My husband has been mugged (or something). I lack sympathy. Am I very horrible or just slightly awful?

[NeverLeapfrogOverAUnicorn]

On another of his benders. Went off to get computer fixed at 930am yesterday morning. About 3pm I phoned him 4 times in a row - it rang but no answer and then the 5th time his phone was off I wouldn't mind but I was only trying to get him because I needed a number that's stored on his phone! I didn't give a shit where he was! Anyway, I digress...

So no sign of him last night. I took the kids to my parents' house, had a moan (and a fag!) came home, went to bed. No sign of him this morning. Oh well, I thought. Went to Tesco, came back. Cos you see, I no longer care where he is when he disappears. I just plod on with my day.

Got a phone call from him. "Turned your mobile back on now I see" was my opener

Anyway. Turns out the stupid drunken fuck met some blokes last night, went with them back to their place to carry on drinking and overhead them in another room talking about beating him up and taking his wallet!

So he legged it!

But no wallet or keys

And he's been wandering round for hours because he didn't want to call me!

So I am now waiting for locksmith, have cancelled all the cards, and am waiting for him to get up (yes, he went to bed cos he's knackered and upset!) so he can report it to the police so I can get a crime number which is the only way the insurance company will change my car lock!

Oh, and we are now £80 lighter so lets hope the kids old school shoes still fit cos I now can't buy them new ones.

I know I ought to feel sorry for him but I just think he's a twat and maybe this'll teach him!

NeverLeap - Sounds to me like you dont want to leave him, you just want him to stop.

Im assuming over the years you have tried talking sense into him, but to no avail.

Have you thought about counselling, sometimes hearing someone else valid how this makes you feel, might make him see sense,even if it doesnt it may well help you and give you the strength you need and some helpful advice on how to deal with him.

If you really can't put your needs (and they are needs, not wants) to the top of the list, then try looking at the situation from the other way. Your acceptance of his behaviour is enabling, allowing it to continue. This is not a good life for him, the kindest thing you could do is force the issue and ensure that he gets the help he needs. This will not happen for as long as you continue to enable his current behaviour. As has already been pointed out, your children are learning that the way their parents behave is the way they should behave when they are adults. Would you wish this on them? Strictly speaking, it is selfish to continue as you are for the sake of a quiet(ish) life and avoiding upheaval.

Either way, it is all for the best to stop the current situation continuing.

Agree with Reality. Take your life back.
You don't deserve this shitty way of being treated at all.

I wouldn't say drugs, maybe he likes to gamble/ play cards when drunk- not a good combination.

You have taken the first steps to independence from him when you had your op. When you are more mobile, I really hope you have enough self belief to break away from the cycle of lies and selfishness. You deserve happiness.

Hecate (I thought your style was familiar...), you must have read enough threads on MN for us not to have to point out to you that his behaviour is not that of a good father

"Just" feeling unhappy is reason enough to separate.

An unhappy mum can mean an unhappy child.

Plenty of people are very good parents together and rubbish partners.

He could have been beaten up, drugged, attacked, raped, murdered.

He needs to think.

You could be a widow, your kids could be fatherless.

It has to be a new start today - with all the work that entails - or things will stay the same.

I wonder if it's happening more frequently again because you are getting closer to being less physically dependent on him and he feels threatened by it?

I'm sure it really wasn't that long ago that you had determined to leave him once your post op recovery had happened? What's gone on to make you change your mind. I thought you were still biding your time and saving your pennies.

Hecate. Your DH sounds so much like my Dad, benders and all. My Mum put up with so much crap from him, probably for the same reasons, and he was a good Dad - when we were young. Once I was older to understand that not all Dads went out every couple of months and got drunk enough to be rolled by taxi drivers/have to be picked up from god knows where that they got to god knows how/soil themselves/spend the christmas shopping money then maybe not such a good Dad.

They only separated in the end because my Dad found someone else... There will always be a little hidden part of me that can't forgive my Mum for letting herself be treated like that.

As for my Dad, who I worshipped as a child? Well we haven't had a relationship since I was 17. I deserved better than him (have a rather fab StepDad, who loves us unconditionally and treats my Mum how she should be treated)

OFFS - agian I will saythis to another unhappy woman - your kids are seeing his behaviour and they will then build relationships in which this behaviour is tollerated, maybe it will be the norm like it is with you and they in turn will be happy.

You are not doing them any sort of good by letting this go on, you are infact causing them more harm than showing them that they have every right to be respected and loved and treated better than you are and at the end of the day be happy in a relationship..

Oh and he is lying through his back teeth to you - what a crock of shit - I bet he can;t remember the address either!

I never knew you lived in Sheffield!!

NeverLeap - I can understand your fears of being a single mum and the upheaval. Its not easy and its a lonely life, i wouldnt recommend it.

If you love your DH try to work it out, sounds like you have tried to do this in the past and it hasnt worked, so perhaps with some outside help. But dont carry on like this whatever you do, its soul destroying, get some help.

If you substitute "DH" for "20 year old DS" that would be more fitting. He is treating you like a parent and your house like a hotel, and you are acting like his long-suffering mum and providing a concierge service

As you have got used to this behaviour bit by bit, it's possible you are desensitised to how far away from normality it is to have your DH/DP pop out on a straightforward errand at 9.30am and NOT COME BACK until the next day.

"Came home, went to bed. No sign of him this morning. Oh well, I thought. Went to Tesco". Even those with DH's/DP's who they don't always get on famously with would be very alarmed if their OH weren't home by that night let alone the next morning!

His story is either a lie or the truth but TBH it doesn't really matter what went on with who and when, because it boils down to the same things which are 1) he can't be trusted 2) he is completely unpredictable 3) all of this is way unacceptable. But you know that already.

I've seen you give such good advice in the past. Read this thread as if it wasn't you. What would you tell the op to do?

Hecate - I knew this was you even before you said it was...

How on earth do you put up with it?

You are a lovely person inside and out , why does he treat you like this?

NLOAU - I started with the leave him speech, but you know what is best. If his behaviour is making you unhappy and he is unwilling to address it then there is no shame in leaving. You don't need and affair or violence to make it justifiable.

Hope you sort it out one way or another.

Good luck xx

Just echoing what everyone else has said. This is grounds to end it, if you have tried to get him to change, and you are unhappy, and he won't. If you want him to leave, you have the right. He can rent somewhere near you and see his children often. My friend has separated from her H and he lives nearby, he comes over to take them to school every day before work, he comes over most evenings and does bedtime, and he sees them every weekend. They barely notice he isn't living there.

My DH lost 50 quid in a taxi once. Boy I was fucking mad. He didn't feed me a bullshit story though. Your DH has lost/spend the money, and his keys, and is too chicken to tell you. What a twat.

Oh yes - my DH does benders sort of like that occasionally. He does answer the phone though and always comes home, but I still hate it. Honestly though, he has done it twice since Xmas. I guess that's a level I can live with

Hecate I had no idea this was you till you said.

Why are you unhappy? You are unhappy because of how he treats you and because he does things like this. So yes. That IS a good enough reason to ask him to leave.

This is also NOT what you want your children to see as normal.

Even if you don't want to ask him to leave now you need to get him to address his drinking problem. Drinking to get into such trouble is bloody stupid. Stupid because it is bloody dangerous. And juvenile.

He needs to be an adult and grow the hell up and admit that this is not normal behaviour.

agree with realityisnotdetoxing on page 2 - I had the same thing, awol partner, drinking problem. He left me - I would never have left him for all the reasons neverleapoveraunicorn is giving. When the fog lifted I was also shocked at the things I had put up with.

A man with a drinking problem who goes on benders where he doesn't know what has happened to him cannot be a good father. Whatever he is doing while he's away - drugs, drink, cheating, gambling - he is exposing you and the children to risk through his behaviour. The problem is that the longer you remain in this kind of situation the more you will socialise your children to believe that this is the norm.

If you do not want to completely end the relationship I believe you should at least ask him to leave and sort himself out before you'll have him back in the house and around the children.

And you're having the locks changed anyway ...

just how bad a mother would you have to be to take your purse and go to the shop for milk, but go to the pub instead, ignore calls and turn off your phone, drink and drink and drink, disregard the feelings of the people at home wondering where you are and are you ok, keep on drinking then bugger off to some scally estate with a load of skangers that you don't know and end up wandering around the next day too worried about the reaction you are going to get and not at all worried about anyone else?

What if one of your kids had been taken ill?

what if he had been stabbed?

how is that a good father?

I had a partner like this, he was also an alcoholic, although he never admitted as much
I left him before I could get to the point of resignation that you are at.

To be honest I don't believe that you don't are what he is ding when he does a runner, your detachment is just a form of self defence. If you have health problems that lead you to depend on him is there no where else you could get support and kick him out?

If you let him away with it he has no reason to stop has he?

YRNBU what a totally utter feck, I would be livid. Serves him right

OMG NLFOAU, are you with my ex by any chance?

My ex was "mugged" no less than 6 times during anywhere up to 5 day benders. On one occasion when I was 9 months pregnant I recived numerous abusive and sick text messages and calls referring to my pregnancy from those who had taken his phone from him when he was pissed out of his head (it was referred to in messages between ex and I) and the second time another phone with all the pictures of my new born dd (seconds after being born) was taken. He wasn't in the least bit sorry and couldn't really have cared less.

I could have written all your posts word for word, including the one about your personal unhappiness not being enough to end the relationship and especially the bit about just plodding on with your day, you just stop caring in the end don't you? I remember looking out and seeing my ex getting out of a police car at 7 in the morning after an all nighter and I just wasn't even shocked and could hardly even be bothered to ask him what happened. I have posted under many different names trying to get "permission" I suppose to end the relationship. I have now and I won't say it isn't hard because it so is but I am glad it is over, nothing he does bothers me now, although I do get extremely stressed around child support payment time because he cannot be trused and will justify anything to himself, but more importantly I don't need to carry this sickening guilt anymore that I am damaging my children bit by bit, day by day by allowing them to witness this awful relationship and situation.

You don't think you care anymore about he is behaving but deep down you do, you have just buried it I actually ended up having the most brutal panic attacks and actually feeling as though I had lost my sanity because I had been suppressing my rage and pain for so long, I had to because nothing would ever change, no matter what I did. Total helplessness.

I am sorry this is long but I hope you manage to read it all because I want you to know that I understand what you are going through more than you can possibly imagine.

I also relate very strongly to the wishing he would do something so severe that you HAVE to leave him. I will tell you now, if you stay with him he will if he hasn't already and you just don't know about it.

Also another piece of invaluable advice I read was this "If in doubt do nothing, it will either get better or worse", and it did, it got much, much worse and I was finally able to leave him because it was impossible to stay, I suspect this would happen to you to.

Alcoholics will go with anyone anywhere in order to keep drinking unfortunately