Help me “unpack” my anxiety around my husband going out drinking?

Are you ND at all? This seems pretty extreme, but relatable from my ND family.

My DH is autistic and he can’t bear it if I have a single glass of wine over dinner with a friend. It makes him hugely anxious if I’m even the slightest bit ‘different’ in mood or energy. He also feels like this when I am ill, or upset about something. Or even excited about something! It’s like I am not the same person if my energy is not within in a very narrow range he considers ‘normal’.

TBH being monitored all the time and treated with anxiety or hostility or disgust if I ever do anything differently from routine, or feel an emotion, is exhausting to live with.

So it’s not that then. Are you aware of any past trauma with drunk men? What are his friends like?

Do you have actual childhood trauma around drunkenness (as in you remember your parents being drunk and scary) or are you theorizing that there might be something you don’t remember?

Have you ever sought help for your anxiety? Like, when you say you need to deal with it, have you made specific attempts to fix it, rather than just trying to tell yourself you shouldn’t be anxious?

If you don’t have a clear memory of alcohol related trauma the problem might be anxiety itself. This can show up in perimenopause. Would that fit your age range?

Well done for not letting it affect what you say to him about going out. When he goes, write a reflection in your notes on your phone documenting how you feel and then when he’s home write a follow up reflection so you can see how the reality matched up. Next time, do the same thing and you will see a pattern.

Anxiety does creep in when you hit your 40s and that lovely oestrogen depletes.

Hope you have a lovely night in and a good weekend with the family.x

Could be. I had my first peri symptoms around that age (took me a while to clock what it was though). HRT has helped.

OP, I totally get it. I want to put into words exactly how I relate to you, but it’s more of a feeling than an actual thing.
I used to get anxious when my ex husband went out drinking. I didn’t worry that something would happen to him. It was more that I didn’t know what to expect when he got back. Was he going to wake me up? Would he be in the mood for sex? Would he have a go at me for something that happened years ago?
I’m making him sound really bad! He wasn’t, particularly. But I am happy to be single and not have to think about drunken homecomings again!
Alcoholism runs in my family, so it probably dredged up childhood stuff too. Even my own daughters feel uncomfortable being around drunken men.

Actually, thinking aloud, I think it’s something to do with it being men … and the unpredictability that their drunkenness can cause. Even if they’re not pissed out of their heads. None of us would be that bothered about being in the company of drunken women. It might be annoying, but you wouldn’t have that same psychologically unsafe feeling.

I think it could also be that the drunkenness is a departure from their norm, and it’s not what we’re used to day-to-day. So the shift can just feel uncomfortable.

I hope some of this makes sense! 😆

I hear you OP. I absolutely hated my DH getting drunk. Later in our marriage he stopped drinking for health reasons and it was a massive relief. I honestly think drinking until you’re drunk is wrong on many levels. It’s bad for your health, it makes you vulnerable, it can make you angry or even aggressive and it changes your behaviour. I don’t think you are unreasonable. I think your dislike over your DH getting drunk is totally rational . I think the poster who asked if you are ND is nuts and the one suggesting it’s your peri starting.

This is such an interesting post and I really can relate. DH has also never been a 'mean drunk' and i have no past trauma with drunk men, so I'm not personally hurt or offended by his behaviour when drunk, but i still hate it, and I think it's that he's a different person. He changes from being funny and kind and jolly and slightly quirky to being boorish and tedious and I dunno.... not somebody I would choose to spend time with, much less marry and build a life with. I think there's also something in there about being worried he will come to harm or just lumber around and break things and cause chaos, and with that I feel that it's something he's inconsiderately foisting on me...I don't have a choice in the matter.

I suppose I have also been at e.g. weddings with him where he's become a bit of a pain due to being drunk and I've had to sort of manage his behaviour a bit and that's just annoying and spoils my enjoyment of the day. He's admitted himself that he doesn't have a natural off switch when it comes to alcohol and there is mildly problematic drinking in his family, so I suppose it makes me feel like I'm responsible for moderating his drinking a little, which I slightly resent. I suppose when he's drunk and we're together, we stop being a team and become wayward child and minder, and I'd just prefer not to have that dynamic.

I enjoy social drinking but I drink less than him and am very rarely actually drunk, but if I am, he would have been drinking too so wouldn't notice. If I go out with friends I've got to be lucid enough to get myself home so am unlikely to be so different from everyday me, and maybe it wouldn't bother him if I was.

I don't really express any of this to him or others, I smile and grit my teeth and get on with it, or occasionally remove myself from a situation or encourage him to stay at friends houses after a night out (we're somewhat out of town so this sort of makes sense logistically).

But yes it does make me unhappy, so I can relate to the anxiety about my husband going out drinking. It's not a very frequent occurrence here either, so it's not something that needs to be a big deal in our relationship, but i completely understand that it can create anxiety, and it can be hard to unpack when you're not feeling unsafe in the sense of potential abusive or even just mean behaviour, but i think it's possible to feel just emotionally a bit unsafe because this is not the person you love and trust and share you life with.

I think you should commit to maybe 6 sessions of CBT to explore this specific issue. Because it seems quite isolated (assuming that him going out drinking is the only thing that makes you this anxious) it should be enough time to explore and learn some coping methods.

I imagine that’s all you need, some methods to calm down throughout this scenario

This is a ridiculous suggestion. It would be more appropriate for her DH to get counselling over his need to get drunk.

Alcohol is a harmful drug. If causes more harm than many illegal drugs.

Jesus that sounds exhausting.

it’s not ridiculous in the slightest. OP is getting anxiety about one situation to the point she’s triggered as soon as it’s mentioned and isn’t able to calm herself until after it’s over. This situation is perfect to benefit from CBT.

You try engaging a counsellor and telling them you would like help to stop going out with your friends occasionally. They’d laugh in your face, then try and explore why you’ve come to them with such a bonkers issue.

I wonder if the scene you witnessed between your parents as a child is at the root of this. This may not be obvious to you, because you have 'rationalized' it as an adult ie it was a one off and your parents are still together without alcohol issues. . and the original feelings of confusion and fear you felt as a child are still ''remembered ''by your nervous system, hence your anxiety around your DH drinking in a situation ( out with mates) that you can't control. I don't know what the answer is, except to name these fears to yourself and allow yourself to feel them, which is uncomfortable but may help your mind to disentangle two different situations. You are not letting your feelings get in the way of trying to stop your DH from going out. So you have the insight and self awareness to know that his going out for a drink is not the actual problem, that is a mature reaction on your part and I think you are in a strong position to move forward.

I think part of this comes from childhood experiences. Adult children of alcoholics often feel like this about people drinking. It’s because it brings up the unpredictability and uncertainty that made them feel unsafe as children. It doesn’t necessarily sound like your parents were alcoholics, but it’s quite possible that drinking was more problematic than you are consciously remembering now and that’s why this is all boiling up for you.

Fwiw, I’m a recovering alcoholic and I feel this way when dh goes out drinking. He’s a really moderate drinker and only goes out maybe 6 times a year. I’m totally not bothered by him drinking in the house. I’m quite happy for us all to go out to the pub. But him going out on his own means he always will come home drunk (and he very rarely is drunk ever). Like your Dh, he’s totally fine. He’s extra chatty and annoying and can be sick and he wakes me up. But that’s the extent of it. Happens maybe once a year. But because of my past trauma, it gives me a lot of anxiety. I also have anxiety about not sleeping and being woken up because I’ve had insomnia in the past, so it all just messes with my sleep.

As a rule, if he wants to go out, he stays out. We live very rurally anyway with no friends within walking distance and no pub. Taxis would cost as much as the night out. So he meets friends somewhere for the weekend and they get an Airbnb or go camping for a night. It means they all get a break for the night and they aren’t coming home waking everyone up because they all have wives and children at home. It works really well.

The other issue I’m sure is the emetophobia. I’m sure everyone has given you a million suggestions for how to deal with it in life, but if you haven’t tried it, consider solution focused hypnotherapy. It can be really effective for emetophobia.

When people drink it changes them, not usually in a good way. If the OP’s DH was taking an illegal drug, the OP wouldn’t have advice to get counselling.

It's interesting thinking about childhood experiences because my parents would drink socially, not to excess, but to the point where it was obvious (and we'd had babysitters or whatever so no mystery), and I wouldn't directly say it burgess me at the time, but looking back, they were different too, and maybe add a child that's more unsettling than I perhaps realised... your parents who are there for everything are suddenly a bit different. Added to that it was of course a while world that I as a child didn't understand. I guess looking back maybe it did feel a bit odd even if i didn't realise it at time. And perhaps this is why I don't really like it now when DH goes out drinking.