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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To refuse DH a bottle of wine

164 replies

Fore · 22/02/2025 20:55

My DH bought 8 cans of beer and a small bottle of bubbly last night. I've rationed the bubbly so I had some last night and whatever I feel like tonight. By 6pm tonight, DH had drank all his 8 cans. There's a bottle of wine I bought a few months back to keep on our cocktail cabinet as I love the bottle. He hinted he'd like some but then muttered 'hm the bottle that I can't have'. I then heard him say, 'i'm going to have some'. I asked him if he would please not. He has now been sulking with me all evening. AIBU?

OP posts:
AngelicKaty · 23/02/2025 00:05

Didimum · 23/02/2025 00:00

An average bottle is 330ml. An average can is 440ml and about 2.4 units. So over 19 units every week within 2 days.

It’s nonsensical that people boil the argument down to ‘being puritan’ or ‘OTT’ or whatever other kind of moral judgement you want to hypothesise is taking place. It’s literally a measurement at which the likelihood of alcohol-related disease turns from low risk to high risk. Do with that what you will, but it is what it is.

Exactly. People on here can joke about it in their state of denial, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall if they told their GP what they genuinely drink a week - I don't think their GP would find it so hilarious.

MumGuilt101 · 23/02/2025 00:00

Good lord. Other people’s marriages.

Didimum · 23/02/2025 00:00

Squidgemoon · 22/02/2025 23:42

An average can of beer is 330ml isn’t it? Half a pint? So five cans is about 2.5 pints, 3 if he’s on the larger cans … hardly excessive. Some of the puritans on here!!

An average bottle is 330ml. An average can is 440ml and about 2.4 units. So over 19 units every week within 2 days.

It’s nonsensical that people boil the argument down to ‘being puritan’ or ‘OTT’ or whatever other kind of moral judgement you want to hypothesise is taking place. It’s literally a measurement at which the likelihood of alcohol-related disease turns from low risk to high risk. Do with that what you will, but it is what it is.

JockTamsonsBairns · 22/02/2025 23:59

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:58

Yeah, but as your username suggests you come from Scotland, that's understandable. 😂

Glasgow no less! 😂

farmlife2 · 22/02/2025 23:58

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:53

Thanks for that. But I will continue to enjoy alcohol on the weekends and enjoy my life. 😁

Which you are free to choose to do. If I came to your home, I'd be asking for juice though.

The only alcoholic drink I like is rose. Since being diagnosed with a gut condition I choose to avoid even the twice a year I might have had one though.

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:58

JockTamsonsBairns · 22/02/2025 23:18

"Five cans is huge".

Where I come from, five cans is what folk have if they're having a quiet night aff it 😂

Yeah, but as your username suggests you come from Scotland, that's understandable. 😂

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:53

Thanks for that. But I will continue to enjoy alcohol on the weekends and enjoy my life. 😁

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:51

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:41

Fucking hell, MN is mental. Where 8 cans over 2 nights can be perceived as binge drinking or having an alcohol problem is mental to me. 😂Surely its just relaxing and letting off steam over the weekend after having a busy and stressful working week, What the hell is wrong with that??

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/lifestyle-effects/binge-drinking

PigglyWigglyOhYeah · 22/02/2025 23:51

It’s only in recent years that the recommended alcohol intake per week for men has dropped from 21 units to 14.

I don’t really understand the concept of a wine bottle being used as an ornament, but then there’s a lot about modern life that I find confusing.

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:50

Didimum · 22/02/2025 23:47

Seems as though you may be, yes. Wishing you the best.

My life is great thanks. I’m awesome!!

Didimum · 22/02/2025 23:47

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 22:34

Fucking hell. 8 cans of lager over two nights is an alcohol problem 😂FFS i'm deeply in trouble then.

Seems as though you may be, yes. Wishing you the best.

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:45

Fountofwisdom · 22/02/2025 23:01

It does sound like binge drinking though. 5 cans at home last night for no particular reason is quite a lot. And at what time did he start drinking today to have drunk another 3 cans by 6pm? As someone with a lot of first hand experience of problem drinking, it is classic alcoholic behaviour to finish all the available alcohol and then start scouting the house for anything else they can top up the alcohol levels with, which is why he focused on your special display bottle of wine.

Edited

5 cans is not a lot!! 😂It is normal relax chill out behaviour after a busy week for most people. 3 cans by 6pm fucking hell call the police!! 😂I also have first hand experience of problem drinking and this is called just enjoying your weekend and having a few drinks.

Charlize43 · 22/02/2025 23:44

I don't really understand the concept of keeping a bottle of wine just for decorative show, as it is for drinking... It will go off and turn to vinegar unless it is of a special vintage.

Jc2001 · 22/02/2025 23:43

Mrsttcno1 · 22/02/2025 21:02

If the bottle is just for show on a cabinet because you like the look of it, does it even matter whether it has the wine inside?

Because it's her bottle of wine, not just there because he's consumed all other alcohol in the house and has no off switch.

farmlife2 · 22/02/2025 23:43

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:41

Fucking hell, MN is mental. Where 8 cans over 2 nights can be perceived as binge drinking or having an alcohol problem is mental to me. 😂Surely its just relaxing and letting off steam over the weekend after having a busy and stressful working week, What the hell is wrong with that??

It is quite a lot for the body to have to process and deal with, and it's not great for his health. Especially every week. However, it's his liver and health, it doesn't look like he's driving after it, so I don't personally care what he does.

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:42

Ohfgswhat · 22/02/2025 22:41

Drink, wine, beer, whatever...should be fun. A relaxation. Having 'a few' or a bottle, is really not an issue. Unless it is of course. If it's there to be drunk, who chooses when the time is right? If it's Art or just to be admired, frame it! If it's not, it really doesn't matter. As a brewer, I make all my bottles to be drunk, enjoyed, thrown over an errant lover, tipped down the sink to make a point or an aid to celebration. But never to be looked at. Please, just enjoy our hard earned efforts. Drink it and buy another. Help the economy, Jesus, we need it! No one ever grew an organic cabbage, just for it to sit on a shelf to be admired.

Plenty of people buy very expensive wine with no intention of drinking it - as a brewer (vintner?) surely you would know that?

Squidgemoon · 22/02/2025 23:42

An average can of beer is 330ml isn’t it? Half a pint? So five cans is about 2.5 pints, 3 if he’s on the larger cans … hardly excessive. Some of the puritans on here!!

Literallynoonecares · 22/02/2025 23:41

Fucking hell, MN is mental. Where 8 cans over 2 nights can be perceived as binge drinking or having an alcohol problem is mental to me. 😂Surely its just relaxing and letting off steam over the weekend after having a busy and stressful working week, What the hell is wrong with that??

farmlife2 · 22/02/2025 23:40

JockTamsonsBairns · 22/02/2025 23:18

"Five cans is huge".

Where I come from, five cans is what folk have if they're having a quiet night aff it 😂

Exactly, so different reference points due to different life experience.

That said, I am aware of some problem behaviours in my own father from when I was too young to understand. Things like driving us when he'd had a bit too much. Those were not smooth journeys. Bloody irresponsible and a complete failure on the part of my mother to put her foot down and allow it to happen.

I've never liked alcohol, so easy for me to avoid completely because I don't feel I'm missing anything.

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:34

Valeriekat · 22/02/2025 23:20

Don't any of you buy special bottles of wine for special occasions?
Why should he get to drink the special wine rather than wait to share it with his partner?

Absolutely. It would be like feeding a pig grapes. He'd neck it and then fall asleep! Again! 🙄

AngelicKaty · 22/02/2025 23:30

DancingNotDrowning · 22/02/2025 22:59

Don’t be absurd

he’s not an alcoholic or a binge drinker. He’s an adult who’d like to have more than three cans of beer on a Friday night,

He had five cans of Friday night, leaving him "only" three for tonight which is why he was eyeing up OP's wine.

EarthyMamma · 22/02/2025 23:24

My daughter and son in law bought my wife and me a bottle of Cygnet gin for Christmas.
It is so lovely that it's on display on the dresser. It makes me happy because it's intrinsically good to look at and because DD and SIL chose it.

I also have Wolf gin and I like that bottle so that's on a shelf near my Robin Hobb books; one if her most compelling characters is a wolf. (The bottle is empty as the gin was very nice. ☺️)

However, this is not the only alcohol in the house and I would open the gin if DW or I wanted to drink it.

If you don't want to open your wine and you know your DP won't replace it, well that's your choice!

Ohfgswhat · 22/02/2025 23:23

YouDeserveBetterSoAskForIt · 22/02/2025 23:02

You are either on the wind up or just completely tone deaf.

Oh please! 😂

Valeriekat · 22/02/2025 23:20

Don't any of you buy special bottles of wine for special occasions?
Why should he get to drink the special wine rather than wait to share it with his partner?

JockTamsonsBairns · 22/02/2025 23:18

farmlife2 · 22/02/2025 23:05

I think it depends on what experience you've had in life as to how much you perceive as a lot.

For me, five cans is huge, though it also depends if it's spread over a day or within a couple of hours.

"Five cans is huge".

Where I come from, five cans is what folk have if they're having a quiet night aff it 😂