Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Is husband an alcoholic?

95 replies

Devonsea · 17/09/2017 22:53

I'm having to post as have nobody to talk to. Everyone (friends, family, random strangers etc) thinks my husband is hilarious and lovely. He is the life and soul of everywhere we go, but to me he's a bloody nightmare!
He drinks every day and at least 4 times a week he drinks until he slurs his words and passes out drunk.
He also has to get so pissed and 'funny'/ insulting that whenever we are out that people actually look at me with pity whilst still enjoying the 'dickhead show'.
Tonight after a lovely family day he disappeared to the pub without telling me and refused to answer his phone or reply to texts when I was asking where he was. I was genuinely worried he may have been hit by a car whilst stumbling around drunk. When he did turn up at home 2 hours later he had a go at me for ringing so many times! Is he being selfish or am I being a nagging wife? I actually dread social occasions with him and feel so much more relaxed if I'm out on my own, is this normal?? He holds down a good job and doesn't seem to have hangovers but he's a different person after a drink. I only like the sober side. He's also a brilliant dad to our 4 kids. So, do I leave after 20 years of my life with him or am I overreacting?

OP posts:
PinkMoony · 18/09/2017 21:12

*faffing not gagging

nowwheredidmyunicorngo · 18/09/2017 21:14

I can imagine if he gave up he could resent me for it

This is why he needs to go to AA - although it may take a while for him to reach the point of accepting it would help him. Going to meetings will help him to work through stuff.

I don't know what they are, but I think the statistics show that you are WAY more likely to succeed in staying off the booze (or drugs, or whatever) if you go to something like AA.

Good luck OP.

nowwheredidmyunicorngo · 18/09/2017 21:15

My DH's sister, who is a GP, told him last week that she doesn't think he is an alcoholic.

So that was helpful. NOT.

Devonsea · 18/09/2017 21:17

It is a lonely place to be, and so hard to tell anyone as everyone relates drinking to fun times.

OP posts:
Devonsea · 18/09/2017 21:20

God, she sounds like a good GP, Not! I know my DH's sister would say the same as she too drinks loads and thinks it's normal.

OP posts:
nowwheredidmyunicorngo · 18/09/2017 21:20

PP who said the word "alcoholic" is unhelpful is correct.

And yes it is very lonely. I feel quite ashamed sometimes, and tell only a very few people the real reason we have separated. Do you have any support irl OP?

nowwheredidmyunicorngo · 18/09/2017 21:21

She said he has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. She doesn't have to live with the bugger!

Chocolatteandbiscuits · 18/09/2017 21:26

My uncle is a functioning alcoholic. When we were at parties or gathering while young he would always be the loudest, always cracking the jokes (normally insulting my aunt). He had no respect for my aunt. Now my 2 cousins are messed up. He isn't a good dad, you just feel the need to say it. If he was he wouldn't drink. Please do what my aunt didn't and leave him and give your children a better life

Devonsea · 18/09/2017 21:27

That's what I think when people tell me how funny he is.. you try bloody living with him! I feel ashamed and don't want to wreck his whole life by telling people he has a problem. I could prob tell my sister but saying it out load is so much harder than typing on here.

OP posts:
Devonsea · 18/09/2017 21:31

*out loud

OP posts:
Graphista · 18/09/2017 21:44

Saying it out loud is the beginning of healing - take it from one who REALLY knows AND knows how hard it is.

gateauxauxfruits · 19/09/2017 14:28

I do find myself wondering why we have to have this ridiculous and patronising "3cs" jingle every time the subject of alcoholism comes up. If an OP said "I know I am to blame for this and it is my job and no one else's to fix it" it might be appropriate (though we could still lose the jingly bit) but I have never seen a post saying that. The current OP shows no sign of believing it's her fault, and absent any such sign it is, as I say, bloody patronising and irrelevant.

ShitOrBust · 19/09/2017 14:37

Yeah he is an alcoholic. i offloaded mine after 7 years.
Had enough.

Wolfiefan · 19/09/2017 15:55

@gateauxauxfruits
It's not patronising in the slightest. Many partners of those with addiction and alcohol issues think if they just love the person enough they can cure them. That issuing an ultimatum will make them magically stop. They often excuse the drinking as being because the relationship or family situation is stressful.
It's actually a helpful mantra for many.

Graphista · 19/09/2017 16:43

What wolfie said

Devonsea · 19/09/2017 16:49

I don't think an ultimatum will make him stop but I'm going to give it a try. Im not ready to give up on a marriage yet. On the surface, in the daytime everything is good. I'm not brave enough to just end it yet and not sure if I want to. As I've said before, I value everyone's opinion on here so thank you.

OP posts:
Wolfiefan · 19/09/2017 16:58

Sorry OP that wasn't directly aimed at you.
I'm really sorry but unless HE wants to stop there is nothing you can do. You can issue ultimatums. Support him. Work really hard on the marriage. But if he isn't driven to give up then he won't.
You say you don't think it will make him stop? So what do you do if he doesn't?

Devonsea · 19/09/2017 17:07

The funny thing is, I would be saying exactly the same advice as most people have if I was reading my post! When I read back my original post it's looks like a no-brainer to leave him. It's just so bloody hard to leave after 20 years and 4 youngish kids.
I've been in touch with al-anon as suggested to me on here and I'm going to go to see them. Even that is taking every ounce of guts I've got as I'm not in an abusive relationship and I almost feel like my situation isn't bad enough to seek help.

OP posts:
AttilaTheMeerkat · 19/09/2017 17:45

Devonsea

It is bloody hard to leave I grant you but its just as hard if not more so to stay. Who are you staying for; him and/or you and your own reasons?. What is in this still for you?. You cannot love him better and what you have tried to date has not worked.

You saw your dad's disrespect (some of that was from alcohol as well) towards your mother in your own childhood and it affected you markedly; I was not all that surprised that you went onto choose someone with a drink problem. You were programmed to do so.

You cannot afford to get stuck on the sunken costs fallacy; that just causes people to keep on making poor relationship decisions.

If you issue an ultimatum that can only be done once; it will lose all its power otherwise.

I would also suggest you read up on codependency because that often features in relationships where alcohol all too heavily features in the relationship.

Your children are absorbing all sorts of lessons about relationships from the two of you here; is this really what you want to teach them?.

I know from personal experience myself that a person will not stop drinking unless they themselves want to. Nothing will make them do otherwise. Familial coercion (and he will see it as such) never works out. He gave up on your marriage a long time ago because his primary relationship is not with you or the kids but with alcohol; that is his primary relationship and his thoughts centre on where the next drink is going to come from.

Am very glad that you are going to go to Al-anon; they will indeed help you. Its ok to say that you need help; you really do and your case is just as bad as any life with an alcoholic I have read about. Life with an alcoholic is a mix of chaos and fire fighting. Your relationship is one where your H is abusing alcohol to your family's detriment; it controls him and alcohol is truly a cruel mistress. Trying and now failing to keep it as quiet as you have done to date has not helped him or you for that matter; alcohol abuse within families thrives on secrecy.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 19/09/2017 18:03

This is what the 3cs of alcoholism mean gateaux:-

We didn’t cause it – it is not our fault that the other person drinks, it is their private battle
We can’t control it – we have no power over the other person's desire to drink
We can’t cure it – it is an illness that cannot be cured through any known medical remedies

Its certainly not a jingle nor patronising to state the above. You stating otherwise and also without any evidence to boot makes your own argument fall apart.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 19/09/2017 18:06

Anyway Devonsea I wish you well in the future.

Your children may well not see him drunk but they know more than you perhaps care to realise. They certainly pick up on all the vibes and your constant worrying and state of readiness/fire fighting re him.

Wolfiefan · 19/09/2017 18:11

I am not saying you need to definitely LTB. Not at all. I'm not saying it's easy. Not in the slightest.
I think Al Anon is a great idea. It can give you support and allow you to think through what you want.
I am also not saying he's an abusive bastard. I'm really not. But a person who is dependent on a substance will always put that first. Yes even to the detriment of his children.
It's hard. It really is. I do get that.

pointythings · 19/09/2017 20:29

I think Attila is absolutely right in saying an ultimatum is something you can only do once. I've done mine. And if DH does not complete rehab and then stay off it, we are over. My ducks are in a row just in case, I am ready for any outcome. I'd like it to go well, I am ready in case it does not. Because neither my DDs nor I can go back to the way it got this summer.

theabysswithin · 19/09/2017 22:34

Devonsea I totally understand where you're coming from, having been in the same position.

This isn't easy to hear, and won't be easy to act on, but you have to understand that nothing you do to try to influence his behaviour is going to work. Ultimatums won't work. Cajoling and nagging an discussing won't work. Even leaving may not work.

As Atilla said upthread, the only thing you can do is focus on what you want and what you want to get out of life. Your life at the moment is being shaped by this man's drinking. The only way to deal with it is to take yourself and your children out of the occasion and get yourself to a point where it is no longer your problem. And that probably does mean leaving.

If you stay you are tacitly saying you will tolerate it and that his right to drink himself to the state of incapacitation he gets into more often than not is more important than you and your children's right to live free from this. Alcoholics (or problem drinkers, the definition is a red herring) will bargain with themselves and those around them constantly to buy themselves the right to drink. There's always an excuse, there's always a reason, and you and others will have limited ability to put roadblocks on that.

It's a stark choice and one a lot of people don't want to face. But ultimately its you or his drinking. There is no other middle ground. It's possible that if he is faced with a genuine choice between his family and his relationship with alcohol he will choose his family. But ultimately you have to be prepared to walk away for good. Trying to do it to shock him into realising he's reached rock bottom won't work.

Go to AlAnon, get support, take the time you need to come to a decision. But for your own sanity and for the prospect of being free from this, you need to make peace with the fact that you cannot do anything about it.

theabysswithin · 19/09/2017 22:34

equation, not occasion