Hi - I am new to this but I need to talk to someone (I cant talk to family or friends about this subject).
I have been married for 5+ years. My sobar husband is brilliant - my drunk husband is awful! To give a brief update, not everytime my husband drinks but roughly once/ twice every year my husband has a drink a does something to cause me not to trust him (he hasn't actually physically cheated, that I know of) but he does do things and then lies, big lies and small lies.
Because I love him and we have a beautiful daughter who adores him, I always give him the silent treatment, then we talk it out then everything is OK again. But something happened at the weekend and I just cant see me getting past it.
Basically, we had a night out together, came home and went to bed. During the night I thought I heard my husband downstairs, but I didn’t give it much thought and rolled over back to sleep. The next morning I asked what he was doing to which he replied 'he was up at the toilet'. I never gave it a second thought. I then noticed that 3 mini bottles of wine were missing, so I asked where they went. He denied any knowledge of the wine bottles - so no wine bottles in the house that were in the house when I went to bed?! He then went to the shower and I checked his call log and he had called a female family member (of mine) at 3am in the morning... we went to bed at 12midnight. So instantly I questioned this, he again denied it and has no memory of the calls.
I left it that day and went about my business with our little girl (who had been staying at her grandparents the previous night). The next 3 days I questioned him to see what he had been doing during the night that night etc. He admitted to getting back out of bed and drinking the wine (but cant remember doing it). He said he had absolutely no activity on his phone (social apps, messages etc) during those hours, I asked to see his phone (wish I had of checked it at the time I checked the call log)!!!! But all his calls, messages, chats etc had been deleted..... silent treatment again for the next few days.
I was then in work and a delivery of flowers came for me, this is lovely and I feel awful admitting this but it screamed guilt at me, Husband has never done anything romantic like this so Its out of character.
I picked up the courage and messaged the female family member who he had called in the early hours that night, she sent me through the messages that he had sent her. There is nothing MASSIVELY flirty, but still in my opinion crossing the line e.g asking was she still up and had everyone gone home and one message in particular that I don't want to post in case it gives away my identity. The female family member did not give him anything back in the messages at all. She actually showed her partner as she thought it was strange.
When I questioned husband he denied all memory of sending those messages, and swears the one message in particular was a typo error! He then cried for an hour and seemed really sorry… sorry for getting so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing.
I really dont know what to do, I dont think i believe him because of his sneakiness in the past. My husband sobar would never do these things (well i dont think he would). He has vowed he wont drink again but he gone off alcohol before for 2years because of something he had done and slowly started back drinking again. He isnt an alcholic, a Saturday night drinker.
Can i trust him again? Do I believe him? We have agreed to live in the same home for the sack of our daughter and Christmas being around the corner. When the Christmas period is over we will see from there what to do. Should I stay with him for the sake of our daughter? Can he change? Could I cope as a single parent? I never saw myself in this situation, naive I know ☹