Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Can a relationship/family realistically survive alcoholism intact?

137 replies

Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 10:15

DH is an alcoholic, which he is coming to teens with accepting. We have 2 teens. He is accessing support, wants to stop etc but also doesn’t want to never be able to drink.
Things will be ok for a while, until another obvious lapse where he will have drunk but lie about it, drive when drunk etc.
AIBU to think that things won’t get worse? Or is it somewhat inevitable that he will relapse and things will escalate again?
Unsure if I need to plan to separate.

OP posts:
MyGooseisTotallyLoose · 15/10/2023 11:40

Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 11:36

A few months ago I worked out he had driven with kids in car after drinking at least a bottle of wine. Obviously huge row, asked him to leave but he refused and was upset etc. Since then he is never in a position where I allow him to drive the kids anywhere, I take them or he gets a taxi with them.
He now goes to AA regularly but still has slips and last week drove after drinking.

So he makes himself the victim? Was he upset at his horrific behaviour that could have killed his children or that he was being challenged for it?

GonnaGetGoingReturns · 15/10/2023 11:40

I would say, my DB who drank a lot (wine mostly) has cut down a lot, only a beer or two a week. But he wasn’t an alcoholic. A close friend of ours who was an alcoholic has given up but he had a heart operation and almost died. He will go into a pub to meet someone but always has orange juice. I don’t disbelieve him.

SquishyGloopyBum · 15/10/2023 11:41

He's still in denial if he thinks he can drink drive.

I'm a child of an alcoholic. It's a family disease. Google adult children of alcoholics to find out what long term effects this environment will have on your DC.

I'd also google codependency.

You won't ever be able to trust him. Alcoholics manipulate and lie.

You need to do the right thing here. My mother didn't and I have a very poor relationship with her now. She should have left when we were children.

No1MumPendant · 15/10/2023 11:43

Unless/until he can accept that he cannot drink safely and must stop completely, things won’t get better and will almost certainly get worse.

Often alcoholics need the dire consequences to wake them up to this fact. The ‘rock bottom’. What that looks like for each person is different. Whether you want to be around while he plays this dangerous, destructive game is your call.

LividGas · 15/10/2023 11:43

I divorced an alcoholic who later died.

You are underreacting here. You need to leave him, protect your children and phone the police when it happens again.

MyGooseisTotallyLoose · 15/10/2023 11:43

And there's no consequences for this action and he's taken no responsibility. He's CHOOSING ALCOHOL OVER HIS FAMILY.
He'd rather continue to drink and have you do the driving, or if you're not there, drink and pick the kids up in a taxi as he's pissed?

Beezknees · 15/10/2023 11:49

I think you're being far too lax to be honest. He has endangered your children's lives. He is not willing to completely stop drinking.

I'm the child of a drug abuser and I am NC with him and his selfish ways and the things I have seen affect me into adulthood so I have zero sympathy.

Original poster
Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 11:52

Thank you all, I needed to hear this. I think I’m somehow used to it? Maybe I’ve been putting off the inevitable. He’s so good with the kids often and is caring and kind when not drinking. I know that doesn’t even anything up but it does make it incredibly sad and difficult

OP posts:
MabelWotsits · 15/10/2023 11:59

Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 11:33

MabelWotsits
thank you, that’s good to know. So possible but not necessarily likely. Have you find it very hard to trust him?

No I trust him 100%. These days he will happily go to the supermarket and buy wine and beer etc if we're having guests.

He's been in AA a long time though and still goes weekly.

He wouldn't have been able to stop without that.

Wanderinghome · 15/10/2023 12:00

I can only speak on my situation.

My ex MiL is a recovering alcoholic. It's a complex situation, with lots of generational trauma and I'm not sure which issue came first. Of her children, including my ex, i wouldn't say that any of them have come away unscathed without needing therapy.

In the past she did try to cut down on her drinking but would always relapse.

Its a sad situation for everyone and i hope you can all get the support you need.

saythatagaintome · 15/10/2023 12:07

Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 10:15

DH is an alcoholic, which he is coming to teens with accepting. We have 2 teens. He is accessing support, wants to stop etc but also doesn’t want to never be able to drink.
Things will be ok for a while, until another obvious lapse where he will have drunk but lie about it, drive when drunk etc.
AIBU to think that things won’t get worse? Or is it somewhat inevitable that he will relapse and things will escalate again?
Unsure if I need to plan to separate.

Yes, of course.

although I think it depends… side of the road pissed drunk and flopped, no! Abusive and drunk, no! Functional, devoted father drunk, yes.

many of my friends growing up had alcoholic dads…the ones still together we the ones who kept their families fed and safe but also while on the sauce (functional).

Beezknees · 15/10/2023 12:09

saythatagaintome · 15/10/2023 12:07

Yes, of course.

although I think it depends… side of the road pissed drunk and flopped, no! Abusive and drunk, no! Functional, devoted father drunk, yes.

many of my friends growing up had alcoholic dads…the ones still together we the ones who kept their families fed and safe but also while on the sauce (functional).

Show quote history

You can't keep your family safe when you're an addict. The addiction will always come first.

Sapphire387 · 15/10/2023 12:10

saythatagaintome · 15/10/2023 12:07

Yes, of course.

although I think it depends… side of the road pissed drunk and flopped, no! Abusive and drunk, no! Functional, devoted father drunk, yes.

many of my friends growing up had alcoholic dads…the ones still together we the ones who kept their families fed and safe but also while on the sauce (functional).

Show quote history

I don't think it depends.

My MIL tried to keep it all together and pretend her husband's alcoholism didn't exist.

My husband still ended up with an alcoholic for a partner (before me).

It affected him, growing up. It normalises things for children that should never be normalised.

audihere · 15/10/2023 12:12

I voted YANBU, but I meant it that yanbu to question whether it can work.

Honestly from personal experience, until they accept they have a problem with alcohol and that they cannot drink again, it cannot work.

Your life becomes a rollercoaster and the relationship isn't a functional one as the addict cannot be part of a functional couple.

I'm supporting my DC through their bereavement, as their dad died from alcoholic liver disease. It is a progressive illness and only a lucky few see the other side.

audihere · 15/10/2023 12:15

a drunk father is neither devoted nor functional. To minimise this is really unhelpful. Children deserve a clear headed, present, focused parent and adults deserve the same from a partner.

5128gap · 15/10/2023 12:15

Lots of families function with an alcoholic member. But usually with certain requisits.
The alcoholic is fully functional and doesn't engage in risky or anti social behaviour.
There is plenty of support around them (enablers) to pick up the slack and the pieces.
They are priveleged so have enough status and money to throw at any problems arising, from buying in help, to medical needs, to being able to afford their addiction without sacrifice of other things.
If you can't give three yeses then the prognosis is poor. If you can, you might scrape through, but at much cost to you as the support person.

Comedycook · 15/10/2023 12:16

B12B12 · 15/10/2023 11:03

Your DH’s primary relationship is with alcohol not with you or your DC. If he does not intend to even try to stop drinking forever, I would end the marriage. It is likely at the end that you will have to nurse him through a long and unpleasant illness.

My father was an alcoholic. Died when I was 17. I am 60 and it defined my mental health all my life. My mother and sister also still suffer. Put your kids first.

Agree. My father also was an alcoholic and died from it. Protect your kids op. The stress and anxiety it will be causing them will quite honestly fuck them up for life.

saythatagaintome · 15/10/2023 12:18

Beezknees · 15/10/2023 12:09

You can't keep your family safe when you're an addict. The addiction will always come first.

Show quote history

Every situation is different but you absolutely can. Again, operating word being FUNCTIONAL.

my fil is a total slush (still is at 70+) Yet, managed to get his engineering degree from MIT (Boston), keep his high paying job and send his three boys to Ivy League colleges in the US.

He’s still married to his wife, and when my husband asked her why she stayed with dad if he was such an. Alcoholic she replied “because he’s loyal”

my fil had rules around when he drank, but he is an alcoholic.

PamelaDawes · 15/10/2023 12:22

Sorry OP, no. Not until he means to quit seriously.

I am the child of two alcoholics. After we watched my father die it is beyond upsetting to watch my mother do the same, while shouting at us that she is not an alcoholic, that she is an adult, blah, blah, blah. I love them both. I deeply resent them both for this weakness.

Franticbutterfly · 15/10/2023 12:23

It can happen, but the after effects on everyone's mental health shouldn't be underestimated.

Original poster
Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 12:23

So if he does continue with AA gets therapy and realised he has to give up completely, we could recover as a couple and family?

OP posts:
Nicole1111 · 15/10/2023 12:29

Until he accepts he can never drink again (which I believe they require for aa) it will only get worse and worse. He may also never be able to accept that

MaggieBroonofGlebeSt · 15/10/2023 12:30

I can't believe that you haven't divorced him for drink driving! That would be a total deal breaker for me - never mind your kids, what if he killed someone else's kids???
My FIL had alcohol issues. My MIL said she would leave him. He was never violent or unpleasant, (or drove drunk), just went into a stupor.
He went into rehab in his 30s and has never touched it again. Even at our wedding he had apple juice.
I know someone whose family did survive his ongoing alcoholism but I think his wife was mad to put up with it and I think it was a totally unhealthy environment for their daughter. He eventually died from pancreatic cancer.

StickSeason · 15/10/2023 12:32

My ex husband was and is an alcoholic.
The lines in the sand became so blurred over the years - I really was the frog in boiling water, accepting lies and slips ups which I would tell a friend to run screaming from.

I managed a decade of finding hidden bottles, of constantly trying to work out if he'd had a drink, of lies and pledges to stop. Then he drove with the kids in the car and crashed it. That was it - because my children needed to be safe and he was an adult who could look after himself.

It was the lying that killed it for me. There's no trust because the booze and that unquenchable thirst is always more important than anything else.

If you can, take a step back and look at your life. Would you want one of your kids living like that?

Dotcheck · 15/10/2023 12:41

Autumnleavesfalling23 · 15/10/2023 11:52

Thank you all, I needed to hear this. I think I’m somehow used to it? Maybe I’ve been putting off the inevitable. He’s so good with the kids often and is caring and kind when not drinking. I know that doesn’t even anything up but it does make it incredibly sad and difficult

Ffs
He is NOT good with the kids.
He drove after drinking a bottle of wine and you are still with him?
And you’re asking if the family will be ok and intact? Of course it bloody won’t- how can it be if his addiction puts other peoples lives at risk.
How can you stay with him? Is being married really more important to you than your children’s safety.

Even if you somehow manage to run interference on his behaviour with the kids, his drinking will still affect them, and seriously destabilise their childhood.

Clearly you have been in the situation so long that you are not registering the difference between normal and abnormal.

This is not normal.