Yesterday (D)H, DD and me went to visit friends about 1hrs drive from us.
My husband has always had an issue with drinking and I consider him an alcoholic, but because he only gets paralytic every few months (although drinks quite a bit everyday) he disagrees with me and tells me I exaggerate things and that he's not got a drink problem. However, the problem is that when he does drink too much he gets quite aggressive (with what he says), and yesterday he managed to make our good friends cry.
They've just had their DS2 2 wks ago and so it's a pretty emotional time for them anyway, and under the circumstances they were very forgiving over H's harsh words (which were about a mutual friend who had been bad-mouthing them to my H), and because he got drunk he clearly thought it a good occasion to tell our dear friends about it, seeing as all signs of sensitivity disappear when H has had a few too many. In fact he calmly continued to eat his dinner as our friends cried at the table. I was so mortified.
The other thing is that I don't drive, and by the end of the meal all I wanted to do was to go home. So H drove us back and I spent the whole drive firstly wondering what the hell I was doing putting my DD in danger with a drunk husband swerving around on the dark streets, and secondly why the fuck do I continue staying with him. And as a final slap in the face after he dropped us off home he went off to the pub to continue drinking.
Of course this morning he was full of apologies, saying that perhaps he had over-indulged slightly, but that I was equally to blame as I still allowed him to drive us home and in his mind that's proof that he couldn't have been that drunk.
I'm so fed-up and after years of this I just want to leave. But our DD is only 9 months and I don't live near any family and I'm completely supported by him. Basically I haven't got the guts to take off. But then I think maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill. His aggressive behaviour only happens a handful of times a year and the rest of the time he is a really good father and a pretty kind bloke.
So am I overreacting? No one's perfect, and I'm by no means the easiest of people to deal with. So should I just take these moments as a horrible blip that occasionally occur and get on with living what isn't a too bad life with him?
This has taken a lot of courage to write and to be honest I've been in two minds as to whether I should actually send this out. It's the first time I've admitted wanting to leave him to anyone. And even though I'm sure our friends and family know that there's a problem (they've all witnessed his embarrassing bouts of drunkenness) they don't know exactly how confused I am, or how desperate I feel.
I could really do with some objective views. If you've got to the end of this long thread, thank you.