AIBU to be upset with DM and feel like her drinking is becoming a serious problem?
For context, I’m a solo mum to a 4-year-old DD and my DM, who is in her 70s, lives with us. I work full time, pay all the bills (she buys done shopping but not all) and generally carry most of the responsibility for DD, the house, finances, organising everything etc.
DM drinks every day. Usually around 1–1.5 bottles of wine a night. This isn’t a new thing and alcoholism has already had a massive impact on our family. My dad died as a result of alcoholism and two of my brothers are recovering alcoholics, one of whom became extremely unwell because of it.
I’ve become increasingly worried about DM’s drinking, but it’s almost impossible to talk to her about it. If I mention alcohol she becomes very defensive and often confrontational, so I tend to avoid the subject.
The immediate situation is this.
For the last 10 days I’ve been absolutely hammering the house trying to get everything sorted before we go away. I’ve basically spent every day cleaning, sorting and scrubbing and several nights I’ve still been going at midnight, 1am or even 2am.
Yesterday I took DD to soft play. The plan afterwards was to go home, DM was going to dye my hair, then I needed to finish cleaning the living room, do mine and DD’s ironing and pack for our holiday.
While we were out DM called to say she’d gone to my auntie’s instead.
We arrived there at about 5.30pm and DM had been drinking wine with my auntie all afternoon.
They could tell I wasn’t myself and asked what was wrong, so I said I was absolutely exhausted and still had loads to do.
They both said, “Just leave DD here.”
I said no because they’d both been drinking.
DM immediately became defensive and started having a go at me. I actually said to her that I wasn’t being confrontational and asked her to please stop because I didn’t want an argument.
I wasn’t saying they were falling-down drunk or accusing them of being incapable human beings. I just don’t think I should leave my 4-year-old in the care of people who have been drinking all afternoon. That’s a boundary I’m not prepared to compromise on.
But there’s another part of this that upset me.
I know DM is entitled to have a life. I know DD is my responsibility and nobody owes me childcare.
But after watching me work myself into the ground for the last 10 days, staying up until stupid o’clock trying to get everything done, I suppose I’d hoped she might think, “She’s absolutely exhausted and has still got loads to do. I’ll give her a hand.”
Instead she’d spent the afternoon drinking.
And I think I just snapped emotionally. Not screaming or causing a scene — just internally felt completely done.
I feel like I have nobody I can actually rely on.
I tried explaining how I felt to my auntie afterwards and her response was basically “I’m always here for you and DD xxx”. I messaged my brother because I desperately wanted somebody else’s perspective and didn’t get a response.
So now I’m questioning myself.
Maybe I am being unreasonable. Maybe because of our family’s history with alcoholism I’m hypersensitive about alcohol. Maybe I’m expecting too much from DM and she’s perfectly entitled to spend an afternoon drinking with her sister rather than helping me.
But I’m also sick of feeling like I’m the difficult one because I have a problem with her drinking.
I don’t want to control whether DM drinks. I’ve realised I can’t do that. But I’m considering setting a firm boundary that if she’s been drinking, she isn’t responsible for DD, and that if she’s agreed to look after DD she needs to not drink beforehand.
I’m also thinking I need to stop discussing anything important with her once she’s started drinking because it invariably becomes confrontational.
AIBU?
And particularly, AIBU to say that regardless of whether DM thinks she has a problem with alcohol, her drinking has become a problem for me, and therefore I’m entitled to put boundaries around how it affects me and DD?