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.

Cross post. How do you feel about One Day At A Time?

I doubt you will be able to say to yourself "I'll never drink again" (fair enough, it's fucking hard!) but you could say to yourself "I won't drink today". That is literally all you have to do. Just this one day.

You sound like me - if you can do this for a few days you will probably become "addicted" to the challenge and being addicted to not drinking is the best thing ever. Being stubborn as fuck actually can help you here

Were you planning on drinking tonight? Again don't feel you have to answer, but it's worth thinking about. Just one day, one evening (or afternoon. Or morning!) at a time.

I won't be drinking tonight, or any night this week. Dh is actually away this weekend so I am planning not to drink at all at the weekend, as it'll be hard enough to get through.

That's not a promise though and I'm not going to beat myself up if I do have wine on Saturday night or whatever. One day at a time is good.

Oh, I can drive. They took my licence away last year after I was hospitalised. I can have it back when I've been stable for six months.

Also (sorry, I'm walking and reading!), we have date night on a Friday most weeks where ds2 and DD watch a film upstairs and we watch all the comedy shit downstairs and then do karaoke and have tons of sex.

Despite all my issues we're still very close and loving.

I don't know that I agree with your DH re sat night being the night to let your hair down.

If your mum was there and she's difficult for you to deal with then the thing t do is stay sober, in control, and bail if she gets too challenging.

I had a similar sitatuin. I have a difficult relationship with some of my family. We had a christening yesterday. I didn't go to the church, and I went to the meal but came home early. I didn't get pissed or let my hair down. Because dealing with the tricky relationships is easier stone cold sober.

One day at a time also releases you from that bloody awful constant bargaining and thinking about and planning and then guilting etc. Don't think about Saturday now. Don't think about the weekend. It doesn't matter right now. Just park it.

It's actually so liberating to think this way. What also works (for me) is concentrating and being really aware of how you feel in the mornings when you haven't been drinking. If you can start to "swing the pendulum" towards not drinking being good and the reward, rather than drinking being the reward it helps enormously.

I have been doing One Day At A Time since 2012 and I wouldn't say to you now that I won't drink this weekend. I can say to you that I won't drink this evening. I can also say this is the best thing I have ever done.

Off to NC now as I don't normally reveal so much!

My phone mangled that I hope it makes sense !

ThisThing, I would put my relationship with him over drinking. The only reason I'm in therapy at all and trying so hard to be better is for him and the kids. I've spent most f my adult life being a fuck up and just going with it, I had a few years of proper stability after we met and then fell off the deep end again and now I am really properly engaging in my recovery.

Oh I'm sorry. I'd assumed you'd been stable for quite some time but it's really not been that long at all.

I hope things keep improving for you

Thanks

Funnily enough I was in that place last week, I didn't drink from Sat-Fri and I was feeling healthy and full of energy and feeling like I'd like to feel like that all the time. And then I fucked it all up at the weekend.

But part of what's good about the group I go to is they help you see that a lapse isn't the same as a relapse. And that I don't have to fall back into daily drinking just because I took the brakes off at the weekend, if that makes sense.

Thanks Anne

You know what. You need to learn to say "I can't deal with this" and mean it and not feel guilty.

I said, re yesterday, (self depreciating giggle) no I won't be at the church you know I don't do churches but I'll be at the meal. I need to leave early because

But I don't feel guilty about that. I did what I had to do to keep myself on an even keel. You should learn to do that with your mum. Its FOG. FEAR OBLIGATION GUILT and it's so freeing once you aren't in it any more.

Sorry x posts

You need to be in therapy and getting well for yourself missus. Doing it for anyone else won't work long term.

Hugs.

Just read you update. Your husband sound great and very self aware ie recognises how he has been and admits to being grumpy. No one is perfect I suppose and it sounds like he has been a complete rock to you and the family through a hard time. Now is a period of readjustment for everyone hopefully it will work out in the end.

My DH describes being just like your DH in a previous relationship with his DCs mum, who is an alcoholic and has MH issues. She never recovered properly and it led to him eventually having a breakdown and short term MH issues of his own.
He now reflects on this relationship and can see with hindsight that they had drifted into an unhealthy "parent and child" relationship, which actually was enabling and didn't help her condition, (or his MH) but did mean his DCs were protected as much as they could be and had their needs met, which remains the most important priority.

If you want to try to get things back on track, I suggest you carry on being "capable" in terms of taking responsibility for day to day tasks. Sticking to a schedule for you and your DCs will help with reassuring your DH that you are able to resume that equal role in parenting and running the house. As other posters have suggested, giving up drinking completely would be the ideal.

Now for the cautionary tale bit: They did eventually separate (she joined al-anon then left him), and after 6 months couldn't cope on her own and returned to the booze. Fast forward 5 years their DCs live with us full time, their DM has destroyed her relationship with her eldest DC, is homeless, back at her parents at nearly 40 years old and is slowly killing herself with alcohol. So sad and such as waste, don't let this be you OP.

IT sounds like you are doing really well flowers, and that you and DH communicate pretty effectively. We al, slip up at times. My FIL can look a bit controlling of my MiL, who has had years of MH issues. Thing is, he isn't perfect, and sometimes gets over cautious. No ill intent, it's just a tricky balance. Good luck!

I dont know if I'm being stupid or just not getting it, but why so much relevance on the alcohol? Maybe I have missed something but 2 glasses of wine and a cocktail doesnt seem like very much to me?
Bedtimes do need to be structured but I think - as I said before - if he is working so much and going out 3 times a week ask him to stay in with you? Put kid to bed and talk to each other. Forego one of his nights to reconnect with you.
He may well have been super supportive then but he isnt exactly going overboard now is he?! Then again, 7.30 bed for you and co-sleeping doesnt sound like an ideal situation either. Get your son in his own room and reclaim some adult time?

You need to give up alcohol completely. But I think you know that.

I can't think of any MH service who would be fine with a bipolar patient who had been sectioned getting drunk (and that's what tipsy is)

Angielester - you don't know op's backstory. She has described very serious issues with alcohol in the recent past, her dh has had to keep her away from alcohol, and she recently embarked on a formal recovery programme provided by an external addiction service. I hope she doesn't mind me posting that, she can report my post and have it deleted if she likes.

That's fine Bibbity.

I've never been sectioned, not sure where that's come from.

I think it came from you saying you were hospitalised - that's what I took it to mean too xx

Ah ok. No that was after a suicide attempt. Slight distinction, but these things matter

Sorry, that grin looks really inappropriate. Gallows humour.

I think you need to cut your dh some slack.