Gone too far this evening - advice please

[advent25]

A local evening out with DH has escalated - and I’m not sure how we go back from this . for context both in our 40s with two children (one with SEN - I am main carer). I also work full time and carry majority of mental load for household.

For background there is history with DH excessive drinking and this has ramped up again this last few months - he’s been unhappy at work which I have been supportive of as I have some understanding of the industry. About the drink - I’ve said there is a tipping point for me & that more support is needed and he has agreed to counselling only last week but done nothing about it yet..I feel it’s lip service as this is ongoing. He is also on medication for depression which clearly won’t be helped by the drink .

So tonight he seemed to want to pick a fight when we got home - as I wanted to go home earlier than he did - it was almost midnight and we both have work today and needed to get home to our children. He was very nasty and kept insulting me - said I was ‘boring’ and ‘no fun ‘ and I had changed since we got together in our 20s!! For clarity I stood my ground , didn’t get emotional and asked what point he was trying to make etc as I’m generally happy with our lives and always the one to arrange stuff for us to do as a couple or family.,

This is against a backdrop of several nights out / drinking until early hours for him and Christmas parties etc in recent weeks so not as if he has gone without in terms of fun etc . I’m also not sleeping well at all which is partly due to the ongoing stress of all this but also that he is well aware of.

For added context over indulgence at Christmas has been an issue for several years and has caused family arguments - there is history of of problematic drinking for many years but I feel this has come to a head in that it’s now about my own boundaries of what I can live with as I know I can’t change it.

i would welcome advice please - this is a 20 year relationship and we are generally in love so I thought but after tonight don’t feel he even likes me. Married for many years. Enjoy each others company (so I thought ) if we could take the issue of excessive drinking away but also know I can’t make the change.

hard to advice when you dont say What happened?

I couldn't live with this and tbh once you are menopausal neither will you be able to. I'd be making ultimatums come January re counselling and alcohol addiction help. But only do that if you are prepared to carry them out. It's about deciding what you can live with.

I lived with this for years and the situation eventually sorted itself out as the drinking prompted an affair. 20 years together too, which seems to be quite pivotal in relationships on Mumsnet. The peace of mind I have now in free of all of his shit is awesome and also - my insomnia resolved.

It sounds like he hasn’t grown up, and wishes he could stay a binge drinking 20-something.

As you say there's nothing you can do. He's a problem drinker and has no intention of fixing that. You either want to live in the shadow of his drinking or you don't.

If you stay, know this - you handled it wrong. He was drunk and spoiling for a fight. You can't win in that situation. Your best bet is to leave him to it, remove yourself from his presence until he's no longer so full of alcohol. That's the only way to stay safe and avoid being the subject his nastiness is projected towards.

This probably means doing things like not trying to persuade him to go home earlier than he wants to avoid him getting angry and if he does get angry for some reason either taking yourself off to a hotel/friend's house or if the DC wouldn't be safe with him then going home and locking him out. It's a really shit situation that will see you tiptoeing on eggshells around him trying not to set him off, taking on more and more of the domestic load, watching your career falter and possibly eventually come to an end entirely due to being in an unfit state for work some days, experiencing your own mental and physical health decline with the stress and workload on your shoulders and a partner who you can't even talk to about it.

I wouldn't bother myself. It'll only end in him leaving you for someone who doesn't realise/doesn't care that he's an alcoholic and who doesn't have disabled DC to look after. Alcoholism and all it entails is abuse towards the family. It's likely to get worse as is his abuse towards you. It's his way of checking out of family life mentally and eventually he'll probably check out physically by leaving you. I'd spare myself that shit show, also of ending up a shell of yourself and with some kind of long term incurable health condition. Leave now. While you still have your health, your sense of identity and your sanity. If it means losing your job and becoming a full time carer then so be it. It's where you'll end up anyway (unless you can work and care as a single parent). It's just a question of how much shite you go through first before getting there.

I had an alcoholic ex and wish I'd got out when I'd known him a few months and my friends looked shocked when they asked if we'd like to share their taxi home and he told them he had the car outside. I had no idea of the alcohol limit for driving, my friend set me straight later when I asked. I was also young and naive and came from a bad family where the weight of the world had been placed on my shoulders. I believed it was my responsibility for keeping him from drink driving and I stayed with him a decade.

So I'll tell you this - you're not responsible for your husband in any way at all, ever. You can't fix this for him and don't have to try. You don't have to put up with a single piece of his nonsense or any abuse at all whatsoever, not even name calling. You can't have a relationship all by yourself, it takes two and from what you're saying he's already got one foot out the door.

He agreed to seek help for drinking.
Make a list of local AA. For Christmas give him a lift to the door of an AA meeting.
Then it's all up to him.

He needs to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Take him seriously at his word and support him.

You are right to identify alcohol as the main problem.

I was that alcoholic arsehole.
After 43 years of heavy drinking, I joined an online AA group in the USA - “Zoo Crew 22”.

It saved my life, I haven’t picked up a drink since and that was 627 days ago. But your husband has to do this himself, otherwise he will resent being forced to do it.

So sorry to read all this is happening for you. What a miserable time.

I would recommend that you try to segregate in your mind 'DH', the man you know he is and can be, the one capable of making you very happy, from the 'drinker' he has become. They are in essence two different men!

He needs to get to the nub of what makes him addiction prone, and if it's work, he needs to change his job.

He is clearly dependent on alcohol, and he will never be that good and stable man again until he gets help with alcohol (and possibly, he must also get help to reassess his depressive state and what causes it. It may be anxiety and stress rather than depression if it has a work cause. Thus, anti-deps may get him nowhere).

To some extent, arguing with him while he is in the grip of drink is pointless as you are not speaking to a rational man. Even if he is sober at times, he is an alcoholic who cannot see beyond alcohol just now. All his words and points of view come from needing and abusing alcohol.

I think you need to be cruel to be kind in this situation; ask him to leave the house until he has begun getting regular and sustained help with the drinking. He needs to live somewhere else. A man who is volatile in behaviour and is addictive cannot be around the kids.

Otherwise, you are the soft bed on which he falls whenever he wants to drink, and the only way to stop fighting with him over alcohol-fuelled topics is if he isn't present.

I would also say you need to speak to or write to his GP and make the GP aware that the anti-deps are being taken within an alcoholism context. This may bring a change to his prescription as he may not have been honest about how much or how often he drinks. While GPs cannot share info with you, it is perfectly reasonable to write a letter to his GP offering information in that letter. This does not breach their code of conduct or ethics since they are giving you nothing.

You mustn't feel bad about making him leave; he is unsafe to be around emotionally or physically while in this state of flux and addiction. Tell him you love him and have no intention to leave him but that he can only live with you when he can show evidence he's under a credible help programme and has been following it for at least six weeks.

He will throw back at you that he has agreed to counselling.

You need to stand firm and say that you need to see him in an active programme and committed to making progress before he returns since he isn't stable enough to be in the home with children present.

Just signing up for counselling is not enough as you previously made your boundary clear, and he has overstepped it. He must show he's attended it for X weeks and is making progress.

You can also validly agree that you have changed since being in your twenties! That is to be expected and is good; in our twenties, we have an undeveloped sense of self. Now, you know what is good and what is unhealthy. Your maturity helps you in life.

It would be very odd if you had not changed since you were half this age.

I would have a conversation once sober. Of course you've changed over 20 years, you should have changed, you've grown up and priorities do shift.
On the "fun" side of things - it sounds like hes having a bit of a midlife crisis and looking for the old things that brought him enjoyment (going out drinking whilst young). He needs to find some sort of hobby or some things he enjoys doing for an evening out that dont just involve drinking.

My parents got married in their 20s too.

My dad stopped drinking and smoking when he was 60.
Sixty years old.

I remember the horrible things he said to my mum that he thought I wouldn’t understand - he was right, but I had a memory, didn’t I?
He was awful to her, but she stuck with him.
I still remember those filthy words and my parents are both gone.

You need to think about your kids. What kind of effect is the drinking having on them??

This isn’t about you. This isn’t about him.
This isn’t about whether or not you love each other.

This is about - surprise! - your children, and how your husband’s drinking affects them.

And you and your husband need to think long and hard about that.
This won’t be about the two of you until the drinking is under control and the kids are okay.

Sending love ❤️

You are living with an alcoholic. This is now having an enormous impact on you. Your dc are also going to be witnessing very poor modelling.

An ultimatum is required. Be either goes to the GP (medication support) joins AA and looks at the cause of his drinking as a coping strategy through counselling or he loses everything. It is stark as that op.

There is no shame in saying it is getting the better of him, it is by definition a very addictive substance. Supoort is there, a better life awaits all of you,

YANBU but alcohol addiction is an illness, so you owe it to your partner to do your best to help them recover, just as you would with any other serious illness.

Look up the charity NACOA, a charity for children of alcoholics; to help your children understand that his drinking is not their fault, and supporting them.

nacoa.org.uk

Ultimatums rarely work with addicts. Especially ones who project the issue onto their loved ones and make out that it’s them who are boring etc.

Tell him to go and get pissed somewhere else. You’ve got enough to contend with.

Said by someone who has absolutely no experience of living with an alcoholic and the chaos and pain that comes with it.

OP, I'm 46 and currently going through therapy to finally deal with the effects my alcoholic mum had on me as a kid. It's not pretty. If you can do anything to avoid your kids having to go through similar in years to come, do it.

Partners and families drive themselves insane and make themselves ill trying to help alcoholics recover. What does 'help' even mean? Stick around, listen to the sob stories, keep paying for everything, clean up the messes? Then there's no reason to stop drinking.

Like @DratThatCat I too lived with an alcoholic mother. We spent years trying to 'save' her. So much stress and misery. She never wanted to stop drinking, never attended AA, made little effort. In fact she told psychiatrists that she enjoyed drinking. She ruined her life and ours, and there was not a thing we could do about it. It ended horrifically.

Only the alcoholic can change things. If others want to leave them to it and save their sanity, they should. Otherwise, it's likely years of pain.

This is going to be really hard to hear, but you can't take the issue of excessive drinking out of the equation.
Only he can. And he has to really want it, and it will be a lot of work.

So you have to decide if you can stay in the marriage based on who he is choosing to be, not who he could be.

I'm so very sorry this is happening to you.

He will continue to ruin your family life. If you let him.
I’m sad to say you are in for a very tough time over Christmas.

Protect your children and yourself from his drinking. Befure it breaks you too.
Let him know you are well and truly done with his need for alcohol.
You don’t have to go out drinking with him at all. You don’t have to put yourself in the way of his insults and aggression and spoiling for fights.
Don’t have another ruined Christmas OP. Don’t enable it by being around it. Leave him to his fun with the bottle on his own!

Either take yourselves off for the Christmas period altogether or tell him to go elsewhere.

‘Love’ has to act differently when with a heavy drinker/alcoholic.
He needs to be on his own with it to come to his own conclusions. He needs nobody else him around to blame. Then he might look to himself.

It’s a long process OP, but in the meantime you must protect your children and look after yourself so that you can lead your family safely. You need your health and your job and your sanity in order to cope.
I’m sorry you are going through this. Good luck.

This. Once you lose your oestrogen he’s in trouble! I would give him an ultimatum. Fix up or fuck off!

Just to offer another perspective here as someone who grew up with an alcoholic - consider how this is affecting your children. If this is (and it must be) affecting them then it's not just about your relationship but their childhoods. Personally, I would set a timeframe for change and it if doesn't happen (e.g. attend counselling by X date) then you really need to consider this relationship. Some people never change when it comes to this. My father didn't change after 2 divorces, now he's in his 70s and still drinks to excess.

These poor children. Their family home soaked in booze with two warring parents. What kind of a childhood are they enduring?

Sorry that your H has a drink problem. Unrealistic to hope for different behaviour from him, day to day or at Christmas. You sound a bit in denial. Going drinking with him is enabling of the problem.

Being ‘in love’ isn’t reason to stay in a relationship. His problem is serious and negativity affects you and the DC. He will or won’t recover so it’d be best for you to prioritise the DC. Organisations for families of problem drinkers could be a source of information and advice.

The phrasing about you being no fun any more raises alarm bells - has he had his head turned by another woman? Someone else who he enjoys spending time with without the mundanity of everyday family life? I think he could be paving the way with excuses for bad behaviour. Whatever the case, you are not being unreasonable that he needs to reduce his drinking.

It's generally good practice to read the whole post before you reply. Everyone else seems to have managed.

It sounds like what happened is you realise you can’t live like this anymore? What his he bringing to the table? It sounds overwhelming negative rather than positive?