The Gluttonous Marriage

Sexual desire is not the only physical pleasure that can become obsessive and hurt or destroy a marriage. There are many other problems in which one spouse’s commitment to a marital good becomes excessive and throws the family balance out of whack.

• It may be a workaholic  spouse who is willing to put in all sorts of hours and sacrifices to be a champion breadwinner, but who makes no effort to be as available to the spouse and family as they are to their job and career.

• It may be an alcoholic spouse, or

• one who throws excessive time and family money into sports activities or hobbies or home decoration or landscaping.

None of these are bad in themselves—quite the contrary—but they become evils if they destroy the harmony of the family.

 

In Dante’s third circle of Hell we find the gluttonous wallowing in a putrid, nauseating slush produced by a ceaseless icy rancid rain. Having sacrificed love in life for solitary self-indulgence, the gluttons grovel in the mud by themselves, sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives.

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The word gluttony comes from a Latin verb meaning to swallow or gulp. Often we think of it only in narrow terms of overindulgence in food and drink but it really refers to the general problem of overindulgence or over consumption of any creature comforts. Gluttony involves overindulgence in things that are often good in themselves but become a problem when they are given a central place in one’s life, or when one's "right" to such comforts is taken for granted. 

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When Peter called to request couples’ counseling he told me that he'd been referred by their family doctor. Janet had recently fallen down the basement stairs, hit her head and needed stitches. Peter believed she had fallen due to being intoxicated and losing her balance. He reported that Janet insisted that she’d tripped and been unable to catch the railing. He said that he was extremely frustrated with her refusal to acknowledge what he saw as her drinking problem. On the verge of divorce they wanted to come for counseling.

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When they came to my office, I asked them who wanted to explain what brought them. Peter looked first to Janet, then responded with a sigh: "I've asked Janet to come to counseling. She's changed a lot since we got married."

 

Janet interrupted Peter. "I admit that. When we were dating I made Peter the focus, but now I'm a Mom and I make more time for our son."

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Clad in sweat pants and a t-shirt, Janet seemed to have been caught by surprise rather than having prepared to come to therapy. In contrast Peter was dressed in a suit and tie, apparently having come in straight from work. He had a slight paunch but was clean shaven with a stylish haircut. Janet's hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was quite overweight and her face had a puffy, unhealthy look. A bandage covered the stitches on her forehead.

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As is typical to individuals in couples counseling, they each had a story to tell but didn't want to expose themselves too early to a strange therapist. I often use joining techniques such as conversations about daily activities and things they like to do individually and together to overcome this reluctance

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Janet explained that she was a stay-at-home mom, having given up pursuing a career in order to care for their one child, a very curious and active three year old who kept her quite busy.

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Looking pointedly at his watch to let us know that he felt we were wasting his time, Peter interrupted. “We aren't here about parenting. Janet drinks too much."

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"I don't understand why Peter insists I drink too much," Janet said, glaring back at Peter. "When we met we were both in college it wasn't like he didn't party as hard as I did. Back then Peter enjoyed partying with me. Now if I have a few drinks, I'm an 'alcoholic'." Janet used her fingers to make air quotes as she said the word "alcoholic".

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"I've tried everything I can think of. I've gotten rid of all the alcohol in the house to support her efforts to stop drinking during the day. But then I found her passed out on the couch with our three year old wandering through the house," Peter said.

 

Janet bristled and raised her voice, "I was taking a nap. It is exhausting trying to keep up with a toddler."

 

"You stunk of rum and coke," Peter said. Turning to me he added, “According to the AA literature, Janet is in denial."

 

Janet defended herself. "The focus of my life is my child and not Peter. Before having him I would usually cook dinner for Peter or meet him after work and go out. Now I spend all day with my son. I no longer have the energy to cook or chat into the small hours. I admit it, we stopped going out much. I don't dress up in the way I used to, either. I can't see the point. Our life is about our son, isn't it?"

 

"Your focus is not our son," Peter insisted. "Even after I found Janet passed out, she refused to go to rehab. She insists she doesn't have a problem. I've found liquor bottles in the toilet tank and when I do, I drain them into the toilet. It is ridiculous to be so powerless."

 

"I am exhausted by the time Peter comes home. I'm too tired to cook for him. But I can't feed a toddler the foods Peter wants to eat. Most of the time Peter gets home so late that I fall asleep while putting Jake to bed.  I am so tired," Janet spoke contritely, clinging to her version of their marital problems.

 

“Janet may be bored, or lonely, or something, but I can't fix that for her,” Peter responded. “She's a danger to herself and our son. She's got to stop drinking and after she fell down the stairs I've realized that I can't make her. And if I can't make her stop then I need to leave. And I'll need to take Jake to keep him safe."

 

Janet spoke with tears of frustration sparkling in her eyes. "When we met we had goals of where we were going and what we were gonna do to get there. Peter knew me when I was a partier and just because I had my son 3 years ago doesn't mean I have to change my need for fun. I never drink before noon. But I'll have a beer with lunch. C'mon, with just a toddler for conversation a girl's gotta have a beer just to mellow out the day."

 

"Janet swore to me she'd stop drinking when she was alone with Jacob. She hasn't. If I won't go out with her on the weekends, she goes out with her girlfriends. She always gets shitfaced, then she isn't able to function over the weekend. I'm sick of it, sick of picking up after her, sick of worrying about her and Jacob. I'm just so done."

 

Janet’s and Peter’s marriage suffers from the sin of gluttony.

 

Individuals who when they are bored, lonely, angry or sad, turn to drinking have a disordered relationship to alcohol. When this drinking interferes with the ability to carry out their responsibilities in their lives, we use the term alcoholic.

 

Over time if their use of alcohol turns excessive, they experience more and more disruption of their personal and professional lives.

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Not everyone who drinks frequently is an alcohol abuser, and not all people who abuse alcohol become full-blown alcoholics. Nonetheless, alcohol abuse is a big risk factor. Sometimes alcoholism develops suddenly in response to a stressful change, such as a breakup, retirement, or another loss. Other times, it gradually creeps up as one's tolerance to alcohol increases. If one is a binge drinker or drinks every day, the risks of developing alcoholism are greater.

 

On the other hand a typical spouse of an alcoholic will take responsibility for solving their spouse's problems. The codependent believes that help is needed and that the person in need (their alcoholic spouse) cannot manage to make the right decisions or take the right actions to solve his or her own problems. Once advice has been given, the codependent expects the advice to be followed.

 

Codependents often add to marital problems when they do not understand or respect boundaries. The codependent will expend enormous amounts of energy to take charge of another’s life--all under the guise of sincerely wanting to help. When the help or advice is ignored or rejected, the codependent feels angry, abused, and unappreciated.

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Alcoholism and other abuses of addictive substances are not the only forms of gluttony that can damage a marriage.

 

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," goes an old adage, implying that a woman could "catch" a man by being a good cook. It implies a bargain that is made: he provides her with a house, clothes and income; she makes the house into a home by cooking, cleaning and decorating. Times have changed. In a world of two working spouses the dynamic is different but adage continues to reflect the potential for a contractual marriage in which creature comforts are at the heart of a marital bargain.

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In marriage, gluttony can occur when people marry, and stay married, as part of a bargain for the purpose of receiving creature comforts. The mutual giving and receiving of human comforts is not bad in itself; on the contrary, it is one of the great benefits of marriage. What gets in the way of the self-giving generosity that we are called to in marriage is the parsimonious nature of the bargain.

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Instead of love—in which the partners work for the good of each other for its own sake—the partners give so that they may get.

 

But what happens in such a marriage when a debilitating illness strikes or a comfortable career is destroyed by changing economic concessions? What happens when the good--like alcohol--comes to play an ever larger role in one of the spouse’s lives, interfering with their ability to fully love their spouse?

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The Church Fathers generally tied the sin of gluttony to a lack of generosity—the notion that a person would eat more than is necessary to sustain themselves when other people do not have enough. 

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A marriage can therefore be understood as gluttonous when each spouse's gifts of time, and labor are taken for granted by their partner as their due. Janet’s explanations for her drinking reflect this attitude. She insists that she has a right to alcohol as a compensation for her service to her child. She insists that she and Peter were “partiers” when they wed, and that he has no right to change that now, implying that he is failing to maintain the bargain with which they entered into marriage (Peter is not without a place in their damaged marriage--he is a classic codependent whose efforts to “save” her by controlling her feed into their relationship struggles, but that’s a different struggle and we’ll deal with it later).

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As with lust, it is a particular challenge to deal with gluttony because the consumption of food and drink, the use of  medication, the acquisition of creature comforts, are all good in themselves and even necessary to life.

 

It is when the desire for these things--rather than the things themselves--get in the way of spouses serving one another, and their children, that gluttonous spouses find themselves increasingly mired in the cold, muck of their own self-indulgence, and the marriage begins to fall apart.