There are always 2 sides to every situation & they both count & need to be heard in order to honestly deal with the situation.

Just like my husband did things that got to me even before we got married & my good judgment was not to get married to him.....but common sense & listening to what my mother had to say about the fact he would grow up & be responsible when he had to. He believed that all he had to give to the marriage was his career & because he gave that, it made him responsible.....but there is so much more to being resonsible.....it's how we react to difficult situations & take responsibility in handling them, not hiding from with with alcohol or in one's man cave.

Every side counts in a marriage & if a marriage is ever going to be successful both sides need to be listened to.....but one can't just hold onto their side because it's their side.....it takes growing & compromising & working out the difficult things.......for both husband & wife if you really truly want a successful marriage.

My husband refused to make the necessary changes.....& I refused to continue to tolerate the things that I could no longer tolerate.....which meant that I refused to change either. Sometimes a marriage gets to that impass & there is no way to resolve it.....but I believe that a good effort on both parts needs to be made in the first place before giving up. However, I don't believe in staying together because of the kids.....sometimes the fighting & the drinking (even if you feel you are functional with it) effects the kids whether we want to admit it of not. I know that the fighting in our marriage had a great effect on our daughter but there was no way that the fighting could have been stopped either given the situation. Would have been much better for our daughter if we had been divorced long before I finally left which was long after she graduated & moved out of the house.

Yes, there are always 2 sides in every marriage....just like there is definitely my husband's side to ours........all we can do when we hear one side is either imaging what the other side might be given what is being said from the side we hear, or side with the side we hear.

Given my thinking, I always tend to try to see the possibilities of the other side.....that's just me.....if nothing more than to make sure that the one side sees that there are the possibilities that there is another side that isn't looking at things in the same way.

But to have any relationship work out, both sides need to be equally represented & respected & understood for there to be any possibility of reconciling or really making the relationship successful in the long run.