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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To not have said that DH is an alcoholic?

127 replies

upsideup · 06/10/2018 21:50

DH pick up two of DS's friends from school and takes them to a club once a week and has been doing this for about 6 months as their parents can't take them.
The mum took DS out today to say thank you and stayed for a while after she dropped him home, she started talking about alcohol and I mentioned that DH an recovering alcoholic not realising that she didn't already know or that it would be a big deal and her face completely dropped. I said that he hadn't had a drink for 10 years since eldest dc was born but she nearly burst in to tears saying that she couldn't believe she's been letting her children be driven and looked after by an alcoholic and that didn't we think this is the sort of information we should share with people who are leaving their children with us.

Were we actually unreasonable to not have said? Would anyone else be concerned if you found this out someone who had been looking after your children just fine for half a year?

OP posts:
WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 16/10/2018 01:47

People saying that the OP shouldn't have mentioned it seem to be assuming that she just threw it in there as a bit of juicy gossip. The discussion was about alcohol (mis)use, so she gave relevant information that could have proved interesting/helpful, depending on the exact nature of the conversation, and which she confirms that her husband would be happy to be shared.

If people were having a discussion and expressing concerns about obesity, and you had previously been morbidly obese but had since lost 10 stone, would you think that, now you've been very slim for ten years, your personal experience would have no relevance to the conversation and you should therefore not mention it?

I don't think you could blame her for being somewhat taken aback if she wasn't certain (as many people wouldn't be) what 'recovering' alcoholic meant, but as soon as she was told that he hadn't touched a drop for 10 years, that's the point after which you would expect people to understand what the simple language means.

Does this woman not realise that, every time she travels by bus, taxi, train or plane, there's a 95+% chance that the driver/pilot has been drinking.... sometime in the previous week or so, that is. If that fact would upset her then it stands to reason that OP's husband should be among the tiny minority of people whom she WOULD trust, not having drunk alcohol for a whole decade.

Would she judge me if she knew that I go out in public daily, completely naked.... beneath my clothes? Or that I lift items from shops many times a week and simply walk out with them.... having handed over some money just before? If not, whatever sane reason could you give for objecting to a driver who had been drinking....over ten years ago?

Supposing OP's husband was 36, would this woman also feel bitterly betrayed not to have been notified that, twenty years previously, if he had decided to drive a car, he would have been doing so illegally and most probably dangerously? That would make as much sense - i.e. none whatsoever.

Bluesheep8 · 16/10/2018 06:02

I agree with ginkypig completely. How many people look after kids who don't realise they are under the influence from the night before, for example?

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