to NOT ask DP this?

He has a clear choice socialising with you or going to the pub with his friends. He doesn't choose you. I'd look for someone who does want to spend their time with you. Don't settle for crap.

Honestly, if I were on your shoes with your life experience (and I’m 50+ myself and divorced), when you don’t have a long shared history, you’re right to look at this and say it’s not how you want to spend time together. You don’t have the living-full time or seeing each other daily to make allowances on his free nights where he just wants to zone out.

Myself, I do the same as him, tbh / when I’m child-free, I’m dying to just have a few drinks with no obligations and slop about on a Saturday. Difference is, I’m not in a relationship, and when I was, I smartened myself up to focus my time on my then-BF.

Sounds like you’ve enough friends and interests to have a fulfilled and interesting life without him, and he doesn’t sound like he wants to change. And you’re mature enough to not go down the path of being the ‘nag’, a term I hate but I hope you understand it’s the role of ‘nag’ I mean.

if you’re already setting him little tests, you know how he is longterm, and I think you are going to end up disappointed.

It would me

7 measures of spirit is a quite a lot. To me anyway!

Sounds to me he has an established way of winding down and letting off steam, established as you say from when he was in the forces. Little incentive for him to find new ways to decompress (no offence to you), because he's tapping into that powerful camaderie he used to share every Friday and these weekends work for him.

A hobby would pull him in a different direction but he doesn't have by the sounds of it, so yes, incompatibility does sound like the crux of it

I'm afraid binge drinking is a form of alcoholism and it sounds like its a bit of a problem for both of you.

With what you’ve added, I think it’s pretty clear that the drinking is just an excuse because he wants you to laze around and watch TV with him on a Saturday. He’s not “suffering terribly with a hangover,” he’s just not interested in doing anything else and looking for a reason to a) have his own way and b) cajole you into sitting around with him so he’s not lonely. Certainly a bit low-effort and selfish on his part, and definitely a compatibility issue overall.

Glad to read your last post, @PyongyangKipperbang . I enjoy your posts and reading your OP made me a bit sad for you. Onward and upward!

I don't think it's necessarily his drinking that's the problem. It's the fact he chooses to drink which in turn makes him unable to spend quality time with you, is the true problem.

Sounds like an ex I had. He was a social butterfly, so had to go out every Friday evening and Saturday afternoons with friends. So the two weekends a month when I was childfree, but he wouldn't let me come over during those times because he was doing other social plans. So I would go over Saturday evening and leave Sunday by noon. I felt he chose his socializing over me, especially since I only had two child free weekends a month, and I only expected him to spend just one of those weekends entirely with me. In the end he just didn't like me as much as I liked him, and things eventually ended.

If someone likes you enough they are going to make an effort to spend time - quality time - with you.

Jesus. All these he’s got a drink problem, how bloody mental honestly.

You just have different priorities and life styles. You’d do my head in if I’m honest.

What do you have in common? You both seem to want to do different things. He obviously has his way of unwinding and yours is different. Not sure what either of you are getting from this relationship

Sounds like he's not prioritising you and the relationship. If you didn't join him at the pub on a Friday and went out for the day on a Saturday, you'd never see him! He expects you to fit in with his preferences.

Sounds like he's just stopped trying. If going to the pub every childfree Friday and every childfree Saturday being a write-off is what he wants to do, then leave him to it. He takes it for granted you'll stick around but consider showing him that you won't.

That's the problem though, he is trying to combine his only one on one time with his partner with his chill time. No wonder she's pissed off.

I'd challenge that perhaps he has some intolerance to wine if he is this impacted by wine that he is baggage the day after. Why does he continue to drink wine, has he tried other drinks, they may not impact him so greatly? Then you could go about your life?

Saying from experience, i used to suffer really bad hangovers; then realised it was wine. I now don't drink wine at all - cant tolerate it; the last straw was i started with a migraine within half hour of taking a glass of wine, i hadn't even finished it. That knocked me out for 2 days - not even a glass of wine.

Surely he's allowed one day on a busy fortnight where he just chills at home - wine or no wine. My ex go to their dads EOW (no other time though) and usually on the Saturday I'm so exhausted I just crash too. Rarely arrange to do anything. I also think it's fine to go and socialise once a fortnight. Perhaps you are t compatible

What's the saying...... "never treat someone as a priority if they only consider you an option"...

It’s amazing how talking it through opens your eyes sometime isn’t.

There are so many men like this, set in their ways, in their small lives, and not really able or prepared to properly adapt. Their world extends to their local. They aren’t bad men, they may even want to be ones who do more, but it’s just too much of an effort or too scary.

Fling him back and get yourself an adventurer. You’re fab, you don’t need every weekend on the couch.

I had a boyfriend like this. I'd show up on a Saturday night and he wasn't even dressed. Takeaway, film he wanted to see or a pint at the pub next door at a push. I was just a small component of his week, not the main event. Difference being we were 17 and I was too young to know better.

This is a boring man, OP. Time to throw back.

Sorry to read that update, relationships are hard because most people present their best outgoing selves at the start but can't sustain it long term.

You sound massively incompatible. You won't mould him into something you'd prefer so stop trying. From his point of view, you're already laying ground rules and from your POV, he has different interests and different dopamine hits to you.

Stop trying to change him and find someone better suited.

I think you have nailed it as in he takes you for granted! I also think my DH totally takes me for granted in all honesty ( and I have said this out loud lots) if anything happened - DH leaves me or dies I would 100% not bother getting with a bloke again. I love him dearly and do not resent him for one minute - I like looking after him. But once we are done - probably when one of us dies I will live alone and get a cat.

No-one drinks a bottle of wine and can’t function all day the day after.

I would have no hope of functioning if I drank a whole bottle. It would be messy at the very least.

Sorry, that's not helpful OP.

Agree your problem is his priorities, if you want to spend time with him being more functional then you probably need to make it clear.