Is it worth breaking up my family?

[InelegantlyWasted]

DP went out yesterday, as he does most weekends. He was drinking heavily most of the day. He came home at about 2am. He made a lot of noise, crashing about and falling over. This woke up our DS, and I went into his bed to sleep with him for reassurance.
At about 3.30am DP started making more noise, staggering about, going to the loo, being sick, turning lights on and off etc.
When DS and I got up at 7am he had gone to bed. There was vomit all over the armchair and the floor in the front room, more in the bathroom and a massive pile of it on our bedroom floor.
I cleaned up in the front room and the bathroom, the smell in the bedroom was so awful I couldn't bear it. DP was fast asleep.
I couldn't wake him before I had to go to work this afternoon and TBH I wasn't happy leaving a four year old with someone in that kind of state. I managed to get MIL to have DS so he could sleep it off.
I got home tonight and it's as if nothing had happened. A cursory attempt has been made to clean up the sick in the bedroom but there is a horrible stain. No apology, no explanation, no thanks for finding a babysitter. And there's a half eaten Chinese takeaway just left all over the kitchen.
I could cry, I really could. This isn't a one off either, he drinks himself into oblivion most weekends. I just want him to leave, but I don't know how to tell him. What a mess.

Wasted, just think of the conversation you will have with your DS in 14 years time about either why you got him out of an abusive and dangerous situation or, on the other hand, him asking you why the hell you didn't. I know which conversation I would rather be having. It is very sad, but unfortunately it has to be done, for everyone's sake.
Good luck - please use all those resources and the help that is available out there, look after yourself.

Please kick his sorry ass to the kerb. He really adds nothing positive to your life. And somebody who sees that behavioir as normal and does not even think to apologise for it is appalling.

Does he have a job?

If you don't want him come to the house drunk then do what the other poster state

double lock the door and leave a bag of clothes on the step - though a pillow maybe a better option for him.

Tell him you do that again and at midnight the door is locked and you can make as much noise as you like as if you do then the police will be called.

Then the choice is his - it is up to him if he wants to get drunk.

If you are happy aboutit though you will let him in and the whole thing will just continue.

Everyone is entwinded with their spouse, it is house married/coupled life is.

OP- I am in the exact same position as u, except with 2DCs. I ended up having enough, giving him the ultimatum of sorting himself out or divorce. He refused to sort himself out so I filed for divorce.
It's v early days, I doubt my decision every day as DD misses him so much (he refused to leave so me and DCs left to live with my family until we find house to rent). BUT reading in here helps to remind me I am doing it for all the right reasons. Just because your DS loves him does not make him a good dad.

My sole reason for leaving is it was beginning to affect DD, as in she was witnessing it, old enough to ask questions and old enough to be let down by him when he promised to do things with her then failed to even come home.

This is not a role model! This is not what I want DD thinking is normal behaviour for a man/father/husband. I'm sure you feel the same for your DS.
I keep reminding myself of this everyday. The DCs are all that matter.

Also, it's true, once u make the decision it starts to get easier straight away. Start taking small steps to beginning your new life with DS, get organised, you'll feel calm and know that once the hard part is over, u will be settled and happier- u have to keep thinking long term.

Oh, I really do feel for you, he sounds just like my exp.
I felt like I was on a treadmill I couldn't get off, just week in, week out the same old shit. He would lose his wallet and phone most of the time too.
He had no respect for me, and didn't give a shit how his behaviour affected me and dcs, we were always stuck at home waiting for him to have 'one pint' then come back with a takeaway/milk/bread/or just for him to come back when he'd gage he would
One night during my pregnancy, I'd had enough and I locked him out, he'd been out drinking (just having two pints this time) since 2pm, he got back at 4.20am.
He STILL managed to twist things and make out HE was the victim, saying I'd lied to the police and said he hit me so that they would arrest him.
It didn't end there, either, I was stupid enough to take him back time after time and let hin screw with my head, I don't feel I'm the same person anymore, I'm as negative as he is, and bitter at all the years I've wasted, all the instincts I ignored, all the pride I swallowed, all the shit I put up with.
Get yourselff and your child away from this man, your life can only get better.
Look online, the dwp have a really simple calculator to check if you are able to get tax credits, and they can show you how much, just put in your earnings, number of children and childcare costs.

Forgot to mention, its not just the day of drinking, its the wasted day being hung over, and the treading on egg shells for another few days as he comes down off the beer, which is a depressant. Depressing for ALL involved!
We weren't a 'family' I was deluding myself. And I didn't have mumsnet!

Thank god you're not married to this man.

Why do you get free childcare from him? Does he not work?

Why don't you go onto the Entitled To website and work out your financial situation if you did separate? The reality may be less grim than you fear.

As for the nice meals that he cooks - have you seen that Tesco do a meal for two with a bottle of wine for £10? Have the meal and give the wine to your mum when you go and stay - problem solved.

I know you said your ds loves his dad but he knows no different. I loved my dad,he was as bad a drinker as your partner.

It was when i went to school i realised other dads didn't behave like mine.

My dad adored me,i was 1 of 4, his favourite.

Its the unpredictable behaviour,tension & disappointments i remember most about my childhood.

You sound like a decent person,your showing an enormous amount of understanding & empathy for your partner.

You also sound like a great mum. Your ds has to be the absolute priority in this situation. Its damage limitation,he will end up damaged living with an alcoholic father.

Take care. Look after yourself&ds...

Yes, it's definitely worth breaking up this relationship.

Hope you're okay, OP - sometimes even if you know something is true, it's hard to really see it.

This family is broken up already - and it wasn't you that broke it. [sad[

that fact that your dc may grow up thinking that its normal behaviour is more than enough reason to tell him to fuck off.

i speak as someone who thought all dads acted like this and once proudly told our neighbours that my daddy was an alcoholic whilst having a my daddys better than your daddy competition.

i adore my dad but it is not fair to grow up in that way. nor is it fair on you.

Wow, thank you all for your support. It's great to know that I am right in thinking our relationship isn't normal. I've had a few wobbles today while I've been at work and thought perhaps it would be easier just to pretend the weekend hadn't happened and go back to normal.
Reading what you have all written tells me I have to be strong and brave and sit him down and tell him that we can't live together anymore.
In answer to those who have asked whether he has a job, yes he does, but it's part time and flexible and he can often take DS to work with him, hence the free childcare.
I've found myself thinking today that I don't believe he loves me at all. I hope that means that when I tell him it's over he won't react too badly.
I am going to look at the DWP calculator and the Al-Anon websites in a minute before he gets home and then hopefully I will be confident enough to have the conversation with him.

Good luck OP. be strong, keep thinking long term and what u want for your DS.

good luck, Inelegantly - do think carefully about how to approach this if you think there's a chance he'll kick off.

If I were you I'd get your ducks in a row - get copies of bank statements, payslips, mortgage details, and yours and the kids' passports - before you have this conversation with him, because it might provoke him into a bender or to do something bad. I'm not accusing him of anything, btw, but alcoholics are accomplished liars and really, really good at trampling on the feelings, possessions, and occasionally bodies of the people that love them. Protect yourself, your children, and your financial stability carefully.

He sounds so so similar to my ex.

I left and it was really hard, still is. But my life and my children's lives are so much easier.

Sounds terrible, and while it would be really sad for your son not to live with his father, I think staying would be much worse with him in that kind of state.

Scary really. OP, you ought to leave, for your own and your son's sake.

I actually can't believe that a grown up with a family could act in such a way.

Good luck! I hope things work out for you.

I have been reading online about alcoholics and alcoholism. When some people posted on here last night that My DP was an alcoholic I was quite sceptical. I thought alcoholics were people who put vodka on their cornflakes and drank cans of special brew in the street! (Neither of which he does by the way.)
But from what I've been reading this evening, prolonged alcohol abuse and dependence explains an awful lot of his more anti-social tendencies. I still don't really understand though. He goes for weeks at a time without drinking anymore than maybe a can of beer or two in the evening. Then he'll go out on the weekend and get completely off his face. Is that still an alcoholic?

Get out now before your ds learns his ways and you become the mil feeling ashamed of her son. This is no way for you to live.

Incredible. I can't see how you've coped with it so long.

This is one where I think anyone would say kick his arse out of there. He's a hazrd to you and DC.

Do u think he'd be able to go one week without any alcohol? I know my dh wouldn't, he's dependant on it. He wouldn't want to or be able to go without it.
It's not good behaviour for a father to be drinking even a couple/few cans every evening, IMO. I don't want my DCs thinking that's what all adults do.

R u talking to him tonight? All the best!

Not stupid and not weak.

Quite the opposite...you have made every effort to keep your marriage together, powering through some hideous behaviour on your husband's part for what you believed was the good of all.

However, your dh is not deserving of your strength and tenacity, so now it's time to save it all for yourself and your children. They do deserve it.

This guy's drinking is out of control, and he thinks it's A-Ok and normal. He turns nasty when he's drunk, and loses control of his bodily functions. He dismisses himself from family life to indulge his recovery.

I can't see that this can go anywhere for you. Even if, at the very most optimistic, he stopped drinking and sobered up, you have still been abused by him. He might say it was the drink, but the fact is, even if alcohol was the green light, he still took part in behaviour that led him to behave that way.
If he were ashamed or saw wrong in being nasty to you, he would've been shocked into action the first time it happened. he didn't do that though, he continued, and gave himself 'it's the drink' as a get out clause while making no moves to stop. How nice for him.

What a shit. Put him out.

"But from what I've been reading this evening, prolonged alcohol abuse and dependence explains an awful lot of his more anti-social tendencies. I still don't really understand though. He goes for weeks at a time without drinking anymore than maybe a can of beer or two in the evening. Then he'll go out on the weekend and get completely off his face. Is that still an alcoholic?".

I am glad that you have read up more on alcoholism. I would also add the topices enabling and codependency to that list because you are also caught up in that state as well.

This man could well be described as a functioning alcoholic. Not all alcoholics by any means drink in parks daily or pour alcohol on their cornflakes; many of them hold down jobs and have families. You need to be aware too that alcoholism is a family disease and you and your son as much caught up in his alcoholism as he is.

You cannot reason with such people so talking to them is about as effective as spitting in the ocean. You, wasted, can only help your own self here and that of your son by getting this bloke out of your day to day lives. He brings nothing positive at all to the relationship is he, what sort of example is he setting to his son?. Having a drunkard father as a daily presence in his life could well leave him with all sorts of emotional hang ups as an adult; do not do that to him.

You have a choice re this man, your son does not. Do the right thing and bin the bloke. Put you and your son joint first, not this man.

Inelegantly - yes, alcoholics come in different forms, he's a binger rather than a habitual over-drinker. It probably seems more socially-acceptable to him because it's the 'weekend go out and get wasted' thing. But what you're describing is not the occasional let-off-steam kind of weekend bender, but a regular, prolonged and extremely heavy abuse of alcohol.

He won't believe he's an alcoholic. That's okay - it's not your problem to convince him. Whatever label gets put on it, his behaviour is not acceptable in your house and near your child. The fact that you couldn't wake him up to take care of his own son is a huge red flag. That's not normal.

It's possible to drink a lot and not be an arsehole. People who like to drink but are not arseholes will get up when they have promised to do something and do it, even if they feel a bit queasy. People who drink a lot and are not arseholes also make sure that if they spew, they spew in the toilet or at least they clean up after themselves.

Sometimes people who are arseholes when drunk would have been arseholees when sober. OP this man sounds like a lazy, selfish, entitled arsehole who expects other people to look after him and/or blames other people for the fact that he isn't a millionare superstar by now. None of this is your fault or your responsibility: bin him, minimize contact and start working out what you want from your life.