Am I the Arsehole here?.....

[Appreciateyourthoughts]

I'm in bed, bf is downstairs after a massive argument earlier.
We are working things out as our relationship has been very rocky for months. He has a tendency to go out on the piss, not return home and not contact me for 12+ hours. He knows I worry due to previous relationship and let's be honest here, who wouldn't?

Anyway, things have been going great. We'd planned a Christmas shopping trip to a nearby city for tomorrow, we have been looking forward to it all week. Earlier today one of his mates who he always disappears with calls him and ask him out for a few pints (can I just add these men have ZERO control and I've never known them to have just a few, it's always an absolute skin full and then some) ... So he comes home and asks me if I wanted to go for a drink with him and these mates ..... I've kicked off for the following reasons....

1. I believe he's only asked me knowing I'd say no and tell him to go. They drink in a grotty shit hole of a pub, full of coke heads! Entirely not my scene and he NEVER asks me out with them.

2. The children are with their dad this weekend, so we had BOTH planned a lovely day tomorrow, a nice meal, get the kids (mine from a previous relationship) Xmas present sorted which he thoroughly enjoys doing and spending some quality time out and about together.
   When he drinks the next 2 days are completely written off as he's tired, rough, moody and lazy..

I'm laying here wondering if I have overreacted. I'm due on my period tomorrow and my hormones do send my mind bat shit crazy.

AIBU to have kicked off over him asking me to go for a drink with them? Even though I strongly believe he had no intention of me joining them 😬

I get it. My dh is like this. He’s so much better these days - since he reached 50. I would also have difficulty in keeping my cool had I been manipulated in this way.

Is this how you want your life to be? Get rid of him.

I think it can be difficult for people who are not in a relationship with someone who has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol to understand the nuances. On the face of it he should be able to go out at the weekend with his friends and get drunk if he so wishes.

But, where it becomes a problem is if it regularly interferes with his life and relationship. And regularly wiping out two days post drinking session due to being tired, hungover and grumpy most certainly IS a problem. Out of 7 days, 3 are lost to drink. That's a problem when it's a regular occurrence.

People without a drink problem don’t let alcohol affect their relationships or argue over it.

This. This a thousand times. If you don't have a problem drinking isn't a problem. And people who don't live with a problem drinker don't fully understand how much of an affect it has.

He stayed in last night. That's good, but if the next time he goes out he gets shitfaced, doesn't come home and then looses the rest of the weekend to it you know he's not ACTUALLY making any effort, he's just appeasing you at the moment.

And, from experience, I don't know anyone who hangs around drinking with cokeheads all night who is not a cokehead themselves.

Do you see how much your explaining your reaction to his terrible actions.
He promised this and that. But then he carries on the bad behaviour he knows you hate.
The offering to go shopping and he actually stand in, shows that he cares and you overreacted. Is the end to this situation which is false.
He cares for you but no above his needs and as time goes on he will get worse and he will continue to be disrespectful to you.
Not sure how long you've been together, but when someone continue to something that is bad that the other person doesn't like that are showing you how they see you.

If I did it to him there would be hell!

Try it, to show him what it's like - plan to stay over at your mum's or a friend's but don't tell him.

But why are you planning to go out with your mum or on your own if he stayed in last night?

He didn't go. Go out tomorrow with him. Have a nice time with him.

Show him that it was the right decision not to go out. The alternative is for this to blow up and he won't make that choice next time.

If there are deeper issues or you feel you are flogging a dead horse then obviously you need to address that, but not appreciating him not going out is not going to be positive for successfully going forward.

Hopefully since he didn't go out yesterday you'll be able to have your planned day today.

But I'd be on the look out for it happening again.

Also, don't let him act as if he's done a great favour-he hasn't.

He's available for a planned day out!

I understand OP, my ex was the same. He is a good guy but was unable to go to the pub for a couple of drinks. For years he would promise, only going for a couple, it ruined so many events and the anxiety I had wondering what state he would be in was off the scale.

That’s why he is my ex. It’s no way to live.

People keep asking:

"why am I not going shopping with him today, since he stayed in"

Because the fact of the matter is that if he truly wanted to spend the day with me which was originally HIS idea, then we wouldn't be in this situation, so I don't want him to feel as though he has to come. My anxiety couldn't cope with being with him all day feeling like he'd rather be elsewhere.

I certainly don't think I should praise him for staying in. I repeat it was HIM that originally suggested our day together so therefore him staying in shouldn't be rewarded.

He's not speaking to me this morning.

I realised my exh actually engineered arguments so he could storm off and get drunk. That way he could justify it to himself and blame me. The day i realized that was the beginning of the end.

He too was/is a lovely, generous, funny, loving man. But booze was his first love. It always won eventually. He's now separated from his 2nd wife, has lost a leg to alcohol related illness and is still holding court as 'great guy' in the pub, albeit in a wheelchair.

I've watched, from the sidelines thank god, as his drinking got worse and worse. I've watch his wife and real friends (as opposed to drinking buddies) struggle to accept that the booze will ALWAYS win. They struggle to accept that he's a harden alcoholic who is drinking himself to death - because he's a great guy when sober and fun when drunk. They too are in denial. Their denial enables him. Their denial means his young children get to hang out with daddy in a wheelchair down the pub because he's a 'great guy', just a bit of a boozer.

So why isn't he speaking to you?

I don't understand why you don't/can't communicate properly.

Just have a conversation like adults.

Also you saying you are not rewarding him for staying in does sound a little bit controlling.

Do you actually want to be in a relationship with him?

I don't understand why you don't/can't communicate properly.

Just have a conversation like adults.

Also you saying you are not rewarding him for staying in does sound a little bit controlling.

Do you actually want to be in a relationship with him?

@MrsAJ27 how on earth does that sound controlling? So I should be happy that he didn't vanish on a 12+ hour bender? I should be grateful he stayed in as we had made plans for today?
I've been downstairs, sat next to him and asked if we can talk this through please. He ignored me! How am I controlling!

@katewhinesalot clearly still sulking. I can guarantee it, that the second I walk out the door, I'll have a text message the size of an essay from him. He's rubbish at talking about things unless it suits him.

I think he wanted you to say it was ok and he didnt have to because he didnt want to be the bad guy. When you didnt enter that narrative he made you the bad guy anyway

2 days off after drinking is a hell of a lot. Do you really want this attitude to drinking being around your children?

So why not speaking?

I don't understand why you aren't just up & out!

But really if you know that you will come second to his drinking, wat's the point?

I'd just go out OP. Leave home to stew.

He's sulking because you didn't "allow" him to go out last night.

I'm sure if he hadn't an unhealthy relationship with drink then you wouldn't have posted here last night. It's difficult for people who don't have the experiences you've had to understand how damaging drink can be in a relationship.

You're wasting your time trying to explain to people who simply don't understand. They'll never understand unless they find themselves in a relationship with someone similar.

You did nothing wrong OP. An addict is expert at making themselves out to be the victim. It's always someone else's fault. If drinking wasn't an issue for him he wouldn't be sulking the next morning about not going out the night before.

I think you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face a bit by not going out with him today now tbh. And I would be a bit pissed off if I was him as he DIDN’T go out (I’m not and no one else is saying you should be grateful about that) but the fact is, he didn’t go out, he’s not hungover so it’s a bit of a waste to not now go on the day out you had planned. Can’t see how not doing it would make things better in the future tbh as he’s probably thinking he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t so he may as well just do it!

But, as an aside this relationship sounds like a total disaster. I’m not sure how old you are but if you’re anything above mid 20’s then being with someone who goes out for 12 hours drinking and taking coke with a load of cokeheads and doesn’t come home is just ridiculous. Get rid and find yourself a grown up. And this is coming from someone who loves a good drinking sesh at the weekends (though not every weekend) but I would never not keep in contact with my partner and I certainly don’t hang around with a load of coke heads. Just all sounds v juvenile and you don’t sound compatible long term.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life like this?

So then you have no choice to exit this relationship unless you are prepared to stand back and accommodate his excessive drinking - and do it happily.
Yes, he stayed in but if he's giving you grief for "having to stay in" then what is the point?

" he didn’t go out, he’s not hungover so it’s a bit of a waste to not now go on the day out you had planned."

But he's not speaking to Op!

I think that you should be making plans to leave, seems an awful way to live.

This is just not a good relationship. You're both behaving like teenagers.

Or is he not talking to you because he's not gone out and you are still giving him grief and after now refusing to go out?

Does he feel there is any point discussing it as you won't let it go and the day is ruined anyway?

It's difficult tio tell as we don't know the dynamics of everyday life.