Dh has started being really quite controlling.

[LookAtTheFlowersKerry]

This is all quite complicated and might be long, so apologies for that.

I had a breakdown a few years ago and was since diagnosed with bipolar. I basically fell off the planet for a while with regards to real life and things and DH was an absolute star, he took up my slack and did most of the housework and parenting while I couldn't, as well as becoming the sole earner.

My drinking reached alcoholic levels and I overspent A LOT so we ended up with a system whereby I have limited access to cash.

Anyway, I'm much more stable now. My drinking is under control and I'm now doing 100% of the housework. Dh now works very long hours, seven days a week (from home in the evenings and weekends).

But I've started to notice that he's micromanaging me. When we went out for dinner last night he made me agree to only have two glasses of wine. I actually had three and a cocktail (and had a great time) but he lectured me this morning. I'm starting to feel like a wayward child.

This evening he wanted to work so I was sorting bedtime for our youngest. I was upstairs watching tv and had told ds to come up at 7.30 (I would have gone down and reminded him). At a quarter past seven DH brought him up, with his book bag, and told me I had to read with him before bed (I would have done anyway!). We read and had a nice chat, and he asked if he could watch tv for a few minutes more, which I said was fine. I was going to get him at 8pm and bring him in to bed with me to settle (we co sleep usually). Again, at about ten to eight, Dh brought him up, he was huffy and ds was crying. I said I was just about to come and get him and DH said that he wanted him off the telly and in bed. Again, I felt like a naughty child who had broken the rules.

He has a tendency to be a bit chivvying with me on things like going out for a walk or playing a board game with the kids. And earlier I asked him for some help washing up after lunch as I'd already washed up from breakfast and the dishwasher was full, he said no because he'd been working all morning. Which is fair enough but not the sort of thing he would have refused to help with before. It discombobulated me a bit.

I just feel like the balance of power has shifted massively, if that makes sense. I totally understand why but it's making me quite sad and a little bit uncomfortable. I'm quite a free spirit and being told what to do doesn't sit easily with me.

I'm not sure how best to address it. Dh is lovely, and would take it very personally if I told him directly that he was stifling me. But if I don't have free reign to make my own decisions on timekeeping, parenting, what to do with my weekends, I think I'm going to crack.

Funnily enough Autism/Aspergers has been mentioned before by my CPN.

There's an unofficial checklist online and I can tick nearly all of them. It's interesting.

Where did I outright lie?

So Kerry are you going to stop sabotaging your dh's parenting and work WITH him to empower yourself?

I would really hope you can.

Are you going to take any of the advice given to you?

Of course. And I'll continue working with the professionals who actually know me.

And I'm not sabotaging his parenting. You could argue he sabotaged mine, I was doing it my way and he stepped in. We are usually on the same page but he was working and grumpy.

LookAtTheFlowers - (slight hijack) can you point me in the direction of that unofficial checklist re. autism in females? I have another thread going at the moment ... am trying to find out about this subject for a friend and her troubled teenage dd. Don't know where to start and have had books etc recommended but I want something with a bit more "instant" information if you will. Thank you!

You shouldn't use unofficial check lists online to be honest, I think they can be misleading. Even I could tick some of those boxes.

Only a qualified psychiatrist or developmental consultant in conjunction with a psychologist and/or other professionals can diagnose autism, and it involves complex diagnostic tools. Usually called ADOS, which involves observations and particular testing. It's really complex. I don't think people should go around self diagnosing but speak to their team about whether they ought to go for testing. MH teams test adults now a days, most of the psychologists I know are ADOS trained

Oh I wasn't self diagnosing, it's interesting that's all.

one Bibbity.

I appreciate it may be one of those things (like star signs) where everyone thinks it describes them...

Offs.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/everydayaspie.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/females-with-aspergers-syndrome-checklist-by-samantha-craft/amp/ This one.

I dont think the OP outright lied. I think she has a coping mechanisim of dropping things in that make situation seem better than it is.

The 'I had a breakdown a few years ago' suggests to everyone that the OP has been well for a while. She didnt lie as she did have a breakdown a few years ago. However she is still unwell.

Op you do put a version of stories out there that suits your objective at the time you write it. While you dont see it as lying, it's misleading.

I suspect this is what happens when you discuss your drinking with health professionals. You give them a version that suits your objective (carrying on drinking) and take the bits what from they say away from the converstation, then use that to jusitfy the amount you drink.

At some point your dh will stop accepting blame for trying to moderate your drinking. He will get fed up that your recovery isnt progressing because of your drinking. He will get fed up that you are too tired to parent your child (remember you let your child watch TV alone after the bedtime you said) because you were drinking and taking medication (you said drinking and medication makes you tired). He may find he cant be tge one person holding the family together while you carry on drinking.

You may find its him that implodes. What happens then?

IMO I think this is an aspect of BPD, the distorted truths/realities.
Which is why I said I think that it's really difficult to give an objective opinion and what the OP types isn't the same as what gets read

OP, I remember several of your previous threads and I'd just like to say, you sound like you're getting things under control, little by little. I hope you manage to keep going in the right direction. Good luck.

Op i am not going to link it. But go bacj and read the thread with yiu drinking in the park.

You said then dh was at the end of his rope. You already opened the bottle before posting and only posted for validation.

Go back and read it. Yes you have made some headway. But not much, not enough for your dh to relax or trust you looking after the children. And not for long enough.

Three months! Your H is foolishly (but understandably) trying to manage the behaviour of someone he has ultimately no control over. At some point he will accept that your recovery is your responsibility and if you want to half commit or sabotage it there's sod all he can do.

His responsibility begins and ends with limiting his him and your son's exposure to a damaging destructive cycle. Your H is more than the picker up of pieces.

Good luck.

Kerry you might be hurt that in your own words posters might see you as 'a selfish and soulless' for distorting your own reality to justify following a path that is ultimately toxic and going to distress your dh to the point he might implode/crack...let alone you.

But you are going to keep pushing and pushing aren't you? To see as far as you can get to really freak him out/distress him..

You know your dh hates your drinking which is why you carry on, teasing him/goading him if you like...'see! I had 4 drinks but you said only 2!'

You get a perverse pleasure from going against his/your family's wishes...as if you are some sort of princess and what you say and do everyone else has to cowtow to or watch from the sidelines then pick up the pieces.

It's your weapon to control him; to scare him, to upset your family with the threat at the end to spectacularly implode/grievious self harm.

You are holding him to ransome. You know it. Everyone is holding their breathe around you, treading on eggshells just in case something, anything sets you off.

You will never stop drinking because you love the feeling and power it gives you, everyone dancing to your tune!

You have no idea how destructive and damaging your continuing to drink is on everyone around you. If you did you would not touch it.

But you know and continue anyway.

How would you feel if your dh or your dc behaved like you?

Wow, it's like you're actually in my head. Er, not.

You have no idea about me. None at all.

FYI dh doesn't hate me drinking. We drink together at times. He didn't want me drinking too much around my mum the other night. The post where I was drinking vodka and he was worried was because I had been in hospital the week before and was still in a very bad place.

This is not the situation you think it is.

Read the drinking thread op. Your dh is bothered. Hugely. It has a huge impact on him and your children.

Nope. He's bothered when I'm drinking during the day, or drinking spirits.

Socially drinking, or having wine on a Friday night? Not a problem.

This is coming from him, by the way, not me.

I'm not an alcoholic. I am someone who got very ill and used alcohol to self medicate. I'm no longer ill and I only drink at weekends, and not every weekend. Like many 'normal' people.

I honestly do think there is little point continuing to argue about this.

You don't want to see some things, that's fine. Most people don't like seeing or admitting things to themselves it's not that unusual.

Having had someone similar to how you sound in my life, I cannot tell you how exhausting it is to be on the merry go round with you.

you will never really be able to know how he truly feels or what he thinks, because it's totally possible that he is just trying to manage situations day by day, as time goes on. The point of this post was to vent how he's making you feel, which is fine.

His actions do not match his words.
Whatever he is saying to you, it doesn't sound like he really means them. Because he is still trying to manage you/your choices.
He's on board with this moderating of drinking because he effectively is hostage by it; what else is he supposed to do? If he outright says no, then he risks you becoming ill. He can't and doesn't want to leave you. He's also present during the evening so feels better about being in control of your drinking:

Therefore, he's only happy for you to drink when he is present. Which suggests he's worried about your drinking.

Where you are selfish is that you still can only see yourself in the middle here, everyone else is orbiting around you.

This could be a 'one off' incident based on one night out, one time. Which doesn't make someone controlling. You agreed to 2 drinks (for reasons ignored by yourself and glossed over, why was this agreed in the first place?) then broke the agreement straight away. So it was your fault.

If you do not wish to agree to 2 drinks only, then at the point of the convo say no to DH, and state all the reasons you are a free independent woman.

But other 'normal' people do NOT have drinking guidelines with their partners. People do not agree limits or timescales or acceptable times only. That's not what normal people or normal drinkers do.

That was my point about being possibly controlling. He has never ever before tried to get me to stick to a limit.

Part of it was money, it was a £30 bottle of wine place (my sister paid in the end but we didn't know that going in) and part of it was because my mum was there and she is a difficult character.

It was out of character for dh, and couple with the bedtime weirdness it made me a bit paranoid. Totally my issue, and he has explained why he was chippy.

You don't know me and you don't know dh. And you've got us all wrong.

Then we are all wrong, everything is fantastic and all sorted. I'm very pleased

Your last two posts demonstrate very clearly the extent of your self delusion, op.
Very sad.

you were not 'ill' and now are 'better' because bipolar disorder is not something you can get better from, it is a wiring issue in your brain that can send you off in different directions because the brain is telling itself to pour more and more of its own chemicals into it.

I know because its in DHs family.

This is not something you get better from, this is something that will involve alot of self awareness and perception, and trusting others to know a damn well more about what is right or wrong as they can see far clearer from the outside

It is a condition which needs constant monitoring, constant medication, to keep you on the level, and that medication is never going to be right first time, so messing about with it by drinking, which interacts with your moods and the drugs efficiency, ESPECIALLY in the early days (and 3-6 months of being 'well' really is early days when you have only had one serious period of being sectioned/hospitalised) is really stupid. Maybe later, once you know that all the levels are good, when you have had a few wobbles on the cycle, you might be able to throw a dew social drinks in here and there.

You sound like my daughter, who is ASD with all your excuses and reasons and explainations why everyone else is wrong.

When I read your OP, I knew exactly who you were.

You come on here, time after time, trying to get us to validate your drinking, and accusing your DH of being controlling.

Maybe he is being controlling, because maybe the "uncontrolled you" is too scary for him and your DC.

Nothing is getting through to you op because you have probably heard it many times before so you have built quite a wall round your deluded world keeping you in it and everyone else orbitting round it, trying to manage, trying to help, trying to get through but all that is achieved is banging heads against it.

I've never met someone as ill as you in rl op so please remember everybody wants the very best for your you and your family.