Husbands wants time to think... again

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Ive been married for 18 years, together for 22. We have four children. For the last few years, my husband has increased his drinking to excess. He frequently goes out, sometimes till the next morning. He's started, on occasion, taking cocaine. As his behaviour has worsened, I've started nagging him to please come home by midnight. To spend more time with family, to have a few days of drinking a week. Sometimes he does this but usually not at all. This year, he has moved out to decide if he wants to be with me three times because he doesn't want to be controlled. He doesn't want a curfew and wants to be able to do what he wants when he wants it. Each time he comes back, he resolves to reduce drinking and starts therapy but never does it. He's just moved out again. He wants till the end of the week to decide if he wants to be with me. I told him, I've had enough; you either want to be with someone or not. I want to fight for the relationship because I love him but also for the sake of the children, but i can't bear for him to have another 'thinking week' to decide if I am worth it or not. It feels like me vs a party lifestyle decision. Am I being unreasonable if I tell him that I'm done? Breaking the children's hearts and my own (and very likely his) in the process?

Exactly. He's off fucking himself ip. Gets the fear, comes home to detox, starts the whole cycle again.

Someone else now has my ex-coke head. Good luck to her. Current DH doesn't do that.

You are also not nagging. Asking somebody to show up for you and your family is not nagging. I’m so sorry you are going through this. Mel Robbins on Instagram is a good one to watch with these hard decisions. Esther Perrel and Jennifer Finlayson Fife podcasts as well. I know you will get through this, I just wish you didn’t have to

This with big shiny bells on.

Alcoholics instinctively know the only way they can square their urges with the demands of having a family are to make it all the family's fault. So they make it all about "nagging" and "pressure" and "lack of freedom".

Well, tough shit, it's called being an adult. And if he can't step up to the minimum demands of having a family, he doesn't get to have you mothering him as he drinks himself to death. Don't let him make it your problem.

Tell him this time you've thought about it and he needn't bother coming back if he stays away for a week. Stay or go, but no more indecision. You can't live like this, he thinks you have no choice but to put up with it, let him know you have choices too.

He has a drink addiction problem.

You think your kids want a binge drinking, drug using, unemotionally present dad?

You need your head testing.

Fuck this sack of shit off. You genuinely can't believe this isn't going to get worse for you and the children???

He's addicted to drink. His way of coping with stress. He probably won't stop.

Let him go. He drinks, takes drugs, stays out late, sometimes all night. He's pissing it up like a teenager, leaving you alone. He doesn't know if he wants to be with you. Don't give him the choice - get rid. He's not a husband, and certainly isn't a decent father, either. He sounds like a man having a mid-life crisis. He wants to have a single, boozy, drug-addled life but with all the benefits of having you around IF he wants. What a loser.

Tell him not to come home. You aren't breaking your kids hearts letting him come back, by the sounds of it they will hardly miss him as he puts them second to drinking and drugs. Put yourself and the kids first and tell him he's out

Why are you being so passive OP? Why is he the author of your lives? Take back control. Tell him it’s not working for you and YOU’VE decided it’s over.

Maybe. Maybe not.
Seems more helpful than posting a dry, somewhat academic, NHS type link at this point though.
Also, if we are talking cringe, then cokehead should be banned too.

Yabu to even let him make the decision
Is this behaviour acceptable? Give him a divorce for Christmas

It's you or his coke and drink benders, and he needs to move out of the family home to think about what he wants? Do you really need answers to this? Bin this waster.

I really think you'd all be far better off without him.
It can't be a happy existence for you or your kids.
Call his bluff, kick him out.

I would not want a man engaging in Class A drug use around my children.

Yeah, someone else has my alcoholic. In fact this is the second woman since we split. I suspect the first one got sick of him too.
Behaved in exactly the same way as OP's DH - out drinking until all hours, coming back in aggressive, saying I was being controlling everytime I tried to have a discussion with him about reducing the number of days drinking each week.
Left several times to have thinking time because he didn't want to be "controlled" and he wanted to be "free" and he wasn't "free" with me. Then he'd go on a drinking bender with friends for a couple of weeks, eventually sober up and then show up again begging forgiveness and I stupidly took him back several times because I "loved him"

I didn't love that horrible drunk version of him that had no time for me and said horrible things to me. I was still "in love" with the "idea" of him. The idea of being in a loving relationship and the idea of the good times we had together (when he wasn't drinking) and the attractive nice person he could be sometimes. Unfortunately that wasn't actually the person he was. There were glimmers of it sometimes but really he was a completely fucked up (difficult upbringing) person who was an alcoholic and needed therapy to deal with his issues arising from childhood as well as help to quit drinking.

Dear OP, please tell him it's over and that he is not to come back. You can sort everything else out once you have taken that step. You are doing yourself and your children NO favours having him there behaving like that.
He should not be living with the children when he's coming in drunk and coked up. That is not what they should be seeing.

@redboxer321 really? You think embarrassing song lyrics about some bloke are more helpful than child trauma? That's awful. Feel free to post more juicy links to ACE if you feel it's an important factor. I do not, and I suffer the impact of my own mothers ACEs she inflicted on me every day of my life. Sorry if that's too dry for you 🤷🏻‍♀️

Change the locks and take control. Embrace being free of this loser.

You're not breaking the kids hearts, his inability to be a decent human is.

I'm sorry OP. Like several others on the thread I've been there and it was bad enough 'just' with alcohol. You put up with so much because you love them and cling to the hope that things will get better but in your heart of hearts you know it's not in your best interests OR in the best interests of your children for the situation to carry on like this. And the worse he gets the greater the heartbreak will be for you all. If he won't/can't change things, then you need to.

If your post had been written by someone else - a stranger, a friend - what would you advise her to do? Give him yet more chances to put drink and drugs before family? Or tell him to go?

You are not in the wrong here. Good luck OP.

You know the answer. Take control of the situation.

HE is the one breaking up your family by choosing alcohol and drugs over his children.

YOU are the one caring for your children and protecting them from their deadbeat addict father.

He's decided alcohol and drugs (and presumably his mates) are more important to him than you and his children.

Read that again.

He's decided that alcohol and drugs are more important to him than you and the children.

Even if he has a problem (addiction), he is choosing not to address it. And continuing to pick the drugs/alcohol on a daily basis over you and the children.

Pick your children. YOU need to pick your children. And ask him not to come back until and unless he gets help for his alcohol/drug dependency, AND if you are still open to trying at that point. Start packing his stuff up.

Why do you give him all the control?
have his bags ready for when he does come back - tell him now is your thinking time

do you. Hes really not goin to.remove the choice entirely. Sure its heartbreakin and hard at times,but, you and kids deserve stability,consistency and not what hes brinin to the table. Take back control.
Hes got all the options and track record of broken promises. If indeed he was\is ever oin to change-you dont need to carry him through that.Build your own strengths and leave him to it.you will feel much better .sooner than you think

He’s disappearing to go on a weekly bender and disguise it as thinking time so if you argue it he can say you’re being unreasonable. Each time you let him do this and come back, he’s getting away with it. They are week long booze and bag holidays for him. Not thinking time, he comes back on a comedown and for a pity party.

Right he's a loser and you need to get rid. But people often talk about lining their ducks up in a row before asking for divorce and this is what you need to do now.
What proof do you have of drinking, staying out and drug taking?
What have you got to present as evidence as to why 50/50 care for the kids is not their status quo.
Have you told anyone official? Me I'd be straight into school to raise a safeguarding concern and get Early Help involved.
I'd be looking to subtly get him to acknowledge on email how much he drinks, stays out, imbibes, uses etc.
Don't use it as a weapon to beat him with but do use it as a defence.

Book relate couples counselling. Go even if he doesn't.
Go to your gp. Tell them you're stressed because of his behaviour and it's affecting - whatever it is affecting. Don't lie but do get a record of it.
Bank accounts - have you instant access to all of them. Make sure you get balance before you hit submit on the divorce application.
Hit submit 5 mins before you tell him.
Go see/ring a solicitor now so you can get picture of what best case for you would be in terms of financial settlement and best case for him. And bear the c20k-40k cost of fighting in court when making concessions in mediation.
And put the kids first.
And be open to him changing as the years p r ogress and always facilitating the kids relationship with him so long as its positive