What A Wedding:
North Marries South
(Tony and Paula )

Tony dragged Paula into my office and stammered through twenty minutes of frustrated efforts to express how he couldn't take any more silence, lifelessness, disrespect and sexual rejection, from Paula. Paula looked like a depressed rag-doll with despair, shame and hatred in her eyes. As I took control of the session (by the HS) I found that there problem happened on their wedding night.

Tony, had been the youngest of twelve in a loud NY Italian family. He grew up comparing himself to his older siblings and always felt inferior except in looks as he grew up. He stuttered badly as a kid, but as a teen found that drinking wine loosened his tongue.

Tony had been so absolutely smitten when he met Paula at college that, without any forethought, he told her she made him speechless and put him at a loss for words. He just wanted to look at her and listen to her beautiful voice.

Paula was overwhelmed and delighted at his gentleness and desire to listen to her. On long walks through the college campus, she shared with him all of her dreams and longings for the future, but she never wanted to talk about her past, and Tony lovingly did not press her.

Tony had found a beautiful woman who didn't care if he could speak eloquently, and he was more content than he could have ever imagined.

Unknown to Tony, Paula's father had been the town drunk in a very small S.Ga town. The whole town saw her dad walking the streets drunkenly mumbling or screaming at imaginary people in violent arguments. Her parents had argued so loudly that they were often the talk of the town among adults and kids at school. Paula initially wished her daddy would drink less and become a man people would not gossip about and mock. When he didn't change, she wished mom would divorce him but mom always told her that alcoholism was not biblical grounds for divorce. Then Paula just wished she could be invisible and never draw attention to herself, that anyone would ever be reminded she was the daughter of the town drunk and raving lunatic. She silently endured the shame and dreamed of a day when she could leave S. Ga to go find happiness in the arms of a gentle, sober and discrete man.

Paula hated her Dad's behavior so much that she did not even invite her parents to the wedding in NY, so great was her desire to leave that life behind.

For the wedding Tony decided to surprise his wife, by drinking just a little wine to loosen his tongue so that he would be able to take his vows easily and speak eloquently to the guests at the reception so that he would do her proudly.

In wine-inspired confidence he spoke his vows a little more loudly and proudly than Paula was accustomed to or comfortable with. At the reception he had what she thought was his first glass of wine but he quickly became joyfully and loudly expressive of his love to her and for his other friends and family. Suddenly he was loudly greeting old friends and family members, and even toasted his bride boldly for all to see.

In his own eyes Tony had finally arrived. With a beautiful bride on his arm and a few glasses of wine in his tongue, he was suddenly not the inferior little boy of the previous twenty three years. His family was obviously very proud of him on this occasion, and he was drinking it in, along with a few more glasses of wine.

Paula tried to keep a smile and politely refused any wine, with a suggestion that she was not feeling very well.

And then came the drive to the honeymoon suite. Paula was uncharacteristically silent, and Tony did not even notice. He was still talking loudly and joyfully while he replayed all the wonderful events of the day.

Paula was shut down and deeply regretted what she had done. In one day she had gone from being so in love and blessed to being so disgusted and terrified. In her eyes sweet adoring, humble, and very discrete Tony was now a loud shameless drunk. She felt she had been deceived and that she was now trapped like her mother had been. How could she have been so stupid? She wished she was Catholic so she could get an annulment, but her remembered mom's words that Dad's alcoholism was no grounds for Mom to divorce him.

At the hotel Tony pleaded with her to come out of the bathroom for twenty minutes while she just cried. He got louder and louder, pleading with her to let him help, crying in confusion and pain for being shut out of her life by the silence. He finally got angry and pounded on the door loud enough for everyone on the floor to hear that something was wrong with the honeymooners.

Simply to shut him up she came out of the bathroom and reluctantly gave him sex that night. He was too drunk and too relieved to realize what was really happening, but inwardly Paula felt she was being raped by a drunken and pathetic man. She resented him for it ever since, and could never quite fully forgive him.

From that time forward, Paula shut off her former love for Tony, but she never expressed to him why. From then on Paula actually wished he would find another lover and commit adultery so she could have biblical grounds for divorce. Toward that end she would withheld sex from him, hoping he'd look elsewhere, and she'd only give in when his anger threatened to surface publicly at the wife who he said was breaking his heart. Paula learned to placate him sexually to prevent any more public disgrace, but she would never ever again speak to him of her dreams for the future.

She wanted to live in a house in the country so that no one would know the mess she had made of her life, but Tony wanted to live in an apartment in the city because that's what he grew up in, and it was closer to his work.

Tony had a great job in sales, which meant he always had to drink just a little wine to give him the verbal fluency he needed. When he came home to his silent and sullen wife, Tony filled the void with talking about his wonderful successes at work.

Instead of getting rid of Tony, Paula got rid of the little girl who grew up with Dad and couldn't trust God to work on h her husband. She got rid of the little girl with a huge idol of discretion, or propriety in public.

Tony crucified all the insecurity of the youngest of twelve children, the belief that he would have to shout to be heard and attended to, and the teen/adult who had turned to wine instead of Jesus to give him speech that would not embarrass him in public.