To expect my DH to avoid drinking in the day when he knows he turns into an abusive git

[allovertheplace]

This could be a long one but I'll try to keep it short. Background is, I'm a working mum (DD is 4). I'm lucky enough to be able to work part-time but I have a stressful job. We have no family local to us as we live 250 miles away because of DHs job and have done so for almost 10 years. I've never really settled here and would love to move back home but DH is totally against it as his family are too intrusive. So, I've been trying to make the best of it here but struggling to fit in. He works 4 on, 6 off shift patterns so invariably I have DD on my own some weekends and he gets the house all to himself in the week on the days I'm working and DD is in day care. He's a lovely bloke most of the time and does do a fair bit around the house and is great with DD.

However, when he drinks over a certain number of beers, especially in the day, he turns into an abusive and argumentative git. He doesn't in all honesty go out drinking very often but when he does he can't seem stop when he's had enough. Last time he was out, I picked him up and because I made a disapproving face when I saw how bladdered he was, he started screaming abuse at me and continued all the way home and into the house, in front of my DD and my parents who happened to be visiting. Knowing how he gets, I find the best thing is to ignore him and not rise to the bait so I did. He then squirted freezing cold water over me from the bottle he'd just taken out of the fridge before screaming at me to F*ck off back home and then he lumbered off to bed.

Next day he couldn't remember any of it, not even when he fell off a chair holding my DD. When we told him how bad he'd been he swore he'd never drink in the day again.

My beef this week is that I've taken the week off work to spend it together as a family as we don't get to do that too often. He's wanting to go out with the lads on Friday afternoon and can't understand why I'm p*ssed off! I've been on my own with DD, (who's a bit of a handful) for four days and was looking forward to a nice week with him around to help out and now I have the worry of what might happen on Friday if he goes out and does his Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hide act. He thinks I'm being unreasonable for objecting to it, and can't see why I can't move on from the last episode. I'm starting to think that perhaps he's right, but part of me also thinks that if he's insisting on us living miles away from our families, he needs to cut me a bit of slack as well! If it was a day I was working and he was off, I wouldn't mind half as much, (although would dread coming home to god-knows-what).

Am I being unreasonable? Maybe it's just because I'm tired, having been up half the night with DD who's been coughing and spluttering, (so she and I are both frazzled). He's got a knack of making me feel like a rotten spoilsport.

Also need to add - my father was always a 'lovely man' when he was not drinking - can't say he is ever a lovely man now, or that he has been for years. But he was. He was well-liked, well-known in the community, involved in different activities including the church and the school. His drinking and drunkeness started to become more obvious, to the massive embarrassment of my mother who would dread social occasions - not because he would lose his temper there (he saved that for home - makes me wonder just how out of control drink made him if he could choose the 'right' place to be really horrible), but because he would be stupid, loud and clumsy (spilling wine, for instance), he would be rude and belittling to my mother, who would try to pretend he was joking to save face.

She would beg him not to have more than a glass or two before they went out, and she was accused of nagging...and yes, of being a 'rotten spoilsport', just as the OP says.

Hi daughter of a drinker and everyone else who took the time to post.

Yes - thanks for posting and sharing your experiences. One of my parents also has a drink problem along with mental health issues and I grew up in that atmosphere. This was a more benign problem but nevertheless had an impact on the family where we now all tiptoe around, not wanting to upset or worry this parent!

I guess my present situation is that yes, my DH is a nasty drunk when he drinks and yes this could be the start of a slippery slope. His drinking habits are generally the odd beer if he's off at the weekend with a meal, and possibly we'll both have a couple of drinks if we're watching a movie and that's fine. When in the house it's one maybe two, one night a week and then no more. These days/nights out are very infrequent, (we're talking every three or four months) but that's the danger points and that's when it can get explosive. He's had one night out since the worst episode I described earlier and made a big show of how fine he was when he got back, (probably thinking it was notching him up some brownie points), but the unpredictability of it makes me nervous each time one of these outings is mentioned and even if we're going out together, say to a wedding or some other function, I'm on pins all night, watching him like a hawk. Thankfully he's never disgraced me in public, ..... yet.

I am going to stick to my guns on this one and continue to insist that it's a bad idea for him to go out on Friday. I could show him this post but he's so far in denial that he'd just rubbish it. As far as he's concerned the last episode was a blip and he'd sort of accidentally had more than he thought he'd had. It's really scary seeing someone that you think you know so well and whom you trust - a grown man, with responsibilities, staggering and almost incapable of speech. When I mentioned it this morning he just said, "oh this again - you're never going to let me forget it, are you. I've said sorry, what more can I say".

A rather telling point is that when we got engaged, his sister warned me to "just watch out for him when he drinks too much".

I think I have a lot more thinking to do and I'm probably looking at some tough decisions, depending on how this week goes.

Hmmm.

Not everyone knows it but alongside Alcoholics Anonymous there are "sister fellowships" of Narcotics Anonymous and (in thebig cities) Cocaine Anonymous. This is an acknowledgement that the problem is very similar and that the "drug of choice" is almost incidental.

However, one big difference is, of course, that alcohol is currently legal. As such, it is sold to anyone over the age of 18 who wants it, in standardised units with their Alcohol By Volume (ABV) clearly stated and, except in certain circumstances, it does not need to be concealed, disguised or adulterated for public consumption.

This makes the fact that "the last episode was a blip and he'd sort of accidentally had more than he thought he'd had" quite hard to believe to most sane adults, if I'm honest - certainly if we're talking, not about a teenager experimentally drinking in secret, but a grown adult drinking in a public house.

Something for him to think about, perhaps?

His retort will probably be something along the lines of, "you know what it's like." But, as a normal drinker, you probably DON'T know what it's like - you drink as much as you feel comfortable with, and then stop.

Lots of problem drinkers, in contrast, report (in various words) "not having an off switch" - when they start and "the gloves are off", whether it's every day or every three months, their body doesn't tell them to stop.

Just wanted to say that my dh sounds very similar - dirnks in day sometimes, gets v annoying and argumentative, cant recall next day etc.
i am like you, at the beginning of seeing how this will end up as my dh is also when sober nice enough etc etc.
i have a rule that if he will be coming back to the house any time when the kids are up and he has been drinking, then i lock the doors and he has to sleep it off at his parents house which is just round the corner. took a bit of him geeting used to this but now he does it automatically and i dont need to nag about it.
when drunk in eves, i have started to film his behaviour - really was to show him the next day but i think also for my own sanity so that i can get a grip on what i am dealing with.
we have seen a counsellor and are trying out some techniques , but i am not sure whether his drinking habits will mellow or waorsen as time goes by.

Thanks again to all who posted. As promised I'm dropping by with an update!

To cut a long story short, we had MANY discussions throughout the week about how sensible, (or not) an idea it was for DH to go out on Friday. I eventually agreed to give him one more chance to go out and behave himself. Then, when Friday dawned, he changed his mind and decided to stick with me and DD instead and we went out to the cinema for the day and had a lovely day.

The subject seems to be closed in our household, probably until the next time, but I really think he chose to spend the day with us because he's starting to get his priorities right!