I can't get married can I?

[HopefulHatter]

My fiancé and I have planned a whirlwind wedding for December. We've been talking about it for ages and I've been so excited for it. The deposits have been paid and it's just starting to all come together.

BUT

Tonight I feel like I've been hit by reality.

My fiancés mum turned up at our house having driven from her's (obviously drunk) because she has had a drunken row with her raging drunk husband (fiancés Dad) this is a regular occurance for them. Loud screaming matches etc. She is now sleeping in the spare room after getting more drunk with my fiancé. She usually goes to SIL's house but she didn't want her there tonight.

I feel like I've just been granted a glimpse in to my future. Fiancé has caused lots of problems with his problem drinking over the last six years. He isn't violent but he needs beer to relax, when he's happy, when he's sad, when the sky is blue (you get the picture) he can be verbally aggressive. He generally starts droning on about something you can't even make sense of or repeating himself and then getting arsey when you aren't listening. And he can never stop at a couple. Never. Once he's had one he will drink everything he can that's in the house, even my cooking wine at times. Then if he can he will usually find an excuse to go to the shop to buy more.

Over the years even though he has said lots about how he will change things only get better for a couple of weeks then we are right back to square one. Plus he says he doesn't have a problem because he doesn't drink in the mornings or every single day (he would and does when he isn't at work)

A couple of incidents have nearly made me leave. Once he got so drunk he started accusing me of having an affair and yelling that an empty beer can was proof (it was his) And the worst was when our daughter was born via csection. The day after we came home he got plastered, started swearing then passed out on the sofa. I had to carry my daughter upstairs to bed and pulled a stitch out of my Csection. One Christmas he accused me of offering his sisters partner a blowjob, that was when I was 6 months pregnant.

I feel like I've been sucker punched tonight. I've been deluding myself thinking that things will sort themselves out and they wont will they? I have a two year old daughter and I feel like I'm failing her. She's too young to notice now I hope but what about when she does start to see him drunk. I don't want her to grow up thinking that it's normal to drink like that.

I'd managed to push all my doubts aside but now my gut is really telling me I shouldn't.

Or am I overreacting? I know fiancé and probably his family will say I am. My family have remained very quiet about the wedding. Fiancé has embarrassed me a few times with his slurring and drinking at family do's before so I can kind of guess what they are thinking.

I feel torn between the life I want and the life I'm actually (will actually) live. I love him so much when he is sober.

Fuck

"I keep telling myself if I could get rid of the Jekyll and Hyde element to the relationship it could be perfect."

That's the problem right there.

You are phrasing it as if there is something you can do to change this relationship. But the sad thing is there isn't.

The Jekyll and Hyde element is totally out of your control, and if he was going to change it it would have happened by now. He has shown you the real him, and that is both sides of him.

And it's likely the longer you stay together the more the bad side will come out.

Please don't put yourself and your DD through it. Your gut instinct is right, you are very wise, please listen to it!

Sorry to hear you're going through such a hard time.

I think you know the answer and as many have said - much easier and cheaper to lose a few deposits than your future.

I would also think about the potential health problems in the future for him (physical and mental). I imagine it will be you having to look after him (whilst he still drinks) because of his liver/heart/kidney etc problems. Not nice :(

Stay strong ????

I posted above but another thing to consider is the sheer cost of all his alcohol. Family money pissed away? Quite literally! Surely that could go towards DD's future uni fees or something way more deserving?

Being married to an alcoholic is hideous. Please don't do it, and don't live with him either. If your partner doesn't accept he has a problem, and he seems very unlikely to, as his drinking behaviour will seem perfectly normal within his family, then he will keep on drinking and get progressively worse. He is already abusing you verbally and this may well escalate to physical abuse. Please don't think it won't. My husband was the nicest man in the world sober, but he gave me a black eye when he was drunk and then claimed he would never have done such a thing.
He died of liver damage and it was a horrible death. Please don't put yourself or your child through a future like that.

Run, and don't look back.

It's horribly heartbreaking for you, but you sound impressively strong and sensible, and you'll do the right thing for you and your daughter, alth you say she's too young to notice his drunken state, even very small children will be aware of the change in atmosphere / how the adult in question is around / with them, you'd both be so much better off away from him and the dangers he presents (car accidents with you or dd in car / leaving things lit and house fires / temper and abuse increasing when he's drunk and so many more!) to you both. It'll be hard but you'll be so glad you saw sense before it was too late

Morning. Good luck. Just think of your daughter.

It doesn't matter that she's in bed.... She won't be all the time (esp if he drinks all day sometimes.)

And children pick up on a lot, stuff we don't even realise.

I grew up with a functioning alcoholic (still went to work, drank round his shifts) father. My mother had to survive in serious debt, dinner was sandwiches many a time with stale bread. Despite two recent incomes, always skint and miserable. Seeing screaming arguments over his drinking. The humiliation as a teenager seeing your father lying in the hallway with urine on his trousers when he failed to get to the loo....do you want your daughter in that, if you do then you need to get a grip of yourself. Sorry but I was her!

Er yeah 2 alcoholic parents and he "needs" a drink to relax should have had you running for the hills ages ago.
You've just had a look into the future and it's not pretty.
I wouldn't marry him or have any sort of relationship with him.

YOu know the answer, you need the reasons.

You have several - let me add in another one. I have a friend here who is in her 20s, her father has just died of alcohol-related liver damage. He had stopped drinking some years ago, but his liver was battered past repair - hung on for another few years but couldn't recover. She is of course devastated (as anyone would be losing their father) - and angry. Angry that he could have done that to himself, his family, and her.

Your DD doesn't need any of this. She doesn't need to lose her father before his time because of his drinking, and she doesn't need to put up with any of his alcoholic shit prior to that.

Neither do you.

So do yourselves a favour and sack this off now - it will be the hardest thing to do, especially because he's so lovely when sober - but he loves alcohol more than he loves either of you. It might not be his fault, but it certainly isn't yours either - and he is the only one who can do anything about it.

Remember:
It is his problem
The answer is in his hands only
You can not do this for him.

Maybe losing you both will be the wake up call he needs - BUT if he does decide to give up drinking, make sure you stay away for a minimum of him being 6 months dry, a minimum. Preferably a year or more. But certainly no less than 6 months.

My sister's MIL is a dry alcoholic. She hasn't had a drink for 22 years. But she's still an alcoholic. She knows this, her whole family knows this too - your DH needs to accept and acknowledge it but you cannot do it for him.

You can't save him, he has to do it himself. Hopefully he will choose to do so.

and (((hugs))).

Good luck op. You will be so much happier when you don't live with him. Well done for realising this.

You know the right thing to do for you and your DD.

Does he realise he's an alcoholic?

When you do tell him, make sure it isn't about last night but about the past six years, and him never ever changing despite promises.

YANBU. It will be obvious to your family and friends why you've called it off. His lot might not understand as nothing's changed.

Tell your family this morning OP. They're quiet about the wedding suggests to me that they've seen this realisation before you and will be a great help to deal with the minimises.

Good luck having that conversation OP

So sorry that you're going through this, but it sounds like you are absolutely doing the right thing

Morning op
hope you managed to get some sleep
how are you doing today

(December is far enough away

Also if you are swaying today pls read the thread again xx)

Morning all. I am just getting dd ready for nursery and then getting around to telling him.

Can I ask, in regards to access what did you posters with problem drinker ex's and DD's do?

I want her to see her Dad, but the idea of her spending a weekend with him/family without me there to try to control drinking or her exposure to it is making my blood run cold.

I can see that life with a drunk full time will be much worse in the end so it's not wavering resolve. I just know if we split the drinking will be ten times worse.

Oh god no you can't marry him. You can see what growing up with alcoholics has done to him, now you need to protect your daughter from the same future.

I have a friend whose ex is an alcoholic but he acknowledges it and is in a programme so maybe it's easier. He does have relapses and she now breathalysers him before contact. The original agreement was no drinking at all during contact which he usually managed but clearly couldn't manage always.

Speak to your hv about contact. When I went through a slightly similar situation, my hv was very knowledgeable and helped me to make the right decisions for my dd.

I decided to stop contact. Dds dad was not fit to look after her at the time due to drug issues. she explained that if he wanted contact he would have to take me to court, and prove that he was fit to parent her. As I was classed as her protecting factor, social services would not want to get involved, but may have had concerns if I was allowing her to go to him when he was abusing drugs.

In the end he got help and got clean, and now has a good relationship with her.

Have you got evidence of his drinking? Text messages? That sort of thing? Has he got the money to take you to court?

Get some advice, but I was told to stop contact and he could fight for it if he wanted to. My job was to keep my dd safe, which meant not being cared for by a drug user.

I don't call a man who gets so drunk the day after his child is born that he can't look after her or her mother a good dad.

I had a brief relationship with an alcoholic recently. He smelt permanently of alcohol, took risks when driving, would start slurring every evening at about 9pm, expected me to stay up until the early hours with him every night. He used to say how 'popular' he was. That's because he went to the pub every single night and people would enjoy watching his stupid antics. He was the laughing stock.

Please stick to your decision.

Morning hatter

I was married to an alcoholic, in my experience it was only my divorcing him that made him take action, he is now clean but it took losing his wife & children to do it.

You are responsible for your child's safety, if there will not be a sober adult there when she is in the care of her dad then she cannot go, this applies also when you don't know if there will be a sober adult there. If your DD is taken ill in the night then you need someone who will drive her to A&E & who is able to make sensible decisions. If he can't do that then think about a contact centre for access. Think about her huddled in bed whilst her dad & his mum have a drunken screaming match in the same house, it doesn't sound as though she is old enough to be able to phone you to come & get her. She needs to be safeguarded from his drinking & you are the only one at the moment who can do that.

If you leave him then his drinking may increase tenfold but that's not your problem. His happiness is no longer your concern or responsibility. Phone your family & be honest with them, they sound like they be supportive & will understand. Be strong & don't give in to his false promises or the guilt trips of you 'taking his family away from him' which may come from his side of the family. They sound as though their drinking is so entrenched then you will be the unreasonable one, don't feels like you have to answer their calls & texts etc if they are abusive to you.

I wish you strength, but thank goodness you didn't marry him xx

It will help if you have evidence of his drinking. Is his gp aware?
At the very least keep a journal or make a list of the key times he was drunk.

I would only accept supervised contact and if he was sober.
Remember that contact cam happen at a contact centre or with someone else you trust.