Boyfriend drinks too much

[Michrose]

I am 47 and been seeing my boyfriend who is 55 for almost a year . Kids get in well with him and I get on with his kids. He is loving , caring , generous , does lots for me . He is at second stage of divorce and their house is on the market . He sleeps in his old daughters room as she moved out . However he likes a drink . I didn't think too much ti start with but it's starting to put me off. Then when he is sober and being helpful etc I feel ok. Examples are he gets drunk but won't stop drinking . Pisses all over my toilet floor , stares at me with his tongue out. Drops tobacco all over my floor. He is never nasty . Times when I'm certain he has had a drink before he comes over as gets drunk too quickly on small beers. He showed me a clip of him falling over drunk on the pavement of him before we met and was laughing , then yesterday one his daughters showed me a photo of him being carried it on stretcher by paramedics when he was drunk once and fell down stairs . She showed me because at the bbq yesterday he fell of his grandsons balance bike and cut his leg. He was staggering and stuffing spicy food in his mouth and trying to kiss me .x his other daughter stopped him drinking and has said in past he should stop. I have found my peace after an awful divorce . I have my own house for me and my children . I need peace . He brings me calm often and so good with the kids but everytime he gets drunk which every weekend it puts me off . At times he is down the cricket club texting me which I like but he repeats himself and says he isn't drunk . Then later says he is , I had one night out with my friend to see a tribute band and he didn't like it , saying i was mugging him off . He isn't a cruel person and never been horrible. He has not once let me down . He later said I should go out and his own insecurities , I can't help how I feel when he is drunk it puts me off and I worry he won't stop and I can't settle down with someone who gets silly when drunk .

The thing with alcohol abuse disorders is that they come hand in hand with telling lies (to cover up the alcohol abuse). Being with a partner who routinely lies (or distracts from questions they don’t want to answer by starting conflict or love bombing, often both) is soul destroying.

There are a few recovering alcoholic YouTubers, listen to some of their stories to find out the whole picture, not just the fragment that you get to see.

OP, my ex was like this. He'd be oh so charming around everyone but once he started drinking I'd be the one to deal with the shouting, the threats, the accusations of what I'd been up to (merely projection of his own behaviour) and eventually having to call the police when he wrecked my house after I refused to leave the party I was out at, the door kicked in cos I was out at a gig. But oh so lovely when sober. They all are. That doesn't outweigh how shit they are when they are drunk.

None of us are saying your DP is currently at any of the levels that our exes are....but our exes didn't go straight to these behaviours.

Well he was drunk and missed the seat . It was all over seat and floor and he has done this several times. He isn't going in and just aiming for the floor. Either way it's made me wild

Don't let him stay at yours ever again.

I voted AIBU because I can’t believe you’ve not binned him off yet.
I was involved with someone for 4 years on and off.
He was a chronic alcoholic. When sober (rarely) he was charm personified.
Everything had to revolve around drinking and pubs.
When drunk he was nasty and abusive. And of course, I was cleaning piss off the floor constantly.
He was always skint, and resorted to stealing my debit card and taking money out of my purse to buy booze, which he then had the gall to deny and try and gaslight me.
When it was finally over, I began to enjoy peace in my life. And still do. I’m single and intend to stay that way. It took the police getting involved though, to end it.
He’s mid fifties now, we’re not in touch, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear through the grapevine that he’s died.
Throw this one back and enjoy your life.

Then theres your reason for ending it.

You can end a new relationship for whatever reason you want, but this man doesn't respect you, he isnt able to control himself, hes got an alcohol problem, he doesn't know when to stop, hes an impulse control problem . we could go on.

But simply put your gut is telling you that youre not happy with the situation.

It's not your responsibility to fix him, or to stick around while he doesn't see a problem. He can be the nicest man in the world but if hes a complete twat when hes had a drink (and he continues to routinely have a drink) then hes a complete twat period.

Well he is self employed and always has money . So that's not a problem. He treats me really well in that sense. He isn't always down the pub either but just in general I can't help how I feel when he drinks and I hate using the word but it gives me the ick

Good grief OP, he sounds like a liability! Get rid of him pronto. Pissing on the toilet floor?? WTAF! Gross.

He is 55 and pissing on the floor as he’s too shit faced to aim. Ditch this one.

Most alcoholics I know (or knew, some died from it) are/were very nice, kind people but that doesn't change the fact that alcoholism has a nasty, messy, dangerous side too.

You are 47 and tbh, old enough to know better than to be entertaining and alcoholic.

You have young kids, they don't need to be exposed to this. Sure, they might not have been yet, but if you stay with him, they will, these things escalate. Woukd you want any of them to date an alcoholic when they are older? Surely, you would want better for them? You should want better for yourself too.

What happens when he ends up with wet brain...will you be able to leave him then or will you feel responsible for caring for him?

Get out now, while you still can.

You've described someone who sounds completely gross. Just The pissing in the bathroom would have me kick this butt out of my life and block him. You clearly have a much bigger tolerance for bad behaviour than me.

Sorry op. He is bad news. Unless he wants to change this simply won't end well.

OP you seem to be a bit fixated on proving that he is a nice man. I can understand this as there does seem to be a stereotype on here of alcoholics being aggressive abusive people, which some definitely are. It's also possible for people to be lovely when sober and even amiable when drunk, but still be addicted to alcohol. The problem is that even the lovely people are unpleasant for other people to deal with when they're drunk and will prioritise their own desire to drink over other people's very reasonable desire not to have to deal with them or see them doing damage to themselves. At the moment he's managing to keep his drinking under control during the week and holding down a job and functioning. He might continue on like this, or he might ramp the drinking up over time. You don't want to deal with this every weekend as it is now. You can give him an ultimatum that you want him to stop/ cut down drinking, but if this isn't something he wants to do it's not going to happen. He will likely just start trying to hide it.

LTB!

Well I don't think he is an alcoholic . I do feel there is a problem with drink when he does drink.

What does LTB mean?

Mumsnet standard advice for wasters of husbands/boyfriends/partners, "leave the bastard".

I’m sorry but with all the kindness in the world he’s a fairly serious alcoholic.

You are not being honest with yourself here. You’re sleepwalking into disaster here if you can’t acknowledge the problem.

It won't get any better, OP, unless he wants to stop drinking. The husband of one of my friends tried to overcome his alcohol addiction by checking into The Priory. He didn't have a drink for over a year after that, but eventually slipped back into his old ways. They eventually divorced.

That aside, when he was going through he sober period he openly discussed his time in rehab and counselling. One thing he said was the problem with alcoholism is that it's progressive; a smoker might enjoy 15 cigarettes a day and 10 years' later will probably still be smoking 15 a day, but an alcoholic will always need more and the number of days they can go without a drink will shorten over time. If their current intake is two pints on the way home followed by half a bottle of wine with dinner, in 10 years' time, it will more than likely be three or four pints and a bottle of wine, and maybe a shot or two in the morning; basically, whatever it takes for the drinker to feel "normal".

There's no reason why you shouldn't be his friend, but if he continues to drink and insists it's not a problem, the future for your peace of mind looks bleak.

The very fact you've posted here about his drinking indicates there's an issue.

The problem is that he's doing it every weekend though. If he got stupidly drunk once a year you could just tell him that you didn't want to see him if he was going to get drunk. When it's every weekend you won't have much of a relationship left. His behaviour is pretty extreme, injuring himself, falling over missing the toilet etc. Whatever label you want to give it, that's not healthy or normal behaviour. You can of of course talk to him about the issue and tell him it's a dealbreaker for you in the relationship. It's always possible that he might change, but just prepare yourself that he probably won't long term. He obviously doesn't think there is anything wrong with what's happening when he drinks if he's showing you pictures of him fallen over drunk, most people would be mortified that that photo existed.

Ask anyone with any experience with alcoholism what's the difference between a problem drinker and an alcoholic?

About 6 months if they are over 25.

Alcoholic enablers (of which you are one) are almost as bad. The minimise and mask the issue - at least the alcohilic is inibreated and cannot understand the problem. You can and you are ignoring it.

How dense and desperate are you?

You know he has a problem because you’ve come on here for advice, but now you’re minimising everything. Don’t subject your children to this, that’s just really sad.

If a “normal” person got so drunk once that they pissed on the floor they would make sure that NEVER happened again.
He is making the choice to drink to such excess. Alcohol is more important to him than his relationship with you.

You need to break up with him.

if you won’t break up with him, then give custody of your children to your ex. They deserve to not have to be around an alcoholic, even when he is not drinking.

just because his children love their father doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting them. Children of alcoholics still love their parents. While still living with them it will even look like they dote on the alcoholic. That is not real love. It is a trauma reflex. They have been groomed and trained to be responsible for his fickle moods. If they don’t keep him happy, he will drink and become a problem so they subconsciously do whatever they need to do to make sure he is in a good mood.

It’s not really referred to as being ‘an alcoholic’ anymore, it’s now called ‘alcohol abuse disorder’. This change of terms is to
stop the sort of hair splitting you are currently engaging in (paraphrasing but ‘he’s not an alcoholic he’s just a problem drinker’)

Have a read of some resources, you’ll soon realise there is no difference.

alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/supporting-a-loved-one-experiencing-problems-with-alcohol