DP is an awful awful drunk

[LoveBox]

DP works in the building trade, and every friday after work, they go to the pub. About three times a month, he comes home off his own accord after an hour or so, having had 2-4 pints. Once a month he will drink to oblivion.

He gets paid £360 cash on a friday. He came home about an hour ago with less than £200 left. Money is so so tight at the moment for us, I'm gutted. He KNEW exactly how we had accounted for every penny of that £360 (£50 was his 'spends' for the week, so not as if he is being deprived), and to blow so much of it hurts.

Its not just his spending, but his whole attitude when drunk. He is an awful, aggressive, lying, nasty drunk.

I'm sick of this culture of drinking. Sick of the fact he has no control, no idea when to stop.

Don't want to leave while I think he can still change - he is lovely for all the other days in the month. Really lovely. Funny, kind, sweet, caring. Loved by all. Its totally Jekyll and Hyde.

How can I deal with this? Nothing gets through to him. We go through this charade every month :(

Please, tell me this will change. Please.

Please, please leave - or at least, if you feel you can't, never ever have children to this man. When I finally wised up and left my ex, I had been with him for 10 years and most of that in absolute, grinding poverty. What finally did it for me was standing at the cash point with my little daughter by my side and discovering there was no money in our account. He was working away, like you we had agreed a budget, and like your DP, he had decided he would spend it, even though he knew that would leave me, and his daughter, with no money for food.

Leave and don't look back.

Of course I or anyone else cannot say 100% he will not change but I have been there on more than one occasion, 1 XB drank and was violent (not to me but fights etc with other men and horrific violence) and the other XH was possesive, nasty and jealous.

They both said they could change and they both did . . . until things were improved between us and then things slowly slipped back to how they were. I know this true for a clos friend of mine who still went ahead and married him as she was desperate to be with someone rather than no one and desperately wanted the big wedding day etc.

There is no way children should even be considered in this relationship, how would you feel on day 30 each month when he did this and you had no money for nappies or formula etc, or just the fact that you are up all night with a newborn and he comes back absolutely hammered.

You are making excuses already for him and his behaviour and I am 99.9% this will never change - if it were to change it would probably take a huge ultimatum from you - BUT should you have to give him an ultimatum? Personally I don't think so, he should love and care about you enough to want to stop doing this!

TheHouse, he is a mean, belligerent drunk. He has promised change many times and then gone right on doing what he promised to stop. Absolutely a reason to leave.

Yes....maybe it is.

Tonight I went out with my friends, still having barely spoken to him and being resolved to leave. His sister (let's call her SIL) is my best friend, and was out too. She was saying how last night, her DH strolled in at gone midnight, drunk as anything, and puked on their bedroom floor. When I expressed shock that she had cleaned up his vomit, she said the fact he had got out of the bed and done it on the floor, showed he was on his way to the toilet. And how that was so much better than what he usually did, which was vomit in bed and turn over.

Know I know this is shocking, and I shouldn't compare someone elses abnormal relationship with my abnormal relationship to make myself feel better, but it sort of made me realise that this is my life. I live in a world where cash in hand and getting obliterated on a Friday is te norm. In order to find someone who isn't a carbon copy of DP, I would have to move areas/ change jobs/ dump friends and family.

And I can't do all that, yet. I won't find a night in shining armour, or a 'nice' drunk, without uprooting myself from everything I love and know. So for now (forgive me), I will stay with him. I promise not to have DC unless we are stable, I promise.

Thank you so much for your words, and insight. But for where I am in my life right now, it is better to be with DP, than to be alone.

Oh no :(

Love just because your life isnt as bad as your SIL and she puts up with it, doesnt mean you have to!

I live in an area where the pub is king (my town is the historical origin of beer!) and there are many men who wont do anything if it doesnt involve beer or the pub. But there are many more that dont subscribe to that way of thinking.

You are assuming that because your immediate social circle has always been like this then everyone is like this and they are not! If every man who lives in your town pissed his wages up the wall on a Friday there would be new pubs on every corner to house them all! ARe there no accountants, lawyers, doctors, managers, bank workers, corporate suits in your town? Really? none at all?

And anyway, why do you need a man at all? You dont need to leave him on the basis that you are looking for someone new! You can be SINGLE you know! Infact given how things have been, I think you need to be alone as you seem unable to accept that being single is better than being with a selfish financially abusive, drunken, verbally abusive man.

I would suggest that you get to Relate (alone, and they dont charge if you are on a low income) and see if they can help you see how you are selling yourself short.

Why is it better to be with him than alone?

So because your man doesn't vomit in his bed or on the bedroom floor you feel lucky and think you should stay with him? Really?

my dh has a drinking problem, one a week he is a dick of unimaginable proportions and 6 days you couldnt get better.

its a trade i have been willing to make - but - that isn't to say it has been easy.

Erm, LoveBox, have you not spotted the significance of her being your boyfriend's sister? She deems it acceptable because that's what men do in her family. It doesn't mean everybody does it, even in your town. Try talking to some other friends, whose partners don't go drinking with your boyfriend.

Could you tell him he has to attend AA?

I'm not actually low income, I work fulll time, (forget to address the wage issue after someone asked earlier). We just got into a cycle of debt (wonga/payday loans) after DPs other company went bankrupt owing him a months wages, and then he got an unexpected bill from something in his past for over 1K.

We both agreed to stick to a budget, and I have cancelled dental appts etc to stick to this budget, which is why his selfishness in spending so much really hurt.

Yes, I'm sure there are professional men who live in my area. There must be. But maybe I'm not suited to them. While I really get thats it not better to be in an unhappy relationship, I really am so happy 96% of the time, and if everyone just posts their DPs worst bits on MN, there would be slews of "leave!" in relationships where really there are problems that can be worked on.

Please don't put me on a martyr pedestal, I'm not all that. I can have a right gob on me sometimes and probably wind him up. But we work together so well I can't leave unless I know I wouldn't regret it.

LoveBox, this happened to my Grandma many decades ago. My Grandad would take his pay packet and go and put bets on. Sometimes he'd come back with the same or a little more. Three times he came back with significantly less. They had a child and another on the way. She gave him an ultimatum. He came home, with the full pay packet, or he didn't come home. They had another 50 odd years of happy marriage.

This isn't a new problem and it isn't an uncommon one, but if don't sort it out now it will be the story of your life. You will spend the rest of your relationship trying to squirrel enough cash away to cover for the next time he does it. And he will keep on doing it. This time it was a cot. Next time it could be your rent. It's not a good way to live.

Custy are you happy? If you could go back and leave, would you?

Not ignoring the wonderful words of wisdom and advice, I promise they are sinking in, I just want to try the easier not-leaving-the-man-I-love way first.

p.s. What is everyone still doing awake anyway?! Go to bed you mentalists! I will still be here and listening tomorrow.

Love it isnt easier, its just a slower way to die.

As has been posted on here many times, staying with an abusive man is death by a thousand paper cuts. A little bit of hurt, over and over, is worse than a big bit of hurt all in one go.

And you may love him, but how do you think he feels about you if he can spend almost half his wages knowing that you are going without?

for us money has never been the issue - and i think that is a question that you need to address. there is some serious financial shit going on that you need advice on i think.

It took me years and years to come to that reconciliation - that dh is a the greatest 6 days a week.

6 days a week i am luckier than every person i know. 1 day a week can sometimes experience things that other women will never have to.

my advice would be this

dont let love make you stupid

keep your own bank accounts and don't take out debts for him

wonga dot com is a mugs game what the actual fuck!

make sure that if you are renting - the flat or house is in your sole name

find a local credit union

OP, I'm still getting over the fact that your SIL's partner "normally" throws up in bed and then turns over and goes to sleep.

The actual, awful CRAP that some women put up with is beyond belief.

LoveBox, does/did your DP and SIL father also drink heavily on getting his pay packet? I agree, I think it is a cultural thing to some extent and that if their role-model was father drinking to oblivion on a Friday and mother stoically clearing it up (off the bed? ) and carrying on....

It was exactly the pattern in my friend's house when I was at school, and in my ex-P's house, and in my fathers house. Probably particularly noticeable when there is/was a weekly pay-packet rather than being paid monthly/weekly into a bank account?

However, DH's father was a builder and took a weekly pay packet and never dared to go out and drink it on a Friday - it all went to MIL who gave him a small amount of pocket money so DH had a different role-model.

OP i say this really kindly, but this is one of the saddest threads i have ever read on mumsnet.

i say this as the adult child of 2 alcoholics. both high level functioning alcoholics. My dad is dead now through alcohol (died at 60, after spending practically 2 years in a vegative state). don't think i ever saw him fall down drunk until towards the end and he never went to pubs, but the drinking just increased year on year. his funeral was one of the biggest ones that i have ever been to. he was so respected by so many people, but he could not stop drinking even when he was told it would kill him.

my mum reckons she started drinking heavily to try and help him and although hasn't had a drink in approx 3 years now, my brother and i live day to day with the consequences of her previous drinking (she is on life long medication, retired early from work, and generally like having another child about).

please, please get out. if not for yourself, for your future children

Lovebox,

You're not a martyr, you're now his enabler:(. Well done:(

Your boyfriend's sister has become an enabler too. Its a role often played out by women who are with their drunkard. She is now enabling her drunkard man just as you slowly now are with your binge drunkard of a boyfriend. You're being sucked into this. Its not a slope you want to slide down because you will get dragged down with him. Infact you're already now on that slope by trying to rationalise it all and keep that sinking ship together.

Now these comments of yours strikes me as someone whose relationship radar also needs retuning badly:-

"Yes, I'm sure there are professional men who live in my area. There must be. But maybe I'm not suited to them. While I really get thats it not better to be in an unhappy relationship, I really am so happy 96% of the time, and if everyone just posts their DPs worst bits on MN, there would be slews of "leave!" in relationships where really there are problems that can be worked on".

"I just want to try the easier not-leaving-the-man-I-love way first".

Oh please lovebox just listen to yourself here. Love alone is often not enough in these situations. What you are proposing now is just a slower, painful and more difficult way to die by a thousand more hurts. You will be dragged down with him now. You have hung yourself by your own petard here:(.

What on earth do you mean by maybe I'm not suited to them?. There are plenty of men out there who do not cyclically drink to excess or act like your bf sister's drunkard. I think you need to expand your own horizons a lot more than they are because this is highly insular thinking. That whole last sentence in your first comment that I have highlighted is someone deeply in denial about her own situation. Can this be worked on, no because he is not interested in addressing the drinking and besides which he does not want your bloody help!. You are too close to the situation anyway to be of any help to him and he will also despise you for trying to help him because you will not succeed.

You seem to have gone backwards again; in your earlier posts you posted that you knew he was not going to change. I put it to you that you are lying to yourself when you say you are happy with him 96% of the time. You've left him before now, that will keep happening as well and the nice/nasty cycle continues. Its a continuous cycle.

The other supposed 4% of the time when you are not happy will increase over time.

My friend thought her ex would change - she was so so wrong on all counts there as it proved. Fortunately she is now free of him but a decade on she remains emotionally scarred. You sound nice, you deserve better but you don't see it, have been told by others to keep your own dreams in check or don't want to believe it.

For goodness sake do not bring any child into this dysfunctional mess.

The 3cs re alcoholism:-
You did not cause this
You cannot control this
You cannot cure this

Better to be alone than to be badly accompanied.

You've had excellent advice here - I would only add...

You say you've given him "many" chances. This means that neither of you really believe them. He doesn't believe he needs to change his behaviour for you to stay. He just believes you'll say it in anger, and then change your mind.

What are you going to do to change this cycle? Because if the two of you do have children, they will learn this is the way relationships are, and will mimic this behaviour in their own future relationships.

Garlicbum said it right. It's a toddler style 'protest', and you're the big bad jailer.

Have been there.

Also unsure as to how he spent such a huge wodge of cash. Sounds like he was 'larging' it, buying rounds for strangers etc. With your money. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

Really feel for you op xx

You are not married and you are missing seeing the dentist to pay off his debt while he spends his money on himself.

Your life (and the lives of any children you might have) will be shit if you spend it with someone like this.