On the other hand, negative comments or anger may be a defense mechanism and not necessarily stem from truth. For example, heartfelt emotions are often genuine because people lack the rationalization skills to be devious and contriving. “Context can help determine whether drunks mean what they say. The Gateway Foundation, a rehab center, offers some clarity on the range of inhibitions that alcohol can affect: The affected internal filter there would be one that regulates animosity, not truth-telling.

In this case, the alcohol would be making it easier for your wife to just say whatever, true or not, for the sake of hurting you. For example, they could erode certain boundaries of etiquette, fostering negative behavior like lying for effect. Lowered inhibitions may also affect one’s reasoning in other ways. “A drunken man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts” goes the adage, but in this case the man is a woman, and anyway, the adage isn’t entirely reliable. It is true that in lowering inhibitions, alcohol can operate as a truth serum.

How much trust is in her drunk rants? And how can I better deal with them? I’ve brought these things up directly when she is sober, but she doesn’t remember saying them and insists that she would never have said them. I just don’t enjoy the humiliation part of it at all. And I am not providing everything she needs.

I am open to the idea that I can be a better lover.

Wife gets touched by stranger