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.

Yep didn't think so Kate...

You dont think what? There was 15 mins between you posting a question and then posting the above. Surprisingly i was on mn all last night. This isnt about your thread, i apologise for reading you post wrong. But there more stuff on that thread.

This thread is about the OP. Not you or me.

I desperately want the op to wake up. Several months ago she admitted she was an alcholic. While sat in a park drinking a bottle of wine while her kids played.

She has mental health issue which are made worse by her drinking. She admitted herself that the drinking makes side effects such as drowisness worse.

Eventually her dh wont be able to take anymore and either walk away or, perhaps, have a breakdown himself.

The ops previous threads prove he isnt as ok with whats going on as she says here.

I am concerned she is actually regressing when it comes to her recovery. Justifing the drinking for her will only make that worse.

It's easy for communication to break down in any relationship but particularly during times fraught by tiredness, stress and a lack of trust.

It could just be that Dh has lost some trust in your ability to control drinks or generally just feels tired and fed up. A good night out alcohol free where you can talk about how you feel openly might just do the trick.

I can't judge from what you describe whether drinking is still an issue here but if it is a good hard honest look at yourself is more powerful than someone trying to measure your drinks on a night out xx

I don't think that comparing the behaviour of the partner of someone with MH issues to the expected behaviour of someone without MH issues. And I say this as the person with the MH issue. To somebody else, the bedtime issues would just mean they were a bit tired or having a bad day. To my DH it would be a red flag that I was withdrawing from family life and routine. To someone else the OPs two extra glasses would have meant that she would have a headache the next day. To the OPs DH it probably led to all sorts of anxieties that it would end up with the OP incapable drunk, making a scene and frightening the children and a three day hangover. Given all the agencies involved I suspect there would also be a very real prospect of the children being removed from the OP if they had got wind of it. If you have a partner who drinks to excess two extra drinks has the potential to turn into something incredibly frightening that could ruin their lives. And it's the partner who will have to face the ill person when they've recovered asking 'Why didn't you do anything, why didn't you pick up on the signs and help me before it got that bad'.

Another aspect here is that the DH's main priority is not whether or not the OP is feeling pissed off about being controlled. It's his children. And yes, that does mean he has every right to question the OPs drinking when it's getting to a level where the OP may do something which will distress her children. And for the children of alcoholics 4 drinks does not mean mummy is enjoying herself. It means something really horrible might happen very soon.

I suppose someone should go and lecture her kids that is 'stigmatising' their mother because of her drink problem. I'm sure that would make it all less scary for them.

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.

"Normal" people DO NOT self medicate with alcohol. Sorry, they just don't. Those with an alcohol issue do though.

You know, this is not really anything to do with your alcohol issues, op. This is more to do with your denial issues.

Your threads are a mass of contradictions. I would bet that you have no idea what you have actually said on some of them, because you were quite drunk while posting.

On the other thread (TOT) you are an alcoholic wanting sobriety and you talk of being an alcoholic several times, on this one you just "have an issue" with alcohol, but you aren't an alcoholic.

TOT, you agree and admit that your drinking is affecting you children and family, on this one it is not.

TOT your dh is hiding alcohol from you and you are begging and manipulating him into handing it over, this one he is happy that you drink & you actually drink together.

TOT you want to stop, this one you don't see the need.

You have to face up to what you are living op. Until then, no amount of help groups, cutting down or "controlling" family members will help you.

Kerry I have been trying to tell you I support you and I don't agree with the others apart from sewme!! I think everyone else should back off and stop vilifying you. I do think dh is controlling and I think drinking in front of the tv is fine! Alcoholics don't start and finish at any times. They just drink all the time. Give yourself a break!
I hope you are ok. 💐

Alcoholics don't start and finish at any times. They just drink all the time.

This isn't true. It's often used by alcoholics though to illustrate how they totally aren't alcoholics. Denial is a powerful thing

All the people posting on the thread who admit to having alcohol issues count for nothing, ah I see.
Please don't come on and make throwaway comments about alcoholism. It's not Phil Mitchell from Eastenders.
I have issues with alcohol but I don't drink 'all the time'. I've never in my life had a morning drink. I did not drink in the day at all, ever
But I drank in the evenings. Not even every evening.
I drink when I am sad, stressed, angry, bored, lonely, sociable, happy, but always because of an emotion, or just because I wanted to. Because I felt anxious and stressed and it helped make hard things blurry. It's a natural depressant so you don't feel happy for very long, then you just feel rough and manky. Then the next day you feel ashamed of yourself. Maybe you said or did things and regret them.
Alcohol doesn't do some types of people much good. It makes their lives worse not better. They can't live along side it, indulging infrequently now and then without drama. That is an alcohol issue

As this has been bumped I thought I'd update.

I did drink over the weekend when dh was away, but I didn't get drunk and me and the kids had a lovely weekend of activities.

I haven't touched a drop since Saturday night, and I intend to keep on. We watched Comic Relief last night with the kids, I've been up since 6.30, cleaned the house while dh worked and we're just off to the park to do some Pokemon hunting.

Kikikaakaa, that pretty much sums me up. I'm definitely an emotional drinker. I'm learning better ways to cope.

You have definitely got a bashing here OP, I can't quite work out why and wanted to say well done for how you are managing now, a real success story IMO.

Have a lovely weekend with your family.

I think recognising your emotional weakness in relation to alcohol is a really really good step. Not to necessarily stopping but like you say, finding new ways of coping. I would love nothing more than for that to be the case for me - no emotional ties to alcohol but I am not sure that will ever happen for me. It's like a bad ex boyfriend.

Good luck

Thanks.

I've just done the big family Mothers Day dinner (15 of us!) and drank lime and soda all day. Smashed it. I am feeling very proud of myself.

That's fab, Kerry! Well done! That's massive!

Thank you.

I've had a bit of a watershed moment really. I was drinking last weekend because I could, not really for enjoyment. And I can't carry on spending money on wine while dh is literally working every hour he can.

So it's been easier than I thought.

I'm actually in the garden right now with ds and his friend, they're on the trampoline and I'm drinking tonic and ice. It's just as relaxing as it would be with gin in it.

I've also been a lot more present in general, this weekend was lovely, long family dog walks, time together, got loads done.

It's all going in the recovery bank.

Good for you Kerry. This thread has been pretty difficult to read as the nastiness has literally made me jaw agape. Seems like some posters could do with winding their fucking necks in if you ask me - bearing in mind all of the acres of support provided by you in the course of the last 11 years.

Time was when someone needed a little support, and that person had quite serious MH issues (and has posted on this very thread that they have been prone to suicidal tendencies) that they would get cut some slack. Now it's arse kicking time and the same old people are pulling on their boots.