.

Shame is a hideous weapon to use against somebody that you are supposed to love. Shame tells somebody that they are intently bad. When somebody feels bad without a way to redeem themselves, shame causes a destructive cycle.

I didn’t stop loving him, that one of there reasons why we have stayed together. However, the quality of my love was tarnished.

This is just one of the little ways in which I have harmed our relationship.

I have to admit to myself that I was in the place of fear and pain; it doesn’t make what I behave like right, enables me not to turn to punishing myself too much!