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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

Am I expecting too much?

20 replies

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:06

I stood on a street tonight after leaving early from a very nice evening with friends wondering why my DH finds the only way to socialise is to get pissed.

He doesn't drink often. I'm not worried about a drink problem, however, when he does drink he drinks so he can't speak, gets angry and is a complete twat.

We, actually I, have stopped accepting invitations because he just can't hold his drink. But the crap thing is he doesn't see any problem.

In normal life he's fine, reasonable, mature but I'm embarrassed every time he drinks. We're 40 not kids.

I really just feel flat about ever going out again, he will tell me it's my issue tomorrow and I really don't know if it is.

OP posts:

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TheoriginalLEM · 10/10/2015 22:07

he very much has a drink problem. how often does ge do this?

pictish · 10/10/2015 22:08

How could him drinking himself into a spectacle be your issue? You know it's not.

Hughpughbarneymagrew · 10/10/2015 22:11

This isn't normal behaviour. Is getting totally shitfaced his way of coping with awkwardness in social situations?

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:12

It's only when we go out. We stopped socializing for years when DCs were small as I refused to do out with him.

So this year it's been once.

We have been out once.

OP posts:

MissMarpleCat · 10/10/2015 22:13

This isn't a one off. You're saying your DP regularly gets very drunk when you socialise, you're reluctant to accept invitations because of your dps drinking, therefore it is a problem.

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:15

The crap is. Tonight was a night where I knew four out of the twenty or so people, he knew more than twelve. If anything I should be the anxious drinker.

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patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:18

It's bizzare though. As the only time he does drink is when we go out with other people. I drink wine in the house, he drinks tea, he drives if we go to a restaurant. It's just group socializing.

OP posts:

MissMarpleCat · 10/10/2015 22:19

With drinkers it doesn't work like that.

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:19

missmarple no that's the thing it's not regularly. It's just when we go out.

OP posts:

MatrixReloaded · 10/10/2015 22:20

I wouldn't go out with him again. Leave him at home and go on your own. There's no reason your social life should suffer.

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:22

Oh I do matrix however I want to do the couple thing but it seems to always end with this.

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MissMarpleCat · 10/10/2015 22:23

Yes, go to any gatherings alone. Perhaps he can't control drinking in social gatherings. Are you certain he never drinks otherwise?

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:32

No doesn't drink. He cycles fanatically. His family are if you don't get drunk you're boring type. So grew up with Saturday night be sick or you haven't had fun.

I think I've just had an epiphany tonight that it is how it is embedded in him that fun = pissed.

OP posts:

Lweji · 10/10/2015 22:38

Does he have any real idea of how he is when drunk?

It might pay off to record it and show it to him.

MissMarpleCat · 10/10/2015 22:38

Yes, fun = pissed, he's internalised that from family, like you say.

patterkiller · 10/10/2015 22:49

It's what to do. He's lovely, hard working. Twat when pissed. It happens a few times a year.

It sounds easy to ignore, however, I'd love to meet people. I find our couple social circle is non existent. And those who we see I feel they pity me.

OP posts:

janaus · 10/10/2015 22:56

My DH is the same. After the last time in August, I decided, that's it, I will never go to a function with him. He suddenly becomes a Know it All, and has to be the centre of attention. The last time he acted Inappropriately with a lady there. It's so embarrassing. Then the next morning he denies that he was like that. So I know how you feel about avoiding these situations. They don't see it as a problem.

wannaBe · 10/10/2015 23:14

It may not be that he has a drink problem per se but that he has a problem with drink i.e. that because he doesn't drink very often he has a low tolerance for it, but actually quite enjoys the sociability aspect of it when drinking out with friends. This is absolutely his problem not yours.

I don't drink. In fact i am more or less teetotal, and as such I have no tolerance for alcohol and can flip from sober to not within the space of a few mouthfuls. But unlike your dh I don't like the feeling of lack of control that having too much to drink brings, and as such I don't drink. It's very simple really.

You need to talk to him in the cold light of day, and talk to him about how you feel when he gets drunk to the point of not being able to speak. He surely must have a view when sober of people who get into that kind of state.

I have never been very tolerant of drunk people, and I remember that I once got drunk on a cocktail at a friend's house and couldn't remember going home. I had a row with now xh, fell into bed, and woke the next morning remembering none of it. And the overriding thought was that people go out at weekends to deliberately get into that state and how embarrassing that was.

Your dh needs to realise that his reactions to drink are making things difficult for you because you no longer feel that you can accept invitations for you as a couple. This isn't about him having a problem with drink it's about him being able to limit his intake when he's out.

Does he maybe not realise when he's crossed from having a few drinks to the point of no return? I know that for me I don't have a middle ground between sober and drunk, it's a horrible feeling of giddiness and over emotional but by that point it's too late. But for me I absolutely know that my dp would look out for me and ensure it didn't get to that point. But tbh I just don't like it anyway so it doesn't bother me not to drink at all. (and dp has never seen me drunk so it's irrelevant really).

If your dh refuses to listen then I would just be blunt. Either he limits his drinking when you're out with friends or you see this as an affirmation that you will no longer socialise as a couple because he is embarrassing.

Does he go out on his own with friends? and if so does he drink then?

Triliteral · 10/10/2015 23:43

Patterkiller you have my absolute sympathy. If it helps to have more information, you can look up alcohol abuse ( different from alcohol dependence ) as that is what you are experiencing. You may be able to get some advice from Drinkline or similar, but I have no personal experience of doing that.

You can try to talk to him, as wannaBe says. My husband used to drink so much I was afraid he would die, but like yours it wasn't that often and so he didn't consider he had a problem. I talked to him many times about how unpleasant he was to me and about his safety, but nothing worked. I was just a nagging woman.

You can try, but experience says you are unlikely to change him. You can only change your response to the situation. Eventually we reached a kind of steady state which was tolerable to me, which was that he could go out drinking, but not come home until he was wholly sober. I can't say it was perfect, but we have DCs and it was infrequent enough that I felt it wasn't bad enough to break up. I was, however, no longer the nagging woman.

It came to a head one night when he collapsed and was taken to A&E. I collected him the next day and he was still minimising, saying he had felt ill before going out such that he had to take ibuprofen, so it wasn't just the alcohol. I replied that a person without a drink problem might think 'I'm not feeling well, maybe better take it easy.' I also pointed out that if things had been only marginally different (it was minus ten degrees when he collapsed, but fortunately someone was with him) it would have been me at home, telling the DCs that their daddy was dead. He hasn't done it again, but as you can see, we had to go to extremes for him to believe me regarding the dangers. This in spite of a friend's daughter dying when she choked on he own vomit.

Is this a deal breaker for you? I could understand if it was. It's pretty difficult having a spouse with whom you can never socialise. Would he consider sometimes going out and not drinking, for your sake. That might be a compromise if he would, and he might just learn that it is possible to enjoy those nights out in a different way. Anyway, as I said above, words are only so much use. You have to decide on your own actions, what is and isn't acceptable to you and then live with whatever you decide. It's a horrible problem.

youngman23 · 11/10/2015 13:06

I used to drink, not too often, but when i did i used to get really drunk, but last year me and my partner went out, i got too drunk, and i ended up choking on my vommit, thankfully for me my partner is first aid trained, havent drunk since that day

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