OBMT, please read this before giving up on this thread. When I met dh he was a regular smoker and drinker, he also smoked dope and on occasion he took cocaine. In fact, in his early twenties he had a nervous breakdown because of all the drugs he was experimenting with, he was diagnosed (wrongly I think) with schizophrenia and treated accordingly. He was still having lapses when I met him. Now I have never smoked, never taken drugs, but I do like a drink. Normally I would have given people like dh a wide berth, but something told me there was more to him than that.
Gradually he stopped smoking as I couldn't stand it - though he still smokes part time when he has a drink. He still smoked dope too, and would more often if he had access to it.
When I got pregnant with dd it was a real struggle to give up the booze. My whole social life revolved around single, childless friends, getting blotto and clubbing most Sat nights. Suddenly I became an outsider, a taboo subject. My friends didn't know how to handle me and dh just carried on as normal. On the rare occasion I ventured out with him, he would smoke in front of me, get drunk in front of me and start silly arguments. Now I suffered badly from depression during the pregnant and ended up in casualty after trying to harm myself. He was a rock then, he supported me in every way, but he did not knock the drinking on the head for me.
Now I am pregnant again and the issue has risen again. He will drink and get drunk in front of me, even if there is just us two out. He will also smoke in front of me, cigarettes, but he would use dope if he could get hold of it. We were supposed to be going to a wedding at the end of Oct, I would be 8 months pregnant. We had arranged to stay with one of his friends, but then I found out that dh was planning to go out with his friend on the night we arrived, leaving me on my own with dd. He was going to sink quite a few pints and smoke dope because that was what his friend expected in return for their hospitality, although his friend has not said that. Dh does not understand my problem with this. He makes out that I am the insensitive one, I am the nagger, I am unreasonable, I am hormonal and I'm not the woman he married. Well no, I'm not. I'm now a mother who puts her children before her own needs. The fact is that I have changed, and he hasn't. He no longer understands me and I don't understand him.
I am hoping we can work this out, but we might need help to do that. This is what I suggest you and your partner do. Parenthood has obviously changed you as it has changed me, but dads do get an easier time of it, and their lives don't have to change as much as ours do. Perhaps he feels he needs to prove that even though he's a dad he can still live it up with the rest of them. Perhaps he's afraid of getting old, afraid of the responsibilities. He wants to stay forever young, and he wants you there with him. Perhaps that was one of your attractions? Being younger than him, making him feel young too.
I do sympathise with you. Try going to Relate (you can go on your own if he refuses). But if he does refuse to change his ways, then you are left wondering what is more important to him, his family or his freedom? He is a grown man now and must stop blaming his behaviour on his childhood, he can choose how to behave. I hope you can be strong. Best wishes.