It’s strange how much a marriage can change you. Marrying someone is supposed to make you feel happy, safe and secure. So, why is it that I feel the complete opposite? When I married my husband, I was under the impression that he respects and loves me for who I am. After all, we had been in a relationship for over 6 years before our marriage. I thought I knew all about my husband but unfortunately, things change with time. And I had to experience the worst part of it.

My husband has always been a people person. He loves socialising and is very considerate about what people think about him. While all of this is great, what becomes a problem is that he tends to forget me in the middle of it. He forgets all about my needs as he gets busy tending to the needs of the people around him. After all, he has to please all.

My husband loves going to parties. He also has a big friends circle with whom he often goes out. It’s quite a lovely circle; everyone is pretty nice, including his friends’ wives. Everyone is sporty and fun. There have been ample occasions, where we all have gone out to dinners and pubs. It has been quite a fun ride. But my husband always seems to disagree. He hates the fact that I don’t drink.

I have stayed away from alcohol all my life, merely because I don’t like the taste and what it does to my mind. I like to be in control and alcohol doesn’t let me do that. But my husband always pokes me and tries to get me to drink along with all his friends and their wives. He hates the fact that I stay sober while the rest of them get drunk. “You are missing out on all the fun. Just let loose a little bit.”

Every time he asked me, I refused to drink. And with every refusal, I could see his anger increasing. He grew frustrated with me. We began having fights more often. He always seemed to bring around the fact that I am incredibly uptight and that I am no fun. It really hurt to listen to all this but I kept mum always. The fights between us rarely subsided. Even if we fought over a different matter, we ended up fighting about my lack of openness or ability to have fun. And slowly, he stopped asking me to go out with him. We rarely went out together and hardly made plans for a while.

One day, he told me that his friends have planned a huge get-together and that we have to go. I agreed happily because finally, I got to go out with him. But that entire evening turned wary because I refused to drink again and settled for a simple mocktail. But this time, one of the wives of my husband’s friends jokingly said, “why don’t you try at least once? Being so uptight won’t do you any good at this age.” Even though we laughed after that, I could see my husband fuming.

When we got home later that night, my husband yelled at me. “How boring can you get? I feel embarrassed to take you out these days. This is too much. How uptight can you be? I never want to go out with you!”

Tears welled up in my eyes and this time, it really hurt me. And so, I took a bottle of vodka from our cabinet and gulped down a glass in front of him at that very moment. My husband looked shocked but he didn’t say anything. He went to the other room and took his pillows and blanket and went to sleep in the other room. As I crashed into my bed, my mind started spinning. The sudden gush of vodka in my body made me feel dizzy. But I slept that night.

From that night onwards, I started drinking with my husband. We did go out again with his friends and their wives. I drink now without refusing anything and my husband seems to be very happy about it. To be honest, I hate myself for drinking but the only solace I have is that I got to save my marriage by drinking alcohol.