Please tell me honestly, is it me being out of order here?

[BikerMiceFromMars]

NC for this post.

Dh and I have been together 10 years, married 5. We have two dc - one 2years old one 10 weeks.

For as long as we've lived together, he has always gone out drinking with friends after work. Up until 18 months ago it was 3-4 times a week, but since life has got considerably harder for me (went back to work full time pregnant, looking after toddler and newborn, do all the housework, 90% of parenting, handle all finances, and will be returning back to work again FT very soon), I have asked him to cut back going out to once a week.

Money is very tight at the moment as it is and even if it wasn't a money issue life's very tough for me atm I've got pnd a trying to struggle through each day, so really look forward to his home time to get a bit of help at bedtime. If he's not out drinking he comes home around 8pm and out from 7am, so out the house for long hours.

When he's put drinking hell drink until 1-2am and roll home steaming drunk maybe 3-4am.

The biggest problem I have is that he'll text or call that he's on his way home and bringing dinner with him, then I'll wait, wait and wait and by 9/10pm I realise he's out drinking and order a takeaway and he'll come home in the early hours and there's always an excuse as to why he had to go out.

He'll never call to say he's staying out as he knows I'll get angry and always switches his phone off so he's not contactable. This really upsets me as I feel with two small children we should always be contactable to each other - either keep your phone on or let me know the bar you're in at he very least. What if I had an accident, or one of the dc had to go hospital. We have no car and not family nearby so I think it's important we should be able to rely on each other.

We had row after row about this behaviour, he always apologises but does it yet again.

I never ever EVER get time to myself, I don't get to haveax pram fom night out, or even go to the gym as he's never home early enough for me to go out int he evening to the gym for an hour or so, and one the weekend he's usually too hungover to look after dc.

This has gone on for so many years now, I'm beginning to think am I being the one that's out of order? Is it totally normal a nd accept ale for him to go out drinking to the point of falling in the street whenever he fancies it, and not tell me and leave me waiting for him.

I could understand if it was every once in a while say once every other week, but it's whenever he feels like it. Literally. He acts like a single man instead of a father of a toddler and baby.

I really am doubting myself now as to whether I'm being unreasonably by asking him to be home every night at least for the next month or so while I'm struggling so much and then maybe go out once every other week until life gets easier for me. I understand if he's late back because of work, but it's just hurtful when he says he's on his waxy home then turns his phone off and stays out til 3am.

Just so I don't leave anything out, he's had a weeks holiday away with friends 3 weeks ago, which was nonstop drinking so it's not like he's not gone out in years.

Me n the other hand, I can't remember even going the toilet alone without my toddler following me or baby screaming.

You keep saying he loves you and the children, but you're not really giving any evidence of that.

He must not even see the kids during the week and is too hungover on the weekend to take care of them.

He has ZERO respect for you and obviously does not care about your health at all, and in fact is probably making the PND worse. How can he love you if he doesn't care whether you are okay? That makes no sense.

For some reason you still love him, and I guess you have to insist he loves you too or else it's not worth it.

But I'm sorry, I don't see how anyone could treat someone they love like this. I wouldn't even treat someone I dislike like this.

"I don't know what else to do. I don't want to leave him we love each other and he loves his children but at the same time I can't keep living like this"

But you are living like this and are actively choosing to live like this currently. He will also do great harm to yours and your childrens mental health is you were to choose to stay together.

"I want to help him but he won't admit there's a problem. What do I do?"

You cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. What would it take for you to realise that fact properly?. If he won't admit there is a problem there is nothing you can do or say to change that choice he has made for his own self.

Why don't you want to leave him?. Genuine question. What is stopping you?.

You may well love him but he loves alcohol more than you and alcohol is a cruel mistress. His priority in life is drink and his thoughts centre around where the next drink is coming from. You wrote as well that the longest he has gone without drink is two days.

Not sure if anyone else has memtioned this but if he drinks till 2 oe 3am then leaves the house at 7 hes likely to be driving drunk too.

Can I ask Biker how do you know your husband loves you and the children when he spends so much time away from the family home and "pissing money up a wall" as my grandfather would say when describing men who would spend their weeks wages down the pub on a Friday night.
When do you see him stone cold sober. Certainly not at 7am in the morning when he has been drinking till 2-3am?

I'm so sorry, but he doesn't love you, or your children.

Certainly not more than he loves the alcohol.

You will always always come 2nd. At best.

Leave him. That is all you can do.

Things aren't going well tonight at all. He said he needs one or two nights a week of getting completely drunk and going off the radar to escape me being a nag and hearing all our problems. He thinks being an alcoholic means waking up and needing a drink and not functioning at work. He said he doesn't see what he does as being abnormal in anyway. He calls me buying food or furniture that we need as my treats and he should be able to go out and get blind drunk whenever the mood takes him as his treats.

So my treats are a tesco shop and buying essential things we need whilst his is indulging in alcohol.

leaving him isn't as easy as you all say its fucking hard leaving your husband who you love wheb you have pnd and two children under 2. I wabt to grow old together and be able to trust sbd rely on him but I'll never be able to do that.

stealth he gets public transport.

Aww sweetheart. :(

I hear you. But he seems to want something different doesn't he. X

How can you minimize the impact from him? Stop waiting for him? Stop nagging him to change? Stop rowing about it? Talk to someone else about your disappointment that he won't change instead of him?

And how can you improve life in other ways? Say seeing friends more, cooking for yourself and not waiting on him, making weekend plans like a single mum?

All a sticking plaster I know, placed over what seems to be a wound...

Hi Biker. I imagine the thought of leaving him is just a bit too overwhelming at the moment with such a young baby and PND. Look after yourself, try and get better. I think you are doing an AMAZING job looking after 2 young children essentially as a single mum

Thank you something as sad as it is thats what im going to do from now on. Learn to never rely on him again and act like a single parent. Maybe one day he'll see the light hit rock bottom and we can try to rebuild our family again.

for now I'm essentially going to act like a single mum and not have expectations anymore.

Thank you all for listening.

Thank you puzi

"He said he needs one or two nights a week of getting completely drunk and going off the radar to escape me being a nag and hearing all our problems."

He doesn't love you at all.

Nobody who loved someone would say something so repulsively hateful to them.

He NEEDS to get pissed and be uncontactable (so he can shag other women? certainly a live possibility) on a regular basis because you (and your life together) is SO AWFUL?

Jesus, just be a proper single parent.

The quickest way of seeing if anything will wake him up to what a fucking twat he is and realising he has a problem is losing his family.

You want to be able to grow old with a trustworthy man not an irresponsible alcoholic. Leaving your partner is very hard if he is a dependable, good husband & father. But when you are basically a single mother having to deal with his issues & lack of support on top of everything else, life actually gets easier once you leave.

Love, it IS hard leaving your husband, regardless of how old your children are. It's especially hard when you have 2 so young and have PND.

But you know what's harder? Living a lonely life full of misery and knowing you play second fiddle to something else, whether that's another woman, work, gambling, alcohol or drugs. It is FAR harder being married and lonely and parenting alone than truly doing it alone. There is nothing so soul destroying as knowing you are alone in a marriage.

From the outside it looks to me as though things would be better apart, even if just in the medium term. He'd have to pay maintenance, so finances might be fairer and more reliable. You wouldn't have his laundry, pots etc on top of your housework. Him spending time with the children would be more reliable too.

The other issue is that you really don't want him drunk round your children... if he can't/won't get his drinking under control, then you really need to protect them...

Surely he's the one who should be leaving, not the OP? She's the children's main carer, no?

Why should the children have to be dragged from their home?
OP, it's an early stage in your thought processes and things may change for the better (although I'm sorry to say I doubt that).

But find out what your rights are; go to cab or ask for a free half hour at a solicitor (if such a thing still exists). Don't assume you're the one who has to leave in order to effect change.

Absolutely. I understood 'leaving' here as figurative - as in separate not leave the house. He can fuck off until he can behave.

You aren't going to get what you want.

Doesn't matter how much you want it, you aren't going to get it and you have to face up to that. What you decide to do about that is up to you, but don't fool yourself that just because you wish something will be a certain way, means it's going to happen.

And re the furniture and food shopping for the family are your treats thing - you have no idea what he said to you, do you? He told you that to him, you are a household appliance. He doesn't see you as a person. You are part of the house, serving the household needs.

I am not going to tell you to leave. I haven't made that choice and so it would be hypocritical of me to go all "LTB" on your arse, but I tell you that wishing will do you fuck all good and if it is your choice to stay, you will be miserable.

So, the conclusion the Op comes to after reading her thread is that all she can do is STFU and keep the status quo

that is the saddest thing I have read today

Right, so he needs to get blotto twice a week because he's an alcoholic (you know people who aren't alcoholics don't need to do that, don't you?)

And what you need, is of no interest to him.

What your children need, is of no interest to him.

Have you spoken to Al Anon?

They won't tell you to leave him. But they will support you to deal with his drinking and with your responses to it.

You already know you can't have what you want from him.