huge row last night. Marriage is over.

[scaredwhatsnext]

H and I had a huge row last night over his drinking.
On average he drinks 27-32 cans each week
He drinks 7 nights a week and starts reaching for a can within
an hour of getting home but still claims he doesn't have a drinking
problem. He called me names last night & accused me of
bad mother & wife because i come on mumsnet. He pointed out
the bits of housework that i didn't manage to do yesterday and
said thats because i was on here instead of doing "what i should be doing"
For the record the pc wasn't even switched on at all yesterday and i usually come
on here when the dc's are in bed for an hour in the evening instead of sitting
watching some boring war documentary on tv with dh. I'm still in the same room with
him so don't see it as a big deal.
He tells me how much he drinks is none of my business
My children 13 & 5 have made comments to him about drinking every day
and H blames this on me as he says i am bringing their attention
to it.
H told me not to make him choose between us & alcohol as
its the only pleasure in his life
An hour later he said our marriage is over.
What do i do now? I can't work as i have a disability and
he can not afford to move out.
I live in Ireland so not in the Uk.

have you tried talking to him before he has had a drink

i.e. go out for lunch and try and talk it through, let him see how upset you are but dont plead, nag or whinge

if he takes no notice after that, then you have to decide whats best for you and your kids. You cant change him, you can only change you

Seems to me there are several issues here

• he definitely does drink a lot, but spread over several hours a night, not enough to get wasted. Did he bullshit through that medical checkup though, by understating what he drank?

• does he see that this is not a great example to set the children?

• when he says this is his only pleasure, consider the possibility he's telling the truth. From his POV, he is on a treadmill in which he gets no time off, others spend all his money, he gets no thanks for this but plenty of complaints about every tiny thing that isn't perfect about him, he has no close family left, he has few shared interests with you and you despise his interests anyway, and if he dares to drink at home rather than disappearing to the pub, well, you're going to try and ruin that for him too, because you can't stand to see him doing something he likes.

• Would it be as big a problem for you if his only pleasure in life was, oh, online wargaming, or golf, or something?

It's interesting that nowhere in the thread have you expressed any particular concern for what he may be doing to himself, and in fact neither has anyone else. The concern seems to be around whether you and the kids could survive economically without him.

If you don't give a toss about him any more and are staying with him because you need his income, then between that and his piss artist siblings, you have the complete explanation for the drinking don't you?

I would in any case ignore confident-sounding amateur diagnoses that he's an alcoholic. This has a fairly precise meaning and technical definition, and it's not the same as "drinks a lot". Even if he is, there are risk factors that give rise to it which include his environment.

Whatever you do, I wouldn't go the route of telling him to stop whining, dry out and resign himself to a crappy dry life because he's in the wrong. That's like telling someone their car is old and knackered and will henceforth always cost a fortune to run. If you crystallise people's future like that, it can spur them into selling the car.

I am also surprised @ people on here suggesting that this man should be thrown out of his home, separated from his kids. Yes he is drinking too much but from what I have read he is not violent to OP and her children, believe me I do actually live with and alcoholic and because he us seeking help and willing to stand by him. Do marriage vows mean so little? through "sickness and health" IF op dp is Alcoholic then this is actually a illness, as Apocal said there has not been 1 mention of concern OP dP well being. If I am misreading things then I do apologise but how about trying to talking to him in calm manner try to find out why he feels he needs to drink. But then if you OP do not love him anymore then that is a different story.

What else can be done apart from legally separating?. Scared's H does not admit to having a problem with alcohol, tells his wife that the marriage is over and that the amount of alcohol he drinks is none of her concern.

Violence comes in many guises. He does not have to be physically violent to make life at home a misery; his words and actions do that and affect all around them. Alcoholism is a family disease; everyone becomes affected by the actions of an alcoholic.

OP does not actually have to sit down with her H and discover why he drinks (there is probably no one answer to that question). Why should the onus be solely on her to try and fix this, this is not fixable in any event.

What about his disregard for the OP?. He's well and truly trampled on those marriage vows; she did not alone cause this situation to arise.

My main concern is for the OP and her children who also live with this situation daily. Her children comment on their Dad's drinking. Why should they have to put up with a drunkard for a father?. Why too should the OP have to put up with such an intolerable situation that her H is the primary cause of?.

Scared H's primary relationship is with alcohol; that cannot be denied.

My dh usually drinks 4 cans a night. I have the odd G&T or glass of wine. It sounds like your dh started getting angry with you pulling you up on things once you started having a go at him about his drinking, which is a defence. I sometimes think my dh drinks too much but I wouldn't start putting my foot down about it, it's his decision and it doesn't harm me or the kids or impinge on him going to work or doing things. Is it purely the amount he drinks you have an issue with or is it his behaviour because of it?

Orchidlady I think the fact that your husband is prepared ot get help makes your situation completely different from the OP's. Her H has already told her that he chooses alcohol over his family (not even just her, but his children too). He is not going to change. And I think your tolerance of your DH's drinking is clouding your judgement of what is a reasonable amount for someone to drink. 32 cans a week is nothing like normal or acceptable and even if he is not beating his children and downing 2 bottles of vodka a night, he is not sober ever in the evenings and that alone would be enough for me to send my husband to live elsewhere while he sorted himself out. It is not good for children to live with a heavy drinker.

OP: Perhaps the term "problem drinker" would cover him rather than "alcoholic". If he is only dealing with life by using alcohol as an anaesthetic, it's not a healthy state of being for him or you.
As the mantra says - you cannot control or change him, you really need to think about your own mental health and that of your children.

He has also offered to take the family away for a break as he proabaly wants to make ammends for saying some horrible things. I really don't think he has done something so bad that he deserves to be booted out of the family home. If drinking 4 cans of beer a night means that someone is not fit to a husband most people I know would be single. As someone said earleir if OP does actually not give toss about her H anymore that that is a different story.

Attila, with all due respect, I doubt that you are qualified to determine whether someone's an alcoholic or not. It's a well-recognised medical complaint with quite specific clinical symptoms and varying degrees of severity short of full-on alcoholism. You certainly can't do so on the basis of second hand and incomplete information in a mumsnet thread.

All we've heard is that the OP's husband drinks rather a lot and she's not happy about it. It's not clear why she's not happy about it except that the children have commented on the matter. I haven't seen a suggestion that her husband is not otherwise an effective father. He's certainly still an effective provider.

If he perceives that his wife doesn't care about him and that she'd leave him in a heartbeat if she could afford to, why should be give a stuff what she thinks of his drinking?

Hi ur situation sounds so much like the one my mum was in throughout my childhood .. from a child's point of view its not nice. My mum married my dad at 20 and put up with mental abuse till she was 37 when I was 15 and stuck up for her ... Your husband may not drink much now but it'll grow as my dads did and violence always follows.. she also felt she couldn't leave him due to finance but she is so much better off on her own. Really wish she had the courage to leave him earlier and he wouldn't have caoused so much pain. Please think of the effect it will have on your children. They may still respect their dad were as I will not let him be part of my life . Xx

Take care

Thank you all for your advice.

Ok just to answer a few question
yes i love my husband which is why i nagged him to
get a full health check up at the doctors.
He has been drinking 7 days a week for the last 8 years.
It has gotten to a stage now where if i refuse to go buy more
alcohol for him he will insult me in front of the dc's until
i agree to go buy more. (he wont buy his own beer)
If like tonight (he hasn't drank yet) he is trying to hold off
reaching for the fridge, you can cut the atmosphere with a knife
and he is snappy with the dc's.
The final straw for me was last month when ds was taken into
hospital as an emergency, we were let home under the doctors
orders to return immediately if his ds's symptoms returned
which they did two hours after we got home but in that time
dh had knocked back three cans so couldn't drive us back to
the hospital and we had to get a taxi.
We all walk on egg shells while he is drinking and i'm tired of it
after 19years of being with him i didn't expect life to turn
out like this.

He sounds nasty. I do think you should get advice about your rights if you separate. Honestly, you don't need to live like this.

I think some people are letting their personal circumstances cloud their judgement here.

4 cans a night is certainly not healthy or normal. It's a dependency at the very least.

Read op's last post, she can't live like that. It's her and the dc's life too. She can be a martyr for marriage and make them ones too.

You can only help someone who want's to help themselves.

Sounds familiar. My STBXH drank in excess every night and critised everything I didn't do, even though he did nothing himself and I keep a reasonable home, covered all aspects of childcare etc etc.

Personally I think you should leave or get him to leave but that is only because that is waht I have done and i've never been happier!

STBXH told me I couldn't manage without him and would not be able to cope and for a long time I believed him, as in financial terms I did not think I could cope. 1 year on I have kept the house on, paid the mortgage, had no help with the kids and am just fine thank you very much!

That said, I do get Income Support etc and he pays maintainance BUT I am going to college in September and am going to train as an Operating Department Practitioner.

So my advice to you is:

1. Make an appointment with your Lone Parent Advisor at your local Job Centre.
2. Call Child Maintainance Options and get them to calculate your maintainance.
3. See a Solicitor.
4. Photocopy everything re his salary, pensions, mortgage etc.
5. Kick him to the curb.

You and your children deserve so much better than to be lower on the list than his drinking habit.

Saggy I couldn't agree with you more my mum taught me never to put up with shit if he doesn't bend over back wards to make you happy he's not worth it! Xx

OP your DH has already made his choice between family and alcohol.

He will not quit drinking until HIS life has got so bad that he can't stand it any more.

He may not be successul in his attempts to quit even if/when he decides to do it.

Why do you buy his beer? Are you afraid that he will be violent towards you if you don't?

Well dh hasn't had a drink since Thursday night . He told me yesterday that " he was going to prove to me that he is not dependent on Alcohol " My response to this was he needs to prove this to himself not me . He has not eaten any dinners I've made as " It doesn't taste the same without a couple of cans to wet his appetite " and he has been going to bed before 9pm each night so i haven't spent any time alone with him to talk without dc's .
He's been very moody and creating a horrible atmosphere .
:(

Doesn't sound like he's coping very well at all without the booze, so he's proving the opposite of what he thinks he is.

Bad-temper, going to bed early to avoid the time without drinking, not eating, hmm yes, sure he can do without booze .

So two nights without alcohol and he can't enjoy his food, can't enjoy his evening, and is extremely moody.

Yes, I'm sure that's proving to you that he's not dependent on alcohol!

I'm sorry for your troubles, OP - he just doesn't sound like a nice man to live with at all.

That's exactly what i am thinking buzz

He does skip meals on days that he will binge drink , it's like he thinks he will get drunk quickly on an empty stomach .

Sorry xpost with you Tortoise .

I just don't know what to do any more .

He quite obviously has an alcohol problem - he's drinking loads, defensive/in denial about it and aggressive when drunk.

I can't imagine anything more tiresome than living with this sort of bloke - he needs to sort himself out - I hope you can persuade him.

So do i smartyparts .

The thing is he is acting towards me like i am the big bad wife who took his favourite play time away . It's wearing me down .

He is an alcoholic, and alcoholics should never just stop drinking, he needs doctors support, and specific vitamins. His tastes will change with regards to food and such like thats inevitable.

He needs to do this his way, you asked him to stop the drinking he is trying, you cannot ask more than that right now.