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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Husband was unkind to our baby

28 replies

WorriedandWoefull · 31/12/2014 12:19

Name changed for this.

I am angry and upset so this might not make much sense. H got very very drunk once this Xmas period, I was upset as I saw the GP who said I have PND and needed more support, he was good and helped until he started drinking and then kept me awake till 3am. Anyway yesterday about 5pm I thought he was acting the way he does when he has started to drink, I check the cupboard and saw a bottle of vodka, he said he had just gone and bought it, I asked him to go slow on it until the kids were asleep (so they didn't have to see him drunk) he said he would. Anyway the baby was being hard to settle, we had been taking it in turns to try and get him to sleep, I noticed he as getting a bit cross with ds2 (the baby) and telling him to go to sleep in a gruff voice but I know how frustrating it can be when then they won't settle so I just asked him to be gentle. Anyway by 9.30pm I decided to try walking him up and down the porch, he saw me walking through the living room with ds1 still awake and said "he is a little shit" I told him to get out of the room if he was going to talk like that, then he said "he is being a little shit, it's 9.30 he won't go to sleep" I told him to stop talking, he said I won't, we argued a bit more then I took ds2 into the porch and shut the door and got him to sleep.

I feel so angry and sad, and in the morning he will either say he didn't mean it like that or claim he can't remember it. I stood by him when he was convicted of drunk driving and totalled our car and many other things but I don't think I can forgive him for what he said about our beautifull precious innocent baby. And the irony is he was not even very drunk.

I know it's nye but I would love some support or advice pretty please

OP posts:

QuietTinselTardis · 31/12/2014 12:24

It sounds like he has a problem with drinking. Does he still drive after drinking?

QuietTinselTardis · 31/12/2014 12:26

I'd personally have more of a problem with that that saying a baby's a little shit when they can't understand you BUT if he regularly drinks to excess and hides it or. Loses his temper then he has a problem and you need to tell him to leave.

Original poster

WorriedandWoefull · 31/12/2014 12:27

No not since he was done for drunk driving, he doesn't drink all the time. And I could live with him drinking sometimes but I can't bear him being nasty about one of my children.

OP posts:

Humansatnav · 31/12/2014 12:28

He has a drink problem. You need to decide what your line in the sand is. I think you already have, tbh.

divingoffthebalcony · 31/12/2014 12:30

He has a drink problem.

He has a conviction for drink driving. He buys alcohol and starts to drink it without you knowing. You feel responsible for protecting your children from seeing him drunk. He becomes verbally abusive when he drinks.

That is a drink problem.

GoatsDoRoam · 31/12/2014 12:34

I think you should join an Al Anon meeting in the new year.

Your husband is an alcoholic, and you are minimizing and enabling it so very much:

-I asked him to go slow on it until the kids were asleep (so they didn't have to see him drunk)
-I stood by him when he was convicted of drunk driving
-he was not even very drunk

He is also a very nasty man.

Neither his alcoholism nor his nastiness are things that you can do anything about. You and your baby will continue to suffer from both. Clearly he is unwilling to take steps to change ("in the morning he will either say he didn't mean it like that or claim he can't remember it").

The only thing you can do to protect yourself and your baby is to leave. That may be the wake-up call he needs, in the way that his drunk-driving conviction was not. Or maybe even that won't be enough for him and alcohol will continue to be his priority over you and your baby. But either way, leaving is what will protect you and your baby from the effects of his alcohol problem.

TheKhalisirules · 31/12/2014 12:34

worried, I am just coming out of a relationship with and emotionally abusive drunk shithead.
I don't know if I'm in a position to give advice, but what I do know that alcohol is very bad news.
And your husband being abusive to your bebe when SOBER, god, sorry, I don't know what to say.
I am here to hold your hand, tough.

lemisscared · 31/12/2014 12:37

he is an alcoholic. He needs to make a choice. alcohol or family. ive seen two children's lives destroyed by an alcoholic father.

the drink driving would have been the deal breaker for me.

borisgudanov · 31/12/2014 12:40

Horrible selfish pig. Last thing you need around a baby. Kick his arse out before he does something dangerous.

BuzzardBirdRoast · 31/12/2014 12:41

I really think you are worried about the wrong thing. Calling a baby a "little shit" for not going to sleep is hardly the issue here.

The drinking is the issue.

The baby will not be harmed by a parent getting pissed off that they won't sleep.

Original poster

WorriedandWoefull · 31/12/2014 12:46

It's hard to explain but he can go weeks without drinking and has only been really drunk three times in the past year, but when he does drink I don't know when he is going to stop, he won't listen to me when I ask him to not have too much. He was going through a happy stage around bed time, I asked him not to overexicte the kids, he did and then of course they were hard to get too sleep and that pissed him off, he can be real happy and chatty but then he will suddenly say something mean, or in this case nasty.

He was so happy when ds2 was born, I thought he adored the baby, I just don't understand how he could be so mean towards him.

I don't have a job so if I do leave me and the boys will be very poor, it's hard to know what the right thing to do is.

OP posts:

MrsSquirrel · 31/12/2014 12:48

Drunk or sober, calling a tiny baby a little shit is unacceptable. Actually, calling any child a little shit is unacceptable. Please protect your dc.

GoatsDoRoam · 31/12/2014 12:48

what do you think the right thing to do is?
In your gut?

Pastmyduedate0208 · 31/12/2014 12:55

I was at the end of my tether with Ds who is 5 weeks after he had been crying all evening. I expressed my frustration by swearing about him (not to him).
I understand how it can happen as a one off.
If he is like it a lot though, you need to have a proper think if u want that influence in your life.

Original poster

WorriedandWoefull · 31/12/2014 12:58

I feel like I want to ask him to leave, at least until he agrees to stop drinking excessively but I am frightened of the consequences, of the emotional and financial fallout, of having to tell my family, of how my seven year old will react. And I am worried that I am overreacting and of being unfair to H.

But my first primary instinct was to protect my baby, to keep him away from H until he was fully sober again.

OP posts:

Original poster

WorriedandWoefull · 31/12/2014 13:11

If he had said it when he had been try to settle the baby for ages and he was sober and frustrated I would not have been quite as bothered by it, but to see that alcohol induced mean argumentative approach directed at the baby who I was only walking past him holding, not trying to give to him to settle, it just really disturbed me.

OP posts:

GoatsDoRoam · 31/12/2014 13:11

I would say follow your instinct, then.

You are not over-reacting or being unfair. There are online calculators where you can see what benefits you would be entitled to on your own. Open up to your family and friends: you need their support, and your silence is protecting a shame that is not yours.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 31/12/2014 13:25

I would ask him to leave and stay gone as well. Such men do not change, their main thought is where the next drink is going to come from.

He does not care about the children or you, his primary relationship is with drink.

How many people know about all this, not many I dare say. Covering this all up does not help you, you need to start accessing real life support and making a new life for yourself. what you describe is not atypical of what life with an alcoholic is lie, it's lurching get from one crisis to another.

I would also contact Alanon as they are very helpful to family members of problem drinkers.

You are currently in the dual roles of codependent and enabler and both of these states are doing you no favours at all. I would read up on codependency as this often features within such marriages. This is no life for you or any of your children to be witnessing, your children will not thank you for staying with their drunkard dad at all. They will wonder of you why you stayed and in their eyes out him before them during their childhoods. Your boundaries also here are skewed because you.ve become conditioned to all this as well. BTW did you yourself grow up with an alcoholic parent?. It would not surprise me if you did.

your lives would truly be better without him in it day to day.

justalittlebit3 · 31/12/2014 13:43

Where has this "he's an alcoholic", "his main thought is where his next drink is coming from, "Tell him to leave for good"

According to the OP he goes weeks without a drink sometimes, only been really drunk 3 times last year and most have you have written him off.

What he said wasn't nice but it's harmless enough, no harm done to the child or anybody else really apart from a little annoyance.

Tell hime to leave for good, really?

prettywhiteguitar · 31/12/2014 13:47

He sounds like a real charmer, walking on eggshells around him must be exhausting

Vivacia · 31/12/2014 13:49

He has a serious alcohol problem. I would make abstinence and going to AA the conditions of me staying. I grew up with alcoholic parents. I got called the names. I'm not putting my children through that.

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 31/12/2014 13:53

Yes, tell him to leave. You can't live like this and he'll only get worse. Your 7 year old will be upset, but nothing like the way he'll feel seeing his Dad alcoholically drunk and lashing out as he will in time if you stay together. They're small, not stupid and they don't stay small for long.

Justalittlebit - Unless you have ever known an alcoholic, you probably won't understand. It's not 'getting drunk' 3 times a year, as many of us might. It's the attitude that come with it and around it, it's being scared of them when they are drinking.

Being an alcoholic doesn't mean you reach for the vodka every morning before getting out of bed.

sykadelic · 31/12/2014 13:58

I too think you're overreacting to the little shit comment and under reacting to his reason for it.

You told him he couldn't get drunk while the children were awake, the baby was awake which was stopping him from getting drunk. THAT is the problem. His enjoyment of his night = get drunk and the baby was preventing him from doing it.

So while he hasn't been drunk "in a while" he still very much has a bad relationship with it. To the point where he was getting agitated with a baby that stopped him from doing it... what will happen when you try and stop him? You've admitted you can't.

I think he needs to stop drinking all together, at the very least get help with his relationship towards it

justalittlebit3 · 31/12/2014 13:58

I know a few alcoholics and none of them are like what the OP has described. Of course I am only going on what the OP has said because anything else is just fantasy.

The hubby sounds like a decent enough bloke, got a bit over annoyed about the child not going down but I think most parents have done that from time to time. What he said wasn't good but hardly a reason to split up.

NoRoomAtTheGin · 31/12/2014 15:13

Really if he has been drinking he shouldnt have care of the baby. He coukd drop him or anything!

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