The Choice

Once we are recognizing and taking responsibility for our feelings, we
can learn to recognize and take responsibility for our role in the
dynamic that shapes our relationships. As I learned in my marriage,
and in my relationships with my children, one of the proving grounds
for our freedom is in how we relate to our loved ones. is is
something that comes up frequently in my work.
Jun wore pressed slacks and a button-up shirt the morning I met
him. Ling stepped through the door in a perfectly tailored skirt and
blazer, her makeup expertly applied and her hair carefully coiffed. Jun
sat at one end of the couch, his eyes going over the framed diplomas
and photographs on my office walls, looking everywhere except at
Ling. She perched neatly on the edge of the couch and looked right at
me. “is is the problem,” she said without preamble. “My husband
drinks too much.”
Jun’s face reddened. He seemed on the verge of speaking, but he
kept quiet.
“It has to stop,” Ling said.
I asked what “it” was. What were the behaviors she found so
objectionable?
According to Ling, over the last year or two, Jun’s drinking had
gone from an occasional evening or weekend activity to an everyday
ritual. He began before he came home, with a scotch at a bar near the
university campus where he was a professor. at drink was followed
at home by another, and another. By the time they sat down for
dinner with their two children, his eyes were a little glassy, his voice a
little too loud, his jokes a little too off-color. Ling felt lonely and
burdened by the responsibility of marching the kids through cleanup
and bedtime routines. By the time she was ready for sleep, she was
simmering with frustration. When I asked about their intimate life,
Ling blushed, and then told me that Jun used to initiate sex when they
went to bed, but oen she was too upset to reciprocate. Now he