He loves alcohol more than he will ever love me

[Grapeeatingweirdo]

That's it really. Nearly six year relationship with ups and downs but the downs come from him internalising his problems and then spewing out everything he is unhappy about when drunk. Am currently on holiday with him and his daughter and I think the scales have finally fallen from my eyes. He will never love me as much as he loves alcohol. He will never get a divorce (separated five years before me met me and he lied about being divorced for the first year and a half). That's it really. I'm stuck in Spain with two days to go and all early flights back are sold out :(

Most people will come on here and tell you he's a waste of space and so on but in my experience addiction of any kind can be overcome but it depends if that ship has already sailed or not. Would you have the energy to fight endless battles before getting anywhere? Would you have the energy and time to help someone go through a hard period where they will get nasty and will blame you even though they don't mean it. And another thing will you be absent convinced cz him he needs to change ?

I say this as my partner was a massive drinker and drug taker when we met. He would go to work off his head on drugs from a two day bender. Everytime he got really drunk he would end our relationship and apologise the next day, I would face the lies of 'I didn't touch it' it the famous 'I was at home all night asleep'. People always told me I wouldn't get Nowhere with the relationship and he would never change. I stayed and helped him. It was tough many tears shed many raised voices. But he loved me enough to realise Inge was hurting himself and destroying me. It was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It was a struggle he found it hard it was hard to keep him focused on the bigger picture, but now 3 1/2 years on he hasn't touched a thing and I'm damn proud of him for it.

Oh I would advise you to do what you think is best. Do you think he has it in him to change? Would he have the will power to stick to it. If it's draining you now and emotionally damaging your health you may be best to leave and start over.

I hope you can find the right solution for you. Only you will know if he would change or not.
.god luck and get support in RL too x

I am really glad it worked out for you and your relationship survived. I don't think mine is an alcoholic though, borderline at best.

It's so tough when someone is so beautiful in every way except this. I've hung on for years hoping he will see the light. He refuses to change.

SOunds like you are very unhappy with him.

What makes you stay?

I love him. He is kind, cuddly and (alcohol aside) makes me feel loved and safe. He's intelligent, very loved by everyone he knows and I just love him. I love nothing more than being with him. But he gets so nasty when drunk, and continues to drink knowing what happens. Can't take it any more.

Fair enough, I don't know very much about that sort of thing and you are probably right.

He gets so nasty, starts bringing up stuff from the past and getting sneery and dismissive. I used to cry myself to sleep and think it was all my fault.

It has taken turning thirty for me to realise that I deserve better

But alcohol IS part of him - you don't get to pick which parts of him you get.

You can only chose to be part of all of his life, or not.

Someone being nasty to you as part of a relationship is not usually something we would chose to have as part of our lives.

He doesn't want to stop drinking and nothing you can do will change that. Cut your losses and move on. He doesn't mind that he upsets you when he's drunk - if he was really sorry he would stop drinking. But he doesn't want to.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. Is this really the life you envisaged for yourself?.

Have the scales finally fallen from your eyes?. This was anyway never going to end well and he also lied to you about divorcing. He has and will always put drink first; his primary relationship is with drink and alcohol is a cruel mistress.

No such thing as a borderline alcoholic; you either are an alcoholic or you are not.

Alcoholism is truly a family disease.

The 3cs as always are prescient in such dysfunctional relationships:-
You did not cause this
You cannot control this
You cannot cure this

His primary relationship is with drink and the man is too far up himself to even bother to obtain a divorce.

You need to ask your own self some harsh questions as to why you stayed for this length of time at all given his behaviours towards you. I am wondering if you grew up with similar.

I would also now address any co-dependency issues you have; you may well have confused "love" for this and you have acted out the usual roles associated with non alcoholic partners (enabler, provoker to name but two). He has never behaved in any sort of a loving way towards you and you simply hung on in there in the hope that he would change. Well he has not and he will not; any change has to come from him and he alone and he simply does not want to change.

What this is currently is an unhealthy co-dependency between the two of you. This relationship is well and truly over now.

Cut your losses now and leave this man behind before you get even more over invested emotionally or hurt.

It's very hard but I think you need to have a very frank conversation with him about getting help. If he doesn't change then slowly ( or quickly perhaps) your love wl drain away.