When one half of a couple is pregnant, should the other partner not be 'allowed' to drink?

[fishonabicycle]

A woman I know is pregnant and has announced that her partner won't be drinking as she can't.

I'm interested to know what the consensus is on this!

AIBU - she is reasonable.
AINBU - she is not reasonable

We went on an all inclusive holiday to Antigua when I was 18 weeks with our first - paid an absolute fortune before I knew I was pregnant. Our agreement was DH could drink as much as he liked and do all the activities to make up for the fact I couldn’t 😂

I was quite jealous of the excursions he went on that I couldn’t, but it seemed silly for him to waste the opportunity.

I made up for it in spa time and Tiramisu so we were cool haha

I haven't voted but dh cut down on alcohol considerably when I was pregnant. It wasn't so much that I struggled with not drinking alcohol - I didn't. I've just always found it really hard being around drunk people when I'm sober. Dh respected how I felt and was very sensible about his intake and didn't get drunk. We went to Glastonbury when i was pregnant with my eldest and he enjoyed a few drinks but didn't go mad. When you're a couple you make sacrifices for one another. One partner volunteering and respecting the other is entirely different though to the other partner insisting. Got to say though, I chose to be with dh because he's considerate and sensitive to my feelings. Not sure I'd feel that way if he chose to get ratted repeatedly while I was pregnant and became his taxi driver.

Mehhh up to the couple on question. If the partner is happy with it then fair enough.

Im 36 weeks now and wouldn’t want my husband to drink but that’s just because I’m paranoid baby will be coming soon and he’ll need to drive me to hospital.

I am sure for most people it will be lots of individual decsions throughout pregnancy. Even when a big statement like the one you mention is made it will moat likely change throughout.

Likely they aren't buying a bottle of wine to share in weekly shop anymore as not appealing for dh to drink it himself. If he is going on a night out with friends she would probably be happy for him to have a drink.

Most couples I know stop completely when very close to due date and naturally cut back the rest of the time but would still drink when out for dinner or out with friends.

Someone I know did this with her partner, alcohol isn't an issue for her at all AFAIK. Was purely a thing of I'm not allowed to so he shouldn't be either. She is a bit controlling in other ways too.

I've enjoyed reading this thread for the various perspectives on this.

AIBU ?
AINBU ?

BIL’s partner was heavily pregnant and craving wine and rare steak. It’s not that she had an alcohol problem but we’d gone out and that was what she would have chosen to eat and drink if she’d not been pregnant. BIL decided to order a massive steak and a bottle of red to himself. I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for her to ask him not to drink, he knew how much she was craving that and didn’t give a shit just continued with what he was doing regardless.

If DH was wanting a drink, he’d ask if I minded and I was missing a glass of red, he’d have something else or just not drink that night. We were also due to attend a wedding when I was heavily pregnant, didn’t attend as baby turned up and we were still in hospital, but we’d agreed he wouldn’t drink there so we could go to the hospital if needed.

Pregnancy can create a lot of feeing of missing out for the woman, which the partner doesn’t feel. Some of it is stuff you can’t eat or drink, some of its stuff you can’t do and some of it is having a heightened risk assessment at work and feeling infantilised. So I don’t think she has a problem with drinking if she’s insisting, she’s just very aware of how much her life has changed while his hasn’t at all. Especially at this time of the year, all the drinks and food she can’t have.

When I was pregnant I craved some pineapple. When I tried the pineapple it tasted weird and I didn’t like it, so I started crying. DH didn’t really understand why I was crying but he ate the pineapple, which also made me cry. I wanted the pineapple but obviously couldn’t eat it but I also didn’t want DH to eat it because I wanted it. We just agreed that pineapple was just a trigger food for a little while.

I guess logically that if "we" are pregnant then "we" should both avoid booze.

It’s completely the couples decision but expecting your partner not to drink for 9 months just because you can’t wouldn’t feel right to me. I did ask my DH not to drink - or at least not to drink above the driving limit - in the 2-3 weeks leading up to my due date in case we needed to get to the hospital.

My DH doesn't drink much at all and it never occurred to me that he should stop completely when I was pregnant.
I mean I stopped drinking because I had a baby growing inside me. That wasn't the case for DH!
If either me or DH felt he should stop drinking during my pregnancy then that would be implying that alcohol was a really big deal to us. That alcohol was so important that I couldn't even bear to see my DH having a glass of wine. Not the case. I just wasn't bothered

My feeling is pregnancy can be a fucking awful 9 months for some women, and society decides to heavily judge and dictate to women, and impose rules that are often not fully medically accurate (e.g. total abstinence of alcohol, because the NHS decided women cannot be trusted to stick to just a small amount). Therefore, why can't partners also share in some of the rules? It avoids temptation for the woman (mine was salamis and rare steak) and frankly (having read a lot of threads over the years where men don't see any change in their lifestyle and carry on past birth, making them a shit partner and father) prepares the partner for the massive change that is about to occur in their life. Also, partners who go out on any drinking sessions when their partners are 30+ weeks should be judged hard by everyone around them, as they are leaving the pregnant woman up a creek without a paddle should she go into labour or have any complications and need to travel to hospital.

Anecdotally, I have observed in my own life and in my close family and social circle that...

The men who give up alcohol in solidarity while their wife/partner is pregnant, are more likely to be the decent dads who genuinely see parenting as a joint endeavour instead of 'helping' / 'babysitting'.

It's like they can immediately get their heads around the fact that life has to change, and they see it as fair that as far as possible, that change is balanced.

I think it's really grim and distasteful when men go out and get hammered while their partner is pregnant.

I have never dictated it - because both men I have had children with have automatically stopped drinking while I was pregnant.

No one can "allow" or "not allow" their partner to do anything. If she is sufficiently bothered by her partner's drinking that she wants to control it she is in the wrong relationship and should leave when she is able to.

I think alcohol is quite a frequent flashpoint during pregnancy though: a pregnant woman suddenly prioritises her health in a way she may not have done before and the prospect of being drunk and around drunk people is less and less appetising when you are responsible for the health of an unborn child.

If the couple previously moved in quite boozy circles that's likely to drive a wedge between them. Pregnancy was when my ex husband's drink problem became a problem for me: before then it was something which vaguely crossed my mind but because I drank a fair bit too it didn't overly worried me. When I was teetotal for nine months and then afterwards nursing a small baby and he couldn't go a day without drinking four cans of lager in the evening I found it harder and harder to paper over the cracks. It was the main reason I decided not to continue in the relationship. I didn't want my daughter growing up in a home which was dominated by drinking.

But the bottom line is no one can force behaviour on their partner. If it bothers you that much you take responsibility for it and leave.

@fishonabicycle
You very carefully do not mention the sex of the partner. Does this have a bearing on attitudes around drinking if both are female?
My exh explained that we are all part of a Northern European Drinking Culture.
It would seem irrelevant to me if a man had social drinks when partner was pregnant. My ex just carried on, he didn't tease me nor did we make a big deal of it.

I have known this when the man decides on his own not to

I didn’t care though, it’s not like dh drinks loads anyway

I always said I'd be the taxi driver regardless, I didn't care. But when it came down it, I was so sick, we never knew I'd be capable of driving so DH didn't drink anything at all.

I think it depends how heavily the non-pregnant partner drinks.

If the partner is a heavy drinker, that could put the pregnant partner in difficult situations, dealing with an intoxicated, perhaps aggressive partner, snoring etc all the various other shit that comes with drunk bores.

If it's a couple of social glasses of wine or pint, nothing excessive, then I'd let it go.

Does this rule mean, though, that the non-pregnant partner can't eat foods deemed risky, for the duration either ? https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/foods-to-avoid/

Where does it stop ??

It’s not anyone’s concern except the two involved, so YABU.
When I was pregnant, it didn’t occur to me to control those around me except if it directly impacted me. Like not being able to cope with the smell of bacon or cooking salmon.
He enjoyed a tipple, and it fortified him for lugging home the vast amounts of foodstuffs my sudden cravings demanded at odd times of the day.
Which as he didn’t drive sometimes involved a snowstorm, serious gradients and 20lb of satsumas.

It didn’t bother me to have dh drinking when I couldn’t but we generally drink small amounts regularly and don't binge drink to drunk. I’d have found him tedious in the extremes if he’d regularly got drunk when I was always stone cold sober.
friends of ours did give up drinking when their partner was pregnant due to them both needing to find other ways to spend time. One benef went back and is still teetotal . It’s a personal thing to each couple so I haven’t voted.

I had the odd glass of wine when pregnant, I'm glad there wasn't quite so much hoo haa and guilt about what pregnant women could and couldn't do in the 00s, though it was bad enough then. DH fully took advantage of my being the designated driver! I didn't mind though.

With no 'back story' I think it's she is not reasonable.

When pregnant with DS my DH didn't drink. But it was during covid and he only ever drank in the pub, not at home. He never took back up drinking after.

I think saying he can't have a few beers/ a glass or two of wine with dinner/ a fancy cocktail is a bit much. And I don't even drink anymore! It would be completely different if he was out getting pissed every other night and was being really unreliable

I agree with this. But then, I took all the instructions about what I shouldn't do during pregnancy with a large pinch of salt so never considered that I 'couldn't' drink. I'm not a big drinker anyway, but on the few occasions during pregnancy that I fancied a drink, I had one (and generally found a few sips was enough). I remember discussing it with my very sensible GP who told me that most of her doctor friends happily ignored official guidance... when I mentioned that I was going on holiday to France she commented that I'd need a glass of wine to wash down the unpasteurised cheese I'd be eating.
I found people trying to police everything they passed my lips while pregnant much more of an issue than what my partner consumed.

Depends if its his choice or not. Not drinking at all is a bit harsh - not getting paralytic would be acceptable ;)

She is being YABU. Only time the man shouldn't drink is in case he needs to drive her hospital during labour.