Depressed dp on wine binge - how can I help?

[Tanee58]

Having just hijacked someone else's thread, I'm starting my own ...

Anyone got any ideas for helping a depressed, out of work, middle aged actor, who's driving me absolutely nuts with his unexpected moods and two bottles of wine a night habit? My dp, who really is a lovely, sensitive man 90% of the time and quite the love of my life, has been out of regular work since December. He's an actor, so it goes with the territory, but we've only moved in together with mortgage etc 6 months ago and he does have a history of depression, but as he's been working fairly regularly the last few years, and we were also living quite far apart, it wasn't much in evidence. Bus sadly the depression has been triggered since Christmas by his feeling of being useless and not able to contribute to the family kitty, even though I've said we can manage (just!) on my salary till his next job. After last night, I feel like I can hardly wait till he goes away on tour in July! We were decorating my daughter's room and he kept disappearing to walk in the park, without telling me he was going. When he returned in the evening after his second jaunt, he just sat in the kitchen looking miserable & I really didn't feel like fussing over him, thought the best thing was to leave him to it; so he went to the front room with a bottle of wine and put on some REALLY loud metal music, deafened even poor dd who normally likes her music loud. I went in & turned it down before the neighbours started banging on the walls - just a little, as he was presuming finding it cathartic. I suppose I should have asked him if he minded turning it down but I was losing it by then. So then he turns it RIGHT up - big scene follows, I used some choice language and confiscated the wine as well which made him even more indignant (I'm sure he knows he's drinking too much, and it's unsaid, but some of that drinking money could go a little way towards the household expenses), and I guess he didn't like having this scene in front of my daughter (who's been great throughout, despite the fact that she's only recently become reconciled to his presence). He flounced out of the house with his bottle till midnight and went to bed without a word before I did, and I haven't really seen him since, as he got up again around dawn, muttering that he couldn't sleep. When I got up this morning he'd gone again, leaving his phone behind but, I think, taking another bottle of wine with him - so I expect he's sitting in our local park like some old wino swigging it back and feeling sorry for himself.

He's never really lived with anyone before, and I expect this is part of the teething problems and the work problem is a huge factor, but honestly, in the past 24 hours I've thought I'm better off with just dd and the cats!

I'm feeling so fed up this morning, want to shout at him but am also aware that he's in pain and we do love each other. Can't concentrate on work just now and felt like I needed to 'talk' to some people who might understand and perhaps reassure me that all is not lost!

Hi Tanee58

I think there comes a time when you have to stop being so understanding, you can still care for and love him but he sounds to have pressed a slef dstruct button. Maybe a short sharp shock is what he needs. Maybe it's time to be less understanding and give him the hard word!

Thank you! I feel that you're right. We've been together, off and on, for 19 years (one year on, 12 years off when I married my ex-dh on the rebound, and 4 years back on with an unspoken committment that this is it for both of us, unless something major intervenes - and this is beginning to feel major) - so I know him and his history pretty well. I do think I'll need to tackle him - and tackle him before he's reached for the corkscrew! I'm just afraid that I'll dissolve in tears and become incoherent or turn into 'disapproving mother' mode as I did last night.

You have been together a long time. That's a major achievement in itself!
Is it a genuine problem with depression he has or is it a touch of self pity at being out of work (forgive me if this sounds less than compassionate) being an actor, does he tend to be dramatical in RL? Could he be doing this to grab your attention?

The thing is, you can only do so much to help neofre they have to step in and do something to help themselves. He has to take responsibility for himself, you can't do that i'm afraid.
Besides, don't you get fed up of having to pick up the pieces, be the one to sort things out whilst he runs off with the wine bottle! MEN!!

I think it's genuine - he did try therapy many years ago & said he'd suffered from clinical depression in his teens (family issues, blame it on the parents). He doesn't do it for attention, he used to have these episodes when he was living on his own, but they didn't affect us as he'd just mope about on his own for a day and call me in the evening when he was feeling better. We lived in different cities - different countries I suppose, as he was based in Wales - so I couldn't go rushing over to hold his hand. He always said that talking to me helped, but since we've been living together he just clams up and doesn't talk.

As you say, Men! When we feel down, we still have to feed the kids, clear the cat litter tray etc etc. I love a drink as much as anyone, but the two bottle habit is really worrying me.

Also, it won't help that alcohol is a depressent, it will just make him feel even more depressed.
It sounds as though he may not take your help. If he just clams up now and won't talk to you it's going to be very difficult to make him sit up and listen.

How are you anyway? are you coping with it ok? He is not dragging you down with him is he? Please don't allow that to happen. If he won't think of you at least make sure that you are thinking of you.

I'm coping ok because I'm at work and it involves sorting out other people's problems - and the sun's shining - and though I've no idea where he is (probably halfway to Hertfordshire by now, as he likes to walk), I'm not going to upset myself until I have to go home and face him - if he's there that is...

The silly thing is that usually he does talk to me - and we used to easily talk till dawn sometimes about all sorts - but recently, because dd hasn't gone to her father's as regularly as she used to when she was younger, we haven't had our weekends to ourselves so much and so haven't had the privacy to talk. And during the week, I usually fall asleep early and he stays up to watch the cricket, so close communication has wilted somewhat. Ironic, eh, we were closer when we were living 150 miles apart!

I'm trying not to be dragged down - and I find that the more he drinks, the less I do, which I guess is a good thing! I'm trying not to stress too much as I need to keep cheerful for dd - and we're having a day in Oxford Street tomorrow, doing girlie shopping stuff, which will do me the world of good.

You sound to me as though you have him well sussed you have this whole situation well sussed! You seem to be able to keep an emotional distance which is good because it means you feel able to carry on with your own life until he 'comes back to you'. It's just a shame you are having to go through this in the first place. You must worry about him. Then men wonder why we nag them and think they are selfish!!

Does he actually want to help you to help him? Does he actually want to help himself?
At least you have all of us to talk to now

Thanks IOHW - I only discovered Mumsnet a couple of weeks ago by pure chance & it's already paying dividends!

I suppose I do have him sussed - but will I be able to help sort him out? Will he want to be sorted out? I feel the first step is to ween him off the two bottles a night habit, but I know what his reaction will be..

The next best thing would be him finding a nice job

Thanks for your friendship.

You are so very welcome. I just wish I could be of more help. Any time you need to 'talk' just pop on here, it has been a tremendous help to me too.

For what its worth, i don't think you personally will be able to wean him off the wine. And i think you will only feel more responsible if you don't manage to do it. This is one thing he has to do for himself and do because he wants to do it.

I think you have a great attitude. I know you want to help him but you seem to have kept your own self during all of this. I hope you manage to keep that up!

Tanee, you sound wonderfully in control, and very understanding of your partners situation. I wish I were as tolerant!

Being able to talk is half the battle though. Sorry I havent any great advice - but keep us posted.

Message withdrawn

Hi Tanee

How are you this morning? Did your DP come home? Did you manage to sort anything out or did you just let it lie
Hope you are ok x

Thanks all of you - I feel a bit less alone.

I still haven't managed to speak to him - he'd been in & gone out again by the time I got back from work - dd had been in her room most of the day & hadn't seen him. I didn't want to spend the evening waiting for his lordship & fretting, so I suggested she & I went out. Typically, nothing on at any of the local cinemas that we fancied so we went for a pizza and had a really nice time (can't afford it, but what the hell). By the time we got back, he'd come home and gone to bed fully dressed. And one of our house cats (the one who'd wander if he could) was waiting outside for us. I can only imagine dp let him out (perhaps as a symbolic act of liberation - am I a control freak for keeping my cats indoors???)

So we sat up and tried watching the Brady Bunch (dire, even tho I used to watch the original in the 70s) and Trainspotting - totally unsuitable for a 15 year old I suppose, but she loved it!

He's been soundly asleep all night & still is - I suppose sleep's a healer & I know when I've felt low, that's all I've wanted to do. I tried putting my arm around him at times through the night, but he didn't rouse apart from the odd grunt.

Anyway, have had a shower and a cup of tea and - to try to stop being a control freak, have allowed my little boy cat the use of the cat flap left by the previous owners! He's somewhere out in the back garden surveying his kingdom & it'll be interesting to see how he copes. I feel reassured that he didn't wander far last night and seemed very happy to see us at the front door. Funnily enough, his sister inspected the flap but seems content to keep me company, sitting on the printer whilst I type. Girl Solidarity?

Dd and I are going to the West End later - wonder if dp will have emerged by the time we get back? He has two bottles of wine and a bottle of sugar soap in his rucksack, so some part of him still feels like helping decorate dd's room...

I feel constant butterflies in my tummy over this - and not in a good way. But thanks for all your support & I'll keep you posted.

Trouble is, ex-dh has a cold, so looks like dd won't be with him over Easter - so still no chance of a private heart to heart - oh, how ex-dh's mother would laugh if she knew!

Well, the cat has come in at my call, and promptly gone out again! Perhaps I'll get used to letting him have his freedom - as they say, if you love something, let it go - if it's truly yours, it will return .

Still no signs of life from anyone else in the house. On my second cup of tea and suppose I should go put some clothes on.

How are you, IOHW? How's your dh behaving since the carrier bag incident??

And Dior, how are YOU?

It's great that we have time for each other, when we all have our own problems

Oh - I hear the bathroom door - shall I go up and brave the dragon?

i'm doing ok thanks. Not seen much of him. I have my own room so i keep out of his way. I can relate to the butterflies in the tummy, i live with butterflies in mine, they are great for weight loss!!

Braved the dragon, he's very subdued - we both said sorry for Sunday.

And the cat can't stop using the flap!

Aagh - he went out again yesterday morning & came home in the early evening very drunk and saying that he didn't want to live with me anymore, we'd have to sell the house & split up (only been in the house 6 months!) and it was an experiment that had failed. Managed to talk him round - virtually on my knees! Feel like we've just pulled back from the abyss but walking on eggshells. Don't know if I feel better or not...

I'm sorry to hear that Tanee. He hasn't given it much of a chance has he. Now, don't take this the wrong way but, did he drink as much when he lived alone? (or maybe he did but the fact you lived apart meant he could keep it hidden) Has he given you an explanation for why he feels as he does?

Hi there

hope you don't mind me joining you - I can feel your pain.

You sound very similar to me - my dh drinks too much, doesn't express his feelings and is depressed as he has recently lost both his parents in the space of 4 mths.

Firstly, I think the drink is a HUGE issue. It's a depressant, it stops you from facing your feelings and it changes your normal thinking. My dh can easily drink a bottle of wine and a few beers every night if left to his own devices. The only way I could tackle it was to talk to him in a calm and collected way when we were all sober. He's agreed to reducing his alcohol intake to two days of abstaining, 2 days of drinking as if he was gonna get into a car ( ie - very little) and 3 days when he can drink what he wants. I write it all down on the calender so we track it.

If he is not prepared to cut down then you need to seriously ask yourself why you want to help someone who is not helping himself ( or your child for that matter)

If there is underlying depression, then he needs to get help for that through the right channels. Walking on eggshells isn't the answer. My Dh has suffered so much pain of bereavement but I'm not gonna stand back and let him self destruct - esp as our baby is only 8 mths old.

I hope you manage to talk and sort things out. I don't know how long we are gonna feel like this for but it's tough. I keep trying to get my dh to open up and talk instead of going off for walks on his own - just a case of keep supporting but in the right way

would this relationship work best if you did the woody allen thing and lived across the square from each other?

He's always had a phenomenal capacity for wine - it comes with the territory of being an actor - after a show they tend to stay up really late and drink to unwind, and he likes the taste (so do I, but at less than 10 stone and 5ft 3ins I try to keep within limits most of the time!!) The theatre seems to be a culture of drinking and smoking heavily, and whilst smoking has become unfashionable thank God, the drinking hasn't.

He used to smoke when I first knew him 18 yrs ago, but gave up about 6 years back and he admits that he drinks more since he stopped the tobacco - it calms him and gives him something to hold (he also eats a lot of cheese and somehow stays thin!). I was so pleased when he stopped smoking but as I only saw him occasionally until my marriage broke up and after that only at weekends, didn't realise that he drank QUITE so much so regularly! It has got worse though since Christmas as the depression over his lack of work increased. One of his complaints yesterday was that he'd thought I understood his depression, that he was trying to cut down, but when I stormed off with his bottle and glass, he felt I'd lost sympathy and turned into a disapproving parent figure.

He also still maintains that the music wasn't THAT loud (I ask you - System of a Down!!) and that it needed to be loud to get the full effect, and couldn't I see he was having a bad day. I said yes, but so was I and I just snapped because he'd just been wandering off without saying anything. I can't be Little Ms Perfect Partner all the time, the strain of wearing that halo gets too much sometimes.

I guess the problem is he was talking and thinking from the bottom of a bottle, and with his depression only seeing negatives - but it was a horrible shock when he stated quite flatly that he didn't want to live with me anymore. I'd thought our relationship was stronger than that. He hasn't actually ever lived with a woman before except for a few months with a friend turned girlfriend who had so many issues herself that we all knew it would end in tears - and they haven't spoken since! I tell myself relationships go through rocky patches and this is our first, but I'm prepared to work through it. I did tell him that I thought it would be a terrible tragedy for both of us if we split up - and certainly it wouldn't do him any good. He seems afraid, though, that any more of these depressive episodes will kill my love. It's like, 'let's end it now, while we still love each other, rather than leave it till we loathe the sight' -

It's been a big step for him to sell up his flat in Wales and buy a place in London with me and teenage daughter at the age of 52, but he seemed happy to try. I'm just wondering whether he's finding the reality, with him unable to contribute financially till his next tour starts, is too much and he's just panicking and flunking out. I don't know how to let him understand that I may occasionally lose my temper - but that doesn't mean I shall stop loving him and wanting it to work. We've both admitted that due to our family backgrounds we don't handle conflict well and hate arguing. My ex-h and I never argued for 12 years and lived like brother & sister - and then the marriage broke up overnight! However my parents have argued their way through 53 years of marriage! (but the noise level frightened me so much that I avoid confrontation in my relationships and that's why, instead of arguing constructively, I tend to snipe or explode - I was quite shocked at my language on Sunday night!)

Anyway, we sat up last night relatively amicably, listening to Frank Zapper and talking of other things and were very gentle with each other this morning. I said we need to spend some time alone together doing things we used to - it's ironic that whilst he's got time to walk in the park, I've been doing all the overtime on offer to help the budget. I'm hoping that the weather will be fine over Easter so we can just go out for the day and see a gallery or stroll in the countryside - that always brings us closer.

Anyway, I should have left work an hour ago - one of our local councillors popped in - he's very keen on therapy & says it's helped him through many a breakdown, and he's been chatting to me for the past hour about man problems (he's gay, so he's suffered at the hands of men too!)

Thanks for your support - I'll let you know how things go later or tomorrow.

Mousie Mousie,

Hallo - what a great idea!! But have you seen London prices?

Amijee,

Hallo and thanks for joining in. I'm so sorry about your dh's parents -that's huge and he must be in terrible pain. You sound like you're dealing with it terribly well. Yes, I need to talk to him when we're both sober (I'm finding it very easy to be sober at the moment). I tend to drink when I'm happy, and it makes me happier. When I'm sad, alcohol just doesn't appeal much - which is probably just as well or our household would turn into a scene from 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'! And I avoid whiskey like the plague as it always used to make me argumentative (or maybe that was just the idiot boyfriend I was dating at the time!)

I'm hoping to get him to come out with me over the weekend - it'll be a chance to talk calmly when he's sober and just remind ourselves of why we're together.

At least, when he was really upset with me, he was still calling me 'darling'! I almost laughed even though I was feeling really . It shows he has SOME good feelings inside.

Anyway, must go home now, or I won't find a parking space down my road.

Amijee, do let me know how you and your dh get on. Mutual support coming your way.

oh I didn't know you were in London

living across the square is only an option for the well off...

...but is there a way you could do it?

You show a lot of awareness about how you both handle conflict and the influence on both of you of previous experiences...this bodes well for your relationship I would think.

Does your dp do any temp work whilst not working as an actor? And could this help the relationship?

You sound such a great person; I really think that there will be a good future for this relationship. What are the things you both enjoyed doing together before you moved in...can you do them again?

tanee - you sound like a really caring person - perhaps in the caring profession?

The trouble is...sometimes a dynamic can be set up where the caring part of the couple is literally propping up the vulnerable one and the need is on both ends. The need to be propped up and the need to be needed. I've been there in the past and am determined not to make the same mistakes again.

My dh used to smoke 40 cigs a day until 3 yrs ago but he has now taken it up again ( nowehere near as much) The irony is that both his parents died of smoking related diseases and as well as feeling really sad for his losses ( and mine) I feel really angry that he is literally committing a slow suicide and not thiking of me and our baby.

I feel guilty about feeling anger but I can't help it being there. for me...I would throw myself in front of a bus for my baby so I can't understand how he could put his health at such risk with drinking and smoking.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Hope you have a lovely weekend and get to really communicate. Big hugs x