My sister is married to a really lovely man. They have a three year old DD.
My BIL is a great partner and he adores my sister. He’s great with my kids, is close to all our massive family and has lovely friends, he works hard etc
BUT there is something driving a wedge between them and I can see it hurting my sister.
Basically whenever he goes out - which is fairly regularity due to his job- he tends to get really drunk and come home late and does stupid things . The latest is he got up in the night so drunk he thought the bedroom was the bathroom - you can see where this is going! Then he was too hungover the next morning to drive them a couple of hours to see some family . Or he comes home and even if it isn’t late he carries on having a drink and then is disruptive , playing guitar or not coming to bed until late . My sister works full time in a busy job and is fairly regularly missing sleep because of it . She also has had some health problems lately and is more tired than usual and I feel like he should be taking this more into account.
When he is sober and in the cold light of day he is always apologetic. They’ve even talked to a therapist about it (and the therapist has agreed with my sister that it feels unfair to her)
The other day my sister looked broken, she is feeling fed up and feels let down because he doesn’t seem able to change even though he says he will.
She doesn’t want to be a killjoy and is really relaxed about him seeing friends etc but now it feels like when he goes out she gets anxious because she is worried how the night will go.
Fyi They don’t have a spare room and when he comes in it’s quite disruptive as it’s only a two bed apartment.
Sidenote our mother was an alcoholic growing up and we might be really hypersensitive to alcohol related things, so it’s potentially triggering her, and she doesn’t know if she is being unreasonable.
Has anyone had similar or been able to address it?
It’s not my place to say anything but I’m worried about her and a bit him too, but I’m starting to feel annoyed with him because he’s making her unhappy and she’s not feeling heard . Does it sound like he has a problem or is it just normal?
Sorry for long message! x