Should I send DH this email? Re drink and drug use.

[FlatsInDagenham]

It's in response to him bringing home a large amount of weed (gifted to him so he hasn't paid for it). Just to give a tiny bit of background info: before we had DC we both smoked a lot of weed for a lot of years. I wasn't particularly happy but was entrenched in the habit. We both gave up when DC1 was on the way but he has brought weed home a few times since. He also has issues with alcohol use, which he has worked hard at addressing but it still lingers - for example, because it's Christmas week and he's off work, he has drunk every night for the last week.

Anyway, here's the email, not yet sent:

'I will find it easier to express what I'm worried about this way. Sorry!

1. You have by your own admission got an 'addictive personality' and I know that with that in the house it will be used more nights than not. It will quickly become part of your winding down and relaxing routine. You will tell me you are using it every day just 'to get rid of it' because you find it hard to have anything of that nature in the house and not consume it. When you finish that batch you will want to acquire more and you might do so.

1. You will not be yourself most of the time I have you to myself. Your personality will be in that altered state that makes me feel as if I'm not actually with you - not the you I want to be with anyway.

1. Whenever you drink etc, the parental responsibility falls to me. Never mind that the children are sleeping at that time - if they need us (such as sudden illness in the night) we need to be available and able.

1. It's not good for your mental health. I love you and I care about what happens to you.

1. We are at a different stage of our life now with greater responsibility and ... well ... I've moved on from that. Quite honestly I find it immature and pointless now. And I wish I hadn't wasted so many years of my earlier life on it. I guess I find it hard to comprehend why you haven't moved on too. Even more brutally honest - seeing you drinking and everything else for no reason (ie not in a socialising context) makes me lose respect for you. I hate saying it (and probably couldn't have said that to your face) but there it is. It makes you seem weak and immature in my eyes.

1. Despite my whiter than white protestations in point 5, I am weak too and I get tempted. I don't want that temptation. I don't want to go back there.

1. Most of all, I think our children deserve to not have this in their home / family, whether they know about it or not.'

What do you think MN? Should I send it? Or just talk to him? I know I won't be able to say all of this as clearly if I talk to him about it because he'll placate me and walk away from me, and because I couldn't be this honest face to face (in particular what I say in point 5).

I haven't sent that email yet. I feel paralysed with sadness tonight. I've been fooling myself for so long.

Flats: My friend's DD is leaving her DH.
The biggest issue is his dope smoking.
Since he realised that she is serious about leaving, he has given it up.
But it's too late as she has lost all respect for him.

Dope smoking stopped him sleeping at night, stopped him getting up in the morning and going to work.

But of course you know all this yourself.

Flush the dope down the toilet!

Best wishes to you.

See, that's the proof - the fact that you can't tell anyone

It's proof that your life isn't normal. That his behaviour isn't acceptable.

It was only when I started telling people the truth about how I was living that I realised how far down the slippery slope I had slipped, if that makes sense to you. I was kidding myself that it was pretty ok until I talked about it and suddenly realised it wasn't.

Your view of "normal" is skewed when you live with someone like this

Do you have a mum? That can be a good place to start.

No my mum died several years ago. I have a lovely dad and he knows some of it already but not the full extent. I don't want to burden him too much - he's a worrier. I have fantastic sisters but they live so far away I hardly see them and I think it should be a face to face conversation.

You know, you could talk to your Dad. I bet he knows most of it anyway, and may worry less if he knows you are dealing with it more. Otherwise, you need to take your kids and go and visit one of your sisters. Maybe your dad could help you with this. Look at it as a bit of a holiday, go and talk to them and be absolutely 100% honest.

It's the only way to really be able to think it all through, to work out where you stand.

Because you are living in a little bubble. You love your husband, that's understandable. You have been trying to help him, and until recently you probably thought you could "fix" him. But you can't - only he can fix himself, and there does come a time when you protecting him is actually going to do him more harm than good.

Can you get to your sister's?

what maryz said

he is manipulating you, and has been for some time, to collude with his addiction and to cover up for him

time to stop now

I like your email OP, and a sensible rational person would respond to it. But addicts are neither sensible nor rational so I fear it is not going to work.
As others have said, it's time to look after yourself.

I still haven't sent the email but I had a long talk with him last night and raised most of the points I wanted.

We didn't argue. But he said that he doesn't see a problem with smoking weed. He is thinking about throwing it away but it's only to keep me happy. Otherwise he would happily smoke it every night until there was none left.

He said he's really surprised at my 180 turnabout in my opinion of weed smoking (we used to smoke a lot together, pre DC) and I suppose I can understand that. I've matured changed but he hasn't. I had to remind him that I wasn't actually happy back then and that stopping smoking weed has been a massively positive change in my life. I actually believe that it dulled my brain and that I still haven't fully recovered my previous sharpness, 6 years on.

(So, I knew what I was getting when I decided to have children with him, didn't I? And now I've grown up, moved on from our previous lifestyle in order to make a stable and happy home for our DC, and I shouldn't be surprised really that he hasn't changed too.)

I brought up my concerns re his drinking, and he admitted that his secret drinking (which I had accidentally discovered on one occassion in late November) had been happening 1-2 times per fortnight for about 2 months. (I reckon he's underplaying this and it's more like 1-2 times per week for 3 months, but I didn't challenge him on it). This is of course on top of the 3 nights a week minimum that I know about - often 4. Plus this being Christmas week he has drunk every night for the last 10 nights at least, quite openly. So I said that he clearly doesn't have control of his drink problem. He was quite affronted at that and said that he does have it under control and that it's a lot better than it used to be, he's trying and it's really hard.

I told him I am very unhappy and that I'm seriously considering my position at the moment. He didn't say much to that.

He's said nothing this morning either but of course the DC are around so there's not much we can say.

I think I've made my feelings clear but I don't think it's got me anywhere. He's in almost total denial.

And really, who can I blame but myself? These are not new issues. I knew all about them when we chose to become parents together.

I'm going to ask MNHQ to move this to relationships. Thanks for everyone's input so far. I so appreciate it. It's really helping.

Hi all,

We'll shortly be moving this thread to our Relationships topic.

Thanks to all who have contributed so far.

Best,
MNHQ

I wish you all the best, Flats.

Keep posting on here - even if it's only to have some record of your thoughts to look back on in times to come. Whether you make a clean break or not, you are getting much stronger every time you look at this.

It's easy for us to say "leave him" - I understand it's difficult to do.

But will you please stop saying it's your fault. It isn't your fault. What you did (smoking dope etc) in the past is in the past. You have grown up, changed and put your children first. That's what adults do, they change.

It isn't unreasonable of you to expect that your dh would also grow up and change. Part of the reason he hasn't is probably the weed-smoking, which tends to remove ambition

You are moving in the right direction. You now know he's talking bullshit about the drinking. Of course it's hard for him - he's an alcoholic and trying to "reduce" his drinking will be impossible. The only way is for him to accept he has a problem and give up completely. Until he does that, it won't get better - he'll just hide it more, and justify the hiding by saying it's your fault.

Every time you post one of these threads you will get a little stronger. But you need real life help too, from someone who loves you and will be on your side in this.

Flats: I wish you all the best. I went through this and stayed for 30 years and wish I hadn't.

I kept thinking it would get better. It didn't.

My friend's DD is leaving her DH for the same reason.

It is NOT your fault. he is immature and doesn't want to grow up.

Best wishes to you.