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.

Recovery is an ongoing process. It has its ups and downs. This has recently been made very clear to me by my own MH health care professionals.

All the best, OP

expat the drinking was on a completely different day, no?

OP hadn't been drinking on the day of the bedtime palaver.

You're just clutching at straws to stigmatise OP because of her alcohol issue / MH issue.

'You're just clutching at straws to stigmatise OP because of her alcohol issue / MH issue.'

I'm doing no such thing! She's been on here for ages banging on about how bad it all is, how bad she got, VERY ill. Countless times people advice, please don't miss such strong prescription drugs with drink. And then expects the guy to turn around and pretend it's all honky dory just a few months later.

I think you are projecting from your own situation, Puss. Take a look at the previous threads.

But OP had not been drinking that day - I do not get the connection!

Just because she is still in recovery for a drinking problem doesn't mean she is automatically wrong on unrelated issues!

Saying she is wrong is completely stigmatising her.

the DH was being controlling in the situation described.

If everyone has you so wrong OP, why do you continue to post so much about your situation?

Are you attention seeking?

God, some people love to have a pop, don't they?

Yes, I'm a huge attention seeking cunt who bangs on all the time and is ruining everyone's life. I'll go and boil my head.

For some reason you're getting a real trashing, OP.

It is confidence-destroying.

I had one such experience when a bunch of AIBU bullies decided my abusive XH should have sole residence because I once left glass in an unused bathtub for 1-2 weeks and DC is nearly 10. yes I'm still bitter about it and seeing a therapist three times a week to deal with low self esteem due to anonymous online robot bullies

not

But people should be a bit more careful in how they post to those with disclosed MH issues FFS!

Do you know what? I have been an MNer for nearly 11 years. I've posted on thousands of threads offering support, advice, whatever. I've donated, I've sent gifts, I've made friends and I've been part of amazing things.

My life fell apart a few years ago and instead of offering support I started asking for it. But mention the dreaded words 'alcohol issues' and instead of support you get vilification. There is being outspoken and offering tough love, and then there's just being an out and out rude cunt.

Some of you should take a good hard look at what you're doing.

You're having a toddler like tantrum because you haven't got the replies you wanted; what on earth is the point of all these self indulgent threads? You learn nothing.

Nobody's being a rude cunt . They're just seeing more clearly than you are

puss that isnt the exact situation though is it? There was a bit more to that and i believe you were already having therapy. Its a bit unfair to lay your problems at the feet of mumsnet posters.

The op drinking does have something to do with bathtime. In the OP she drank the four drinks one and night the next night she was exhausted so let her ds go back downstairs.

She is on medication. Drinking increases side effects, including drowsiness (op owns words). She was exhausted because she had drinking with medication and suffering the side effects.

Kate well sorry to distract but do tell me more whatthe problem was, except the opportunity for a few holier than thou bashers attacking someone who's at the time of posting in a vulnerable situation.

Repeating over and over again on MN, here, too, in this thread.

It is confusing, because sometimes there are wonderfully supportive threads in here. Perhaps even the majority of the time.

I just don't like bullies 'sall.

Kate I'm not having therapy and haven't had it for years... I have AS. I have other coping strategies supervised by GP,

but I guess it's too much to expect people to read the posts properly if they already spot the opportunity to present themselves as self righteous and better than the OP,

just like in this thread...

Just out of interest Kate and sorry for thread hijack, but do you genuinely think an abusive parent is better than a parent who is sometimes a bit disorganised and perhaps a bit unusual due to a neurological processing difference??

Yup, not sure why some people are being so nasty.
The instances OP mentioned were very controlling. People do get like that with loved ones with MH issues. OP and her H seem to have sorted it out, though.
Constant tiredness is awful, might be your medication?

YY Broken

Thank goodness some common sense re-emerges on this thread

Yep didn't think so Kate...

Isnt this supposed to be a support group kind of thing?

Yes and my telling the op she has a serious alcohol problem believe it or not came from the fact that I am a recovering alcoholic myself. And I justified it and I tried to control it and moderate it. I saw therapists and hypnotists and had herbal pills. And I kept a drink diary and I blamed it on pnd and work stress and my then husband. I even had fucking acupuncture and guess what .... it didn't work. And I lost my job and my marriage and my kids and my sanity. And it was actually only then when selfish me actually started to really hurt that i accepted I was an alcoholic and dealt with it by not ever drinking alcohol. I admitted to myself that I couldn't drink in safety. I'm not a bloody clairvoyant but I can tell the op that I could have written half her bloody posts. It's a mental illness. Obsession with alcohol is part of it. Once she admits she is an alcoholic not just someone who used to have an alcohol problem she might just stand a fucking chance.

Have the couple of people who say the husband was controlling actually read the bit about how the OP totally overrode what dad had done by allowing their DC to go back downstairs to watch television when his dad had stopped him doing that?! The bedtime that dad was trying to stick to seems a reasonable one to me. OP had no discussion with her DH about possibly extending his viewing time a bit - she just went ahead and did it. I call THAT controlling!!! If I had been that dad I would have been FUMING at being undermined like that.

It's very poor parenting as very confusing for the child when both parents are telling it different things. Plus it doesn't send a great message about either parent - "the boundaries that my dad sets are pointless because my mum overrules them, therefore my dad has no authority over me therefore he is weak. My mum doesn't care about the boundaries my dad sets because she overrules them especially when she's tired, therefore I can get away with anything with her therefore she is weak." Not good. Not good at all. But yes, go ahead and see the dad who is actually setting parenting boundaries as controlling why don't you?!

It's also a bit worrying that OP and the one or two others that agree with her also see her point of view of wanting to do things her way. Well, bloody hell, don't we all? But life doesn't work like that, does it? anyone who DOES want everyone to dance to their tune is the perfect example of "controlling ."

There is only one controlling person in this scenario. And it isn't the husband.

I do know a lot of people with ASD and people who have it will recognise the need to be in control of your environment and do things your way. It helps you feel secure when things are predictable and go the way you expect them to. I understand this. Because Of this, though, I do NOT think it is helpful for someone who has ASD to come on a thread and tell this OP that yes, her husband was being controlling. you are projecting. You are imagining how you would feel in her position and someone tried to make you do something that wasn't in your "plan". It would irk you and even make you feel anxious.

I don't know why you assume people are holier than thou when they give advice that doesn't seem to be in favour of the OP.

I for one have my own drink demons i am facing up to (I am now attempting sobriety) and the child of a BPD alcoholic. Some people do just waltz onto threads to cause a fight but more than one person has come on to say they too were in denial about using alcohol and learnt the hard way about it. I too was thinking it was normal and fine to allow myself some alcohol because I am totally in control, the sad fact is, you can't have a temporary problem with alcohol. You either do, or you do not. It is not transitional

But people should be a bit more careful in how they post to those with disclosed MH issues FFS!

^This with bells and whistles.

I said this thread turned into a shame-inducing, bitchfest the moment someone took it upon themselves to repost past threads that the OP had namechanged for in order to preserve her MN anonymity - and all justified supposedly for the OP's own good. Then subsequently used as a stick to beat the OP with!

Yeah please tell me how deliberately linking and constantly referring to a thread where someone admitted in their darkest moment to being suicidal and at their lowest point was to motivate the OP's recovery?

No matter if you think the OP is in denial, the harsh 'for your good responses' would only make anyone defensive and thus essentially pointless.

And the bedtime nonsense was waaay over the top. I've seen people admit to a lot worse without being accused of being off the rails.

The OPs husband is great, but he is treating her like a child on permanent probation. Yes it may be justified to a degree and even understandable, but doesn't make it right, or easy to live with.

People dont make positive changes when they're treated like they can't be trusted and presumptions are made that they will screw up

As I said before, no wonder people with MI feel stigmatised. These posts are wholly inappropriate to a previously suicidal person with MH issues.

There's a way of making a point and still being kind about it. If you feel you can't do it, step away. You could cause inadvertent harm. You have no idea what state of mind the OP is in. Since she asked for help, things could be getting on top of her. You don't know.

I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn't be feeling great right now if I was the OP reading these posts.

OP has told us multiple times her state of mind is the best it's been for a long time.