My DP doesn't look after his mind, body or soul.

[RedStripeLass]

I'm at a loss with how to help him. He's 35, we have a 3 year old daughter who was very much planned, both work in our careers of choice yet I'm worried we are crashing and burning.

Where do I start.... When we met 8 years ago he was fun, popular and a real laugh to be around. Now he's sullen, moody and tired all of the time. I mean all of the time. Any extra time in the day will be spent in bed. He never sees friends anymore. He doesn't appear to even have friends anymore.

He doesn't shave and doesn't even wash more than a couple of times a week. I'm making sure he wears clean clothes. He doesn't eat much or properly despite me cooking for him and is, I think, underweight.

He's suffered ill health and bereavement this year but will not face up to anything bad. I'd love him to access some counceling but he is entirely resistant to even the suggestion.

He drinks and smokes pot every single night till he's asleep. He works in the service industry and I know both are ingrained in this world but it's no longer social. I'll enjoy a drink with him a few nights a week but I'm not a smoker. He is sinking over £70 a week smoking pot on his own in the garden. How sad is that? We are so poor at the moment it breaks my heart.

I'm sure he's suffering from depression but he will not indulge in even the slightest bit of self reflection.

Where do I go from here? The whole sorry situation has now caused me to suffer with anxiety and I'm getting tired of propping our family unit up. I'd love to expand our little family but rationally thinking, everything tells me I can't bring another child into this till he's well. How on earth do you make someone access therapy?

X post with elsbeth

Sorry love. The last thing I want is to have you pulled down from your good mood. But he is what he is.

I suppose this comes down to what kind of life and examples you want to set to your child.

I talk about drug use and alcohol with my teens - and they see me consume alcohol responsibly now and then (wine). We have also been to weddings and parties where there have been drunk people. I feel in control of my consumption because I want to be. It's expensive and makes you feel shitty so I don't drink to excess anymore or maintain a low level of excess - which is what your DH does.

I think the difference between my older DD's and yours when she is the same age is they would be utterly horrified and uncomfortable to be around a drunk/stoned adult. They would feel vulnerable and embarrassed. They don't feel at all comfortable around drunk adults - tipsy maybe it could be slightly entertaining but they do not find this funny for the most part. I haven't instilled that horror in them - I teach them alcohol needs to be respected and actually seeing someone wasted might put them off (it has). They hate the smell of weed (thanks neighbours) and cigarette smoke (I used to smoke, given up 2 years) and fully aware of the health risks and I feel like I set a good example by giving up and also the benefits have been very obvious - I'm not preoccupied by smoking and we have more money and I am visibility healthier. They tell me this frequently.

Anyway. Without being harsh to you, you have no way of setting any kind of good examples to your DD with this lifestyle. I think you have to accept if you continue in this family that to DD, smoke, weed, Coke and booze will become part of her normal life. These will be normalised. You won't be able to teach her the reality of harmful substances and lifestyles as like me with an alcoholic father, I had no idea of limits when I began drinking - afterall I had spent 15 years watching a man drink 30 units a night (my mother is teetotal).

by my 16th birthday I had woken up in strange places, suffered 2 sexual attacks (while very drunk,one was serious). I also got in with all the wrong crowds, got myself a nice drug dealer boyfriend (and even helping him sell) and my drunken father had no leg to stand on with telling me I was pissing my life up the wall was he? He could come help me when I needed as he was too busy drinking. Teetotal mother wasn't much use because she had normalised all my fathers behaviour. So 2 parents who set the bar low = disaster for me.

I really do wish you luck Red, well your daughter I do. I can only hope for all our children we can sit and say 'I did my very best' no matter what life choices they make as teens and adults - I think ultimately the guilt will eat you up inside that you could have done better In 10 years time of this

*couldnt come to help me

Your normalisation of what you're currently exposing your child to, is horrific

I've been lurking on this thread, and was pleased to see you doing so well, but your description of last night as a 'win' is just horrifying, sorry. To pack him extra clothes in case he pissed himself, to be so sanguine at the prevalence of drugs - I'm really shocked.

Please see that this is not normal, at all

I think you're grasping at straws for positive signs. I don't think his uncle's talk will make any difference to his drug\alcohol consumption. It'll take a lot more to sober up &he'll have to avoid parties like that for a long time if he's serious.
Being up on a weekend to play with his DD should be a normal event, nothing exceptional.

What time is he going to light up his first spliff this afternoon?

I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh but your description of last night just sounds like a continuation of the unhealthy environment your DD is growing up in.

This is not remotely normal. And your family of origin explains so much about why you ended up with your husband.

As things stand right now, your daughter stands a huge risk of becoming an addict herself in the future. Although possibly one who won't realise it because 'it's just the way we do things in my family'.

It worries me that you are still somehow thinking that because he "took it easy" (at a family occasion with DC present) it's somehow progress. He is an addict. "Cutting back" isn't going to happen and he's stated he sees no need to change. Yet you're still there, still hoping you can stay together. And all the time your DD is in a crappy situation.

Did you go to Al Anon in the week? Hope you will go this week, and tell them about the occasion.

As for the coked up uncle - "everyone knows what he's like" - the family's tolerance of addiction to the extent of being on Coke at a family do doesn't increase confidence that they'll be much help if / when you decide to address your response to H's problems and leave.

If you had woken up at home I bet he would of been a grumpy twat, he had an audience to be a Disney Dad around.

You have really shocked me and as far as I can see you are just as bad as your DH now allowing this to happen around your poor dd, I hope someone does contact ss as you seem incapable of protecting her.

You mentioned that you had sex with him. You go to a family party together (where people get drunk, smoke weed, and snort coke in front of children, and where the house STINKS when the children wake up). You even pack him spare clothing, fully expecting your husband to piss himself like an incontinent child.

How exactly has anything changed for him? I think you don't realise the extent of the change you need to make in your life, Red. And when I say "you", I mean you specifically, Red. Only when things get really tough for him will be perhaps realise what he's going to lose.

So far, you're still enabling him. And endangering your daughter.

This couldn't be more depressing, what age do you think you'll be able to take your dd out to these parties to before she gets what's going on ?

The only way out is to get away from all these people and I think secretly you must like it otherwise you would take your daughter home ??

I don't think you like it. I think you don't know how to cope with it because of a combination of your own childhood and allowing him to 'educate' you about his world, which no doubt had been portrayed to you as 'the real/normal world'.

It is very wrong though. It is not the kind of world a child should grow up in.

Sure this feels like one shock after the other and one kick when you are down after the other but I think you really have to start seeing that none of any of this is acceptable or ok for DD.

And I think it is the combination of things that is what makes it bad.

If DD came from a home where drugs/drug were not already a massive issue going to a party where a few people smoked a few joints outside/while she was asleep one time would not be the end of the world.

The problem is that substance abuse is normal in her world and it has been normalised to the extent that your feelings on it are essentially 'it was just one uncle doing coke' 'some of the people only drank alcohol' 'when the kids were awake they only smoked outside' which I think if you are honest with yourself are the excuses that your addicted DH makes for exposing his daughter to these behaviours and NOT how you feel about them. But you are paralysed because he can be violent and verbally abusive and so you are stuck in a pattern of self-soothing your anxieties rather than acting to protect DD.

It was not a family friendly party. It sounds like a uni halls party or a really terrible wedding reception. My family parties involve playing fun games and low level background music, with the lights on and sitting chatting maybe with some beer, wine and nibble food to go with it but no one is huddling around the back door chuffing anything and anyone who thought that taking a line of Coke at our family party was acceptable (or fun) would never be invited ever again

Basically none of those people at that party are people which it is safe for you and dd to associate with. They are all either problematically tied to drugs/alcohol or they are enabling someone else who is problematically tied to drugs/alcohol. So his uncle's advice to him is not worth anything.

How he will feel about the party is - see I didn't piss myself/embarrass myself and I was able to function within my substance abuse so there is no problem. If you push him he will use it against you as 'the time we went to that party and I got up with dd'.

It will show how far he has managed to manipulate the boundaries into an abnormal place that facilitated his addictions. He allowed you to transport his illegal drugs with DD in the car, he took you both to a party where there were a number of people doing drugs and he wants credit for doing the bare minimum of parenting the day after.

I agree. Also it's not really a family party to wait for the kids to go to bed to bring out the indoor weed smoking and get further wasted. You just took your 3yo daughter to a drug and alcohol themed bash Red. It's so far from normal it's veered entirely into irresponsible beyond belief

Do you have any friends or relatives who don't do drugs and don't drink a lot, Red? Because that's what 'normal' looks like.

I've got a bit of a rep as the boring arse at his family do's

Good, because this sounds as if it is to your credit. You need to extend this courtesy to DD.

With a family like his, it is highly highly unlikely that he will ever recognise there is a problem or take steps to change and rather than feeling optimistic because he wasn't as out of it as he would ordinarily be you need to see that he has a family of substance abusers/enablers and therefore his addictions are hugely unlikely to ever be overcome no matter what you say or do.

He had the choice to see it as abnormal when he married a wife that has never smoked a cigarette and (quite normally) doesn't really fancy getting wasted when her DD is around. What he chose was not to enter the normal world but to try and draw you and DD into his really quite fucked up one.

This family he has just sees family gatherings as a nice time to get trashed in a group, not to spend quality time together or enjoy one another's company in a normal sense.
The family memories that come out of it will all be related to drugs and alcohol won't they? The time uncle got coked up - amusing anecdote. The time DP pissed himself! Amusing anecdote.
I already know that apart from you last night and the other few less drunk people little attention was given to DD at all during the evening by the adults, so apart from her inhaling weed what did she actually gain from last night? She can play with cousins and other children any time, in a park or other child friendly place.

And of course he was happy and in a great mood last night and today he just spent Saturday night not at work and doing his 2 all time favourite things in the world. Smoking and drinking

I probably see nights like last night as more 'normal' than most posters on here Red in that smoking weed on my doorstep and socialising with addicts/drug and alcohol abusers has, at one time, been part of my life.

Two things strike me though, I had a friend in my late teens/early twenties who had had her kids early (15 when her eldest was born) and, by that time, lived with her bf and 2 kids. Parties like yours last night were common round her house and her kids regularly woke up on a Sat or Sunday morning to a living room full of trashed and hungover strangers. I remember feeling really sorry for them even though I was part of the problem and could still see that it shouldn't have been any child's 'normal'.

I'm comparing that to my social life now, we have friends with kids a similar age to our own and often socialise round their house as it's easier than everyone finding babysitters. The average night comprises of some food early on, either a meal at the local pub or takeaway pizza followed by the kids playing together at their house and the four adults sitting having a drink or two. No one gets noticeably drunk, there's lots of chatting and laughing but nothing loud or lairy and no one smokes or does any drugs. Then when the kids start to get tired we go home, normally by about 10.30pm. It's nice, we all enjoy it and I don't think we're modelling anything bad or harmful for the kids, it feels like a pretty stark contrast to what my old friends kids saw when they were that age.

My point is that what I have now is normal, what you describe from last night and what I used to try to normalise in my own head (and never quite could, I always knew it was wrong) is not. It's hard, when everyone around you is doing the same, to listen to that voice telling you this isn't right but, honestly, it isn't, your DD deserves better.

You're in the same situation I was, she's young enough that if you stop exposing her to this side of life now she's not likely to remember any of it. I'm so glad I got out (and got my DD out) before it was too late because I can see all too clearly now the influence it may have had on her in the future. Don't let your DD grow up thinking this is normal Red, you'll be setting her up with frighteningly low standards for her own future if you do

This makes absolutely disgusting reading.

My sister is adopted and spent her early years in a slowly escalating situation EXACTLY like this one. I'm so glad she was removed and placed with our family.

Your poor DD

Did his uncle's talk work red? Has he had zero alcohol and zero weed today? Or has he told you that he wants to give up now?

I'm afraid I agree with the others. Your idea of a normal family gathering is bonkers. Yes, it does sound like Shameless. You are teaching DD that this is how people like us behave when we want to have fun. The party was a lesson in how to be a grown up in my family. Do you want this to be her life?