Help me “unpack” my anxiety around my husband going out drinking?

[CallUpMyMamaSaidImInLoveWithTheStripperYo]

Husband is going out for dinner and drinks with friends on Saturday night. My heart sank to my boots when he asked if I would mind, but i said “of course not” because I’m not a controlling dick.

He hardly ever goes out. I don’t mind dealing with the kids etc, no issue at all, and he works so hard and is very much my equal partner so he deserves to go out once in a while.

But I have such terrible anxiety around it. I will be on absolute pins all night. He will get drunk - not over the top drunk, a bit drunk, he’ll come home around midnight, eat some junk food and go to bed. He is not an obnoxious, angry drunk, he’s perfectly fine.

I am an emetophobe but I think there is more to it than that. I am anxious around drunk men, or my kids seeing their dad drunk. Maybe there is some childhood trauma around that. I’m not sure.

I have been known to sleep with my daughter on nights he goes out, or ask him to stay at his parents house which he really hates doing. None of this is his problem though. I don’t expect him not to go because I am anxious. I need to deal with that myself.

Can anyone else relate to this feeling?

There’s a strong argument to suggest that alcohol wouldn’t be legalised if it was discovered today. It would be classified as an illegal, controlled substance because it causes cancer, damages organs, mental health problems and can cause fatal withdrawals, meaning modern food and drug laws would never approve it for sale. Then of course there’s the behaviour changing qualities of the drug. There’s so much violence is linked with alcohol, including domestic abuse and of course there’s dangerous driving whilst under the influence.

Consuming alcohol in our society is so normalised that some people don’t consider the downsides of alcohol. On this thread we have a poster who doesn’t want her DH to get drunk, being advised to seek counselling.