Struggling with alcohol, but DP is worse - think it’s crunch time

[4amwakeup]

DP of 5 years and I have long acknowledged that our drinking is unhealthy. We are regular evening drinkers and encourage each other’s bad habits.

Have agreed to do dry January but of course we’ll have one last drink on New Year’s Eve, so I’m not optimistic.

I’ve put on weight and feel terribly unhealthy. Also have an UTI today and feel generally like crap. But I still had a glass of wine before bed so there’s no doubt in my mind that my relationship with alcohol is out of whack.

So this evening I had an early night and he stayed downstairs playing on his computer. I wake up and 2am and he’s not in bed - go to check on him and he’s pretty drunk but says he’ll come to bed soon. I can’t get back to sleep so play on my phone for a while waiting for him to come up. Eventually go down at 3:45 and he’s still sat there. He’s had 2 - 3 bottles of wine, two of which were my last bottles of white. He doesn’t like white wine but he’s drunk it as it’s the only booze left in the house. I insist he comes to bed and in the end he reluctantly does, but he’s now stormed off downstairs again as I complained that he was hogging the duvet. And tomorrow he will probably say that he should be allowed to unwind and I was in the wrong for asking him to come to bed.

I don’t know how to get through to him.

When he drinks like this it affects me. It ruins my nights sleep as I’ll typically wake up at some point and realise he’s not there. Sometimes he’s fallen asleep in his chair so I’ll usually go check on him but even if I don’t (sometimes I can hear him bumbling about so I know he’s awake) I then struggle to get back to sleep, as I know he’ll be coming up at some point and he’ll disturb me then.

He won’t be up early to help with DD and when he does get up he’ll be hungover and grumpy. I do all of the early starts because I find it easier but I’m ill today and could have done with some help in the morning.

And I’m worried about his health and his relationship with alcohol. He’s putting his late night drinking ahead of me and his daughter. And he either doesn’t see it, or doesn’t think it matters.

Can anyone offer me any advice? The one bit I’m clear on is that I need to fix my issues so I intend to stop drinking with immediate effect. Undecided whether it needs to be a permanent thing, but it needs to be a sustained break at the very least. I also intend to come back to this thread for accountability.

What do I do about him? How do I make him see or care about the impact this is having? He’s a good guy but a terrible communicator and very defensive so anything I say is going to be perceived as an attack and I’m so worried we’ll get nowhere :(

You poor thing- you cannot do anything about his drinking. The only thing you are able to change is yourself.

Well done for recognising the need for change and tackling it. Why wait for new year though? You said you feel rubbish, an extra couple of days is a bonus head start. There’s always going to be another reason/excuse for one more drink.

You can only focus on you and your DD- you cannot fix him. It doesn’t matter how much you care for him and what a good person you see in him, his priority is alcohol over you, and both you and she deserve better.

As above. You tell him your relationship is over unless he changes dramatically. If he doesn’t, you leave. Make your daughter the first priority.

I’m not waiting for New Year so however tomorrow’s (well, today’s) inevitable argument goes, how he deals with NYE will be very telling.

To be honest at this point I’m more scared that I’m not strong enough to do it. If I can’t get it under control myself then I’m hardly in the position to judge him.

Thank you for commenting.

OP you probably need to spend time apart. You both need to re-evaluate your lives per chance to save your marriage
Alcohol needs a back seat for a start
I'm going through something similar

Well done on taking the first step and stopping but as other posters have said, you need to do this for you and your daughter not for him, likewise don’t expect him to stop with you, he needs to get to that point where he wants to do it for himself otherwise he’ll just resent you making him stop.
Also stop mothering him. Leave him to sleep downstairs. If he wakes up with a stiff neck a few times it’ll soon teach him to make his own way to bed. Also can you start the new year with a new year new you routine and maybe exercise in the mornings? If you are not there then he’ll have to step up and help with daughter but he won’t if you’re there doing it already.

Monty I think there’s some sense in that, but he would have to be the one moving out for practical reasons.

He is just awful at discussing problems, it’s the way he was brought up.

Have you come up with any practical solutions?

We’ve talked on and off about cutting down or stopping for years now, we just don’t take the problem seriously enough as it doesn’t suit us, and our lives are otherwise successful and functional

@fib11235

Well done on taking the first step and stopping but as other posters have said, you need to do this for you and your daughter not for him, likewise don’t expect him to stop with you, he needs to get to that point where he wants to do it for himself otherwise he’ll just resent you making him stop. Also stop mothering him. Leave him to sleep downstairs. If he wakes up with a stiff neck a few times it’ll soon teach him to make his own way to bed. Also can you start the new year with a new year new you routine and maybe exercise in the mornings? If you are not there then he’ll have to step up and help with daughter but he won’t if you’re there doing it already.

This is true. He needs to make the decision himself.

I could leave him to sleep downstairs but he’s keeping me awake with this behaviour and it’s just so fucking selfish. So selfish to leave me to do the morning every single morning without fail. I just feel so let down and disappointed with him, he’s better than this.

@4amwakeup

Monty I think there’s some sense in that, but he would have to be the one moving out for practical reasons.

He is just awful at discussing problems, it’s the way he was brought up.

Have you come up with any practical solutions?

We’ve talked on and off about cutting down or stopping for years now, we just don’t take the problem seriously enough as it doesn’t suit us, and our lives are otherwise successful and functional

PM if you like OP We're in different situations I have recently taken a step back but I'm in a position to do so I don't envy you You need to be thinking straight yourself

I was in the same position with my ex. We were both problem drinkers, I was a more regular (wine every night drinker), whilst he was a 3-4 times a week binge drinker. He'd sit downstairs until 3-4 in the morning watching films and going through a bottle of JD. It ended up being a big part of our separation- from both sides. No one is their best drunk/hungover.
Could you sit down with him and agree limits? Maybe no more than 2 nights a week and limit it too a bottle of wine? If you're not drinking it would be easy to ration the alcohol in the house?

You can't help an alcoholic until they realise they need to help themself. That unfortunately sometimes means they have to hit rock bottom.

I finally left mine when our ds was two and ex was drinking a bottle of wine a night plus extra at weekends. I could never trust him to drive, to be alone with ds, to stick to a budget.
Drunks drag down everyone around them. Sooner or later you will have to kick him out and that is easier to do while they still have a job. Sorry.

^ everything @Mintjulia has said. I left my alcoholic ex nearly a year ago. Life is a million times better.

@ColdemortReturns

I was in the same position with my ex. We were both problem drinkers, I was a more regular (wine every night drinker), whilst he was a 3-4 times a week binge drinker. He'd sit downstairs until 3-4 in the morning watching films and going through a bottle of JD. It ended up being a big part of our separation- from both sides. No one is their best drunk/hungover. Could you sit down with him and agree limits? Maybe no more than 2 nights a week and limit it too a bottle of wine? If you're not drinking it would be easy to ration the alcohol in the house?

This feels tempting but then I’m in the role of policing him, telling him what to do. I’m the mum, the nag. It’s not what I want.

I think I need to just focus entirely on myself.
I need to make the choice to knock this on the head for a while, to get healthy and fit. I hope that he’ll see what I’m doing and want to get on board, I do think there’s a chance of that.

And if I manage it and in a months time he’s showing no signs of changing then I’ll need to think again.

So my plan is to stay calm when he emerges this morning, be pleasant, and leave it for him to raise things if he wants to talk. The only thing he needs to know from my end is that I’m off the booze starting today.

@Mintjulia

You can't help an alcoholic until they realise they need to help themself. That unfortunately sometimes means they have to hit rock bottom.

I finally left mine when our ds was two and ex was drinking a bottle of wine a night plus extra at weekends. I could never trust him to drive, to be alone with ds, to stick to a budget.
Drunks drag down everyone around them. Sooner or later you will have to kick him out and that is easier to do while they still have a job. Sorry.

This is difficult because he’s a long long way from rock bottom and might never get there.

Apart from the health issues and the sometimes astonishing levels of selfishness, there’s no negative impact atm. But I can’t tolerate this as it is. This isn’t a life I’m willing to accept.

You sound very sensible, OP. At worst, he won’t change but you’ll have a clear head and be in a good position to consider what happens next, all the best to you and your DD x

Sadly I’m good at talking the talk. It’s actually taking action I struggle with.

I’m lucky though, that I’m the main wage earner, so if it does come to separation I will be able to go it alone.

I will update this thread to let you know how we are getting on - two for the price of one!

Just an update for all the kind people who answered yesterday morning.

There was no argument. He apologised and said unprompted that he’s worried himself, and needs to take a break from drinking. We started yesterday and will see how we go.

Good luck

Great news! One day at a time will get you to a much better place.

Just a word of caution- if either of you has been drinking hard every day until now, please do NOT go cold turkey, it's very dangerous.