To struggle to sleep when my 19 year old DS is out at night?

[BerryTwister]

I expect I’ll be told to get a grip!

DS is 19, nearly 20, home for the summer after 2nd year of university. He’s very sociable and has lots of friends, and like many young people goes out to pubs and clubs.

9 times out of 10 he’s sensible, and has several pints but stays coherent. But there have been a handful of occasions in the last couple of years when he’s got stupidly drunk - falling over, slurred speech, maudlin, argumentative, stroppy and sometimes very miserable. He never gets into fights, but if I’m around he argues with me, and is belligerent and frankly pretty vile. We end up barely speaking for 24 hours afterwards,

The rest of the time he’s a great lad - pleasant, working hard at a holiday job, helpful, doing well at uni.

The thing is, because of the times when he’s got stupidly drunk, I’m now completely paranoid when he goes out. I can’t sleep, and if I nod off I wake an hour later. I’m menopausal and I don’t sleep well anyway, and I work during the week, so weekends are my time to catch up on sleep. I find myself dreading him going out and feeling really resentful that I’m going to have a crap nights sleep.

Does anyone else worry like this? Am I weird because I can’t sleep when he’s out? That’s what he says, and he says other parents just chill out about it. I’m OK when he’s away at uni because I suppose I just adjust and disconnect to an extent. In view of the times he’s been in an awful state, am I entitled to be a bit grouchy about it? Or should I just smile and wish him a pleasant evening?

I don’t care how infrequent his vile behaviour is, no one is vile to me in my home. this is where your boundary should be.

I’d be worried if he was driving or in a mates car. Falling about and puking up, not so much. You haven’t got a clue what he’s doing at university so you presumably worry when he’s with you. I’d not accept the vile behaviour though. Make sure you chat with him and mean what you say.

I sometimes feel bad that I don't do this. But DS from about aged 16 would go to the gum at 10 and not get home til gone 11 most nights sleep i gave up worrying. All 3 now go out and between them it's most nights so I can't be arsed worrying.

Why are so many posters minimising or ignoring the fact that the DS is abusive to the OP when he's wasted?

OP, am I right that this isn't about worrying that your PFB will come to harm, but that he will come home in a real state again and be vile to you?

You need to draw some strong boundaries here. You glossing over his behaviour isn't good for him. He needs to nip this behaviour in the bud, now. If he's an unpleasant drunk, he needs to accept this and take responsibility for it, not force the women in his life to bear the brunt of it.

He needs to kearn some self control or this is what his relationships will look like too.

You need to tell him that this behaviour is unacceptable. If he does it again, maybe film him so he can see when he's sober how awful he's being. But that would need to be his very last chance, and if he does it again he has to have serious consequences such as having to find somewhere else to live.

I did actually start to film him once, and then I thought that actually that might make it worse. Rather than looking at the film the following day and realising how obnoxious he was being, he’d think I was unreasonable for filming him, and my unreasonableness would end up being the take-home message.

It’s not just that he’s obnoxious if he goes past a certain point. He also gets maudlin, saying he hates his life, can’t see the point etc. When sober he says he didn’t mean it. And he certainly seems very happy and contented all the rest of the time, so I don’t think it’s a case of “in vino veritas”.

He’s just one of those people (and I’ve met a few over the years) who undergoes a complete personality transplant if he has an absolute skinful. I’ve had friends like this - lovely when sober, lovely when drunk, but truly vile when completely wasted.

And yes, whilst I do worry about his safety, like everyone, my primary concern is wondering what state he’ll be in, and if he’ll have crossed the line from drunk to horrible. When I try and reason with him in the cold light of day, he shrugs it off and says I’m making a big fuss over nothing. We have a frosty 48 hours and then he’s lovely again. It’s only happened about 5 times over 2 years, but I can’t stop worrying about it.

I think he’s not boyfriend material that’s for sure. Why is he drinking like this?

I would have a chat with him about his behaviour OP and say it’s a concern and explain the effect it has on you. Perhaps warn him now that you will film him if he does it again so he can see what he’s like. Try and explain it from the perspective of how it makes you feel - he can’t shrug off / tell you how to feel.

He should avoid drinking if it makes him depressed also, very worrying for you and not fair for you to have the deal with.

Did he apologise after that op? Make amends?

Getting obnoxiously drunk to the extent that you disrupt, mistreat and abuse members of the family is something that should only happen once.

If he did that to a spouse, he could find himself out on his ear and 50% poorer. I know dc, even adult dc, struggle to see their dps as actual people, never mind reasonable fellow adults. We all thought our dps were hopelessly out of touch at that age.

But … I was tiptoeing in drunk, not to wake my df who would have been a lot worse than obnoxious if I’d woken him up. Not abusive, but certainly he believed in the “my house, my rules” and “not under my roof” school of thought. I’d have had to prove myself responsible afterwards to get back in his good graces.

We parent differently now - there aren’t the same barriers to communication between generations and my dc don’t fear me on any level. And I think those are good things (it’s a social experiment and the results aren’t in yet) but the developmental shifts in how children view their parents at different ages and stages hasn’t changed.

I think you’re being too soft op, and it’s to his detriment. You need to hold the standards up much higher, both for you and how you’re treated, and for him. I know it’s uncomfortable but it’s a choice really between being uncomfortable lying awake, anticipating an abusive drunk, and uncomfortable holding boundaries.