'D'P thinks im unreasonable - Hoping I am actaully would be easier

[ChristineDaae]

Right so yet ANOTHER argument about the same old thing tonight. Can someone please tell me if I'm in the wrong here? Sorry this might be long but don't want to drip feed!
I work early shifts (7-2) every day and have an evening job (6-11.30/12) 3 nights a week.
DP works 9-6 Mon-Fri. Every lunch time he goes the pub. On evenings i work he comes straight home to mind our DD. Any nights hes not working he goes the pub for an hour. Meaning he gets home just before our DD is going to bed.
Weekends - he probably goes the pub for a couple of hours one day, not at all the next. Some weekends he doesn't go. Today hes been out fixing his car, then in bed, tonight doing a shift as a favour to the pub hes always at, so had a nap between.
He says I am unreasonable as its 'only an hour' and he deserves time to himself.
Just in case it makes a difference, he drinks at home too so not like its something he can only do at the pub.
Apparently I'm selfish and expect him to spend every moment of every day with us...
Can someone please tell me if I'm wrong for wanting him to WANT to spend time with his family?

Thanks all, calm/scary I don't ever really get time to myself unless you count the times hes not home when the baby goes to bed. Even then I'm confined to the house obviously!
What bothers me most is that I LOVE spending time home with DD, he sees it as something he has to do.

*"He looks after DD 2/3 evenings a week when I'm in work.

"He looks after DD 2/3 evenings a week when I'm in work."

And?

He is her father. You are working.

"What bothers me most is that I LOVE spending time home with DD"

That's great, but I'd keep quiet about it to him if I were you. Otherwise it'll be used against you and considered part of your leisure time.

misshuffy I have been reading up this morning on high functioning alcoholics.. It describes him exactly! I wonder if I send him the links will he be able to admit it to himself?

He says I am unreasonable as its 'only an hour' and he deserves time to himself

Why does he deserve time to himself and you don't?

And, no, sitting at home in the evening is not leisure time. So that solves your AIBU question. You do not need to have the argument over and over again. The facts are there.

The reason that he wants to have all this time to himself is, of course, so that he can drink. So that's what you're up against. And, as an alcoholic, he will fight tooth and nail to keep that drinking time. It comes before everything else, including you and your dd.

What scarynuff wrote.

Re your comment:-
"I have been reading up this morning on high functioning alcoholics.. It describes him exactly! I wonder if I send him the links will he be able to admit it to himself?"

Read up on this by all means but do not take further ownership of his issues by sending him links. It will not achieve anything.

Unless he wants to help his own self there is absolutely nothing you can do re him.

I would also suggest Christine that you read up on codependency as well as contacting Al-anon.

If it's "only" an hour, then he won't mind you matching him hour for hour then, will he?

Does he drive?

The reason I ask is that if he drinks two bottles of wine a night then that's at least 15 units of alcohol. Alcohol gets metabolised at (roughly) a unit per hour. So he goes to bed drunk and wakes up with at least a bottle of wine's worth of alcohol in his bloodstream.

He then just about makes it to lunchtime when he has a few more drinks (and I absolutely refuse to believe he doesn't drink in the pub, or "I only had one") to top up his blood-alcohol level so he can make it through the afternoon. And then the evening rolls around and he can get stuck into the wine again.

He's permanently drunk. All day, every day. You haven't seen him properly sober in years. He gets up in the morning to look after your two year-old and he's still half-pissed from the night before. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he's having the occasional eye-opener in the morning and/or a sneaky vodka in the afternoon.

If he does have a car then he's a drunk-driving conviction waiting to happen. Or worse. And this piss-artist is left in sole charge of a small child.

I'm not having a go at you for this - I found myself in a very similar position to you. My ex is an alcoholic as well and I used to go out to work leaving the kids with her because I didn't see what else I could do. Once Social Services (inevitably) got involved it got very scary, very quickly, and I realised that actually I did have a choice in this.

Trying to raise a child with a drunk is wretched. Every time you think it's got as bad as it could possibly get, it gets worse. Anecdotal evidence suggests many alcoholics can more-or-less keep it together until they hit their 40s at which point the combination of their ever-increasing alcohol consumption exceeds their body's ever-decreasing ability to handle the booze. And then it all falls apart.

Your post is so scary Snorbs. The OP's dd is being looked after by a drunk. If she was to need help in an emergency would he even notice?

2 bottles of wine a night = alcoholic.

2 bottles of beer a night + lunchtime drinking + afterwork drinking = incipient alcoholic.

He has a dependency issue. You are being unreasonable in expecting him to be able to stop, just like that. He is physically and psychologically addicted to alcohol, and it sounds as though he's using it to ease the stress of work.

However you are not being unreasonable AT ALL in asking him to get this under control. In fact, I think it's absolutely necessary that you do. His drinking will creep up and up, because he will need more and more alcohol to achieve the same deadening effect and take the edge off the stress. The longer he takes to deal with it, the harder it will be to stop. You need to get him into a programme that can get him 'clean', with plenty of support and care - there will be a local alcohol support group in your area. If he works in a bar, he may need to look for another job.

This will be a massive change for him, and you will need to use a lot of diplomacy and tact to persuade him that a. he has an issue and b. he needs to do something about it. He will likely get very defensive, because this is his mechanism for dealing with the stresses and strains, so patience and care will also be important. Good luck!

The 3cs re alcoholism are ones you would do well to remember:-

You did not cause this
You cannot control this
You cannot cure this

Unless he wants to seek help of his own volition there is absolutely nothing you can do to help him. You are also far too close to the situation to be of any real help anyway besides which he does not want your help!!.

He has to want to go into a detox programme of his own volition and you cannot make him do this for him. He is not your responsibility, you're only responsible for you and your child.

Thanks everyone. I am going to speak to him today. If he can stand up and admit he has a problem and needs help then I am willing to stand by and help him as much as I can. If he is still in denial I will be looking for somewhere else to live for me and DD. So sad that's it's come to this but so glad that you have all made me see the extent it's really not normal, and not ok.

A couple of things:

1. pay attention to what he does rather than what he says he's going to do. An alcoholic who talks about getting help while still drinking us just an active alcoholic. Many of then talk a good talk but are very poor at doing anything but continuing to drink.

2. Don't be tempted to pour his booze down the sink. It will just annoy him (getting between an alcoholic and their next drink is a dangerous place to be) and he'll just go out and buy some more. Plus it puts you in the role of "booze police". This is his problem. He is the only one who can fix it.

Good luck.

Good luck.

And everything Snorbs said.

agree with snorbs my ex told me he had a problem when i would threaten to leave said he would stop drinking or cut down or whatever, basically whatever i wanted to hear to keep me. within a month it would be back to normal towards the end with in a week. so if he says all the right things and promises change it has to be a swift and decisive change. my ex once gave up drinking for a month as proof he wasn't an alcoholic as a celebration he went out to the pub and got wasted and came back and pissed all over the floor, being able to not drink does not make you not an alcoholic either a lot of alcoholics stop as proof they can only to start up again happy they can stop when ever they want.

Hi all, thanks to all of you for the great advice here. I had a long conversation earlier in the week and he agreed to cut down (clearly just to appease me) Tonight he told me that actually he had struggled a lot, and did a bit of googling which led him to see him he was having alcohol withdrawal. He has admitted that he has a definite dependancy on alcohol, and is taking some recommended steps on reducing this. He has said that if he can't do it/ the drinking creeps back up again, then he will seek professional help bit fully expects me to walk away as me and DD deserve better. I am a bit in shock that after all these years he has actually admitted his problem. And it was the post here about the rates units are broken down and he is effectively waking our daughter up each morning with the equivalent of a bottle of wine in him that led him to do the research etc... So thank you all SO MUCH!!!

I am glad he recognises he has a problem but you will have a very rocky road ahead of you and expect many falls off the wagon. I very much doubt he will be able to manage this without professional help and with help from his doctors. If he drastically reduces the amount of alcohol he drinks he is at risk from fitting as his body has used to being constantly drunk. He is actually drinking more than some serious alcoholics (that are street drinkers) I see in the A and E I work in and they are in all the time with fits. You need to contact the local alcohol support team in your area and get him to go along and also go to his GP.

I personally would move somewhere else and let him sort himself out with the intention of moving back in when he does. This will really let him know you are serious.

I grew up with an alcoholic father and it was awful. All the money went on booze and my mum worked her arse off to keep us fed which meant she was knackered and we hardly saw her as we got older. Eventually when we were all adults she threw him out. She should have done it way before then as life was so much better once he was gone. His body gave up on him at 62 and he died of alcoholic liver disease and hepatitis after being sick for a long time. None of his children had anything to do with him because as far as we were concerned he loved drink and his friends more than us. I think if he had left when we were younger we may have had some sort of relationship with rather than hate him.

Oh and seeing him drink everyday had an effect on me in the sense I considered it normal and have in the past partied way too hard.