Did Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello clash over his sober life-style?

Following reports that Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello were “growing apart,” before announcing this week that they planned to divorce, a source close to the couple reveals that their differences were reflected in the fact that he is dedicated to a sober lifestyle and she is not.

This source, a friend of the couple, told the Daily Mail that Manganiello, 46, was “warned” about getting into a serious relationship with someone who is not actively sober. The “Magic Mike” star didn’t expect to change Vergara, but he also didn’t consider the implications for their marriage when the two had different attitudes and practices when it comes to alcohol, the friend said.

“Of course the fact that Sofia is not sober had an impact on their marriage,” the friend said.

While another friend told the Daily Mail that Vergara, 51, “could not have been more supportive” of her estranged husband’s sobriety, she sometimes shared photos of herself on Instagram enjoying a cocktail or a glass of wine, as a way of demonstrating how she was enjoying the company of friends, good food or “the finer things in life,” such as a recent vacation to Italy.

Addiction specialists told the Daily Mail that it can be hard for a sober person to live with someone who still drinks, if only occasionally. It can be “triggering” for the sober person to see their partner holding a drink, smelling the alcohol on them or having alcohol in the house.

“No one overcomes addiction, sobriety is something that you need to work at every day of your life,” Katrina Petersen, an addiction specialist in Dallas, Texas, told the Daily Mail. “It is a disease and when people close to you are exposing you to triggers. it is going to make the fight to stay sober that much harder.”

The “Modern Family” star and Manganiello announced this week that they were separating after seven years of marriage. “We have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the couple shared in a statement to the media. “As two people that love and care for one another very much, we politely ask for respect for our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives.”

The basic narrative emerging from insiders is that there wasn’t any major rupture in the marriage. A source told People that the relationship started out as “a passionate, all-encompassing romance.” But over time, the two simply grew “apart” and began to focus on “different areas of their lives,” the source said.

“They had differences in how their lives should go forward and it caused stress,” a second source told People. “This has been chipping away for a while.”

One of those “different areas” could have to do with alcohol, the Daily Mail reported. Manganiello has been sober for 21 years, saying he stopped drinking in 2002. He often has spoken in interviews or events about his past struggles with alcohol addiction. In a 2019 interview with Men’s Health, he said, “There was a point where I really thought I was broken beyond the point of being able to be fixed.”

“Drinking was a way for me not to have to deal with me,” he continued. “And I think that acting was a way for me to not have to be me either.” His addiction led to an identity crisis that he resolved by taking a break from acting, then setting a healthy new course in life, both professionally and personally.

Another addiction specialist, Audrey Hope, said that a person working on their sobriety is someone who is constantly trying to heal.

“if your partner has been drinking you can smell it,” Hope, a Brentwood-based certified addiction therapist, told the Daily Mail. “It is hard enough making a life decision to change and you don’t need someone in your orbit who can influence you.”

Hope also likened the differences between a sober person and a person who drinks to the dynamic between two people who “speak a different language” from their partner. She also said it’s “very rude” and “very unfair” for one person in a relationship to continue drinking around someone who is actively working on their sobriety. “It is selfish, and other issues in the marriage will surface,” Hope said. “Divorce happens because of selfishness, not being considerate or kind, and living in denial.”

In another report, the Daily Mail quoted sources who spoke of other ways that Vergara and Manganiello were temperamentally different or who had different ideas about the best way to spend their free time.