I've stayed with alcoholic DH 100 times, and I no longer have anyones support.

[TheBrilloPad]

I’ve been married to DH for 4 years. We have 2 young kids, both pre-school age. Ever since I met him, he’s had problems with drinking binges, and more recently, Cocaine use. He goes out drinking for 24 hours and doesn’t stay in touch, and spends an insane amount of money that we don’t have. He went out yesterday at 10am, said he’d be back after lunch. He gets so drunk he doesn’t text, doesn’t call, and he came home this morning at 8am. The last binge like this was Sept, prior to that it was August. So it’s not a weekly thing, but certainly a good 8-10 times a year, I’d guess.

Every time I ask him to leave for a while, to give me some space. Every time I debate LTB and every time I take him back – we have young kids, he’s good the rest of the time when he’s not drinking, he’s so remorseful and promises to change. And financially, my wages wouldn’t even cover our rent, let alone our childcare bill, household bills etc. I’d have to get housing benefit etc, and I really don’t want to have to go there.

Except this time, I can tell I no longer have the sympathy of my family and friends. They are so fed up of this constantly happening and me getting heartbroken and then taking him back a week later, that this time all I got when I told them was lots of “men, what would you do with them!” and a change of subject, sort of thing.

It hurts. I want someone who knows me, someone who loves me to say “hey, you deserve better than this. Leave him.” And they wont anymore. And as lovely as you vipers are, hearing it from you doesn’t have the same effect as someone who knows me and DH.

I feel like my marriage to him has been death by a million papercuts and I’m a shadow of the person I once was. And I know I should leave, I know that, but I’m not hearing that from those around me and on top of all the other doubts I have, its making it worse. I just want to say to everyone “stop giving up on me! Yes, it may take me many tries before I leave for good, but please, PLEASE, stop acting like it’s not happening to me”.

Gah. Self indulgent rant I guess. I completely understand why I’ve lost their support, it just hurts.

So, OP - you want your friends and family to support you, look after you and your children (as they are suffering too) but then you want them to back off when you decide that your 'love' for this man is too great to chuck him out.
This occurs 100 times.
You still want them to support you and comfort you, 'until you decide to get out'? Whenever that may happen? IF that may happen?

You do realise other people have their own lives? Their own dramas? You are treating them like little props in your life, to be used and discarded as you want.

This makes you as bad as him. He is using you, your kids, and alcohol.

You use your friends and family.

You 'Love' him. He DOESN'T love you. Or the kids, enough.

How can you love someone who doesn't love you or your children?

The mantra for AlAnon is something like:
You didn’t cause it
You can’t control it
You can’t cure it

And as far as I know, AlAnon meetings are non-judgemental, don’t require “your” alcoholic to be going to AA, and let you work things out at your own pace.

It sounds our friends and family are following the AlAnon principles of realising that you are the only person who can make a change to your life.

So what are YOU going to do, OP?

By the way, he’s not a great dad. Don’t fool yourself or treat your children with such contempt.

You seem uninterested in the emotional cost to the people around you

This is a really wise statement. When I read your posts they are all about you. What you want and what you want from others to be able to manage your own repeated life choices.

You've no real interest in what it takes for others to be involved in you and your husbands regular dramas. You give no more than a nod to the impact on your kids. It's all about you and the support you continually want from others. Shoehorning yourself into their lives to tell them about another drama. When will the next one be, end of January?

Just to add my younger sister now has issues with alcohol, I'm the other way inclined and rarely touch alcohol. Growing up with an alcoholic will always have an impact on children.

Listen - my ex-H was an abusive arse.
My friends got sick of my compulsion to keep going back, because they had no ability to change the situation. I remember them saying that I would never leave him. They were exasperated!

Then I left him.
They rallied, and were the key players in moving me to my new home.

This is tedious, if you are repeatedly slating him, but refusing to act, they are stuck.

Don't expect fierce loyalty until that point.

Glad he’s moved out op. Your friends can’t help someone who won’t help themselves.

My DH doesn't have addiction issues so I can't tell you what to do or understand how hard it is to leave the man you love

What I can say is, I grew up as the child of an alcoholic father, I lived the fear of him coming home and knowing the state he would be in, the shame of when he embarrassed me in front of my friends and the heartbreak of knowing I would never be loved like he loved alcohol

If he isn't willing to stop then for the sake of your children, please consider leaving him

Why are you acting like this is something that he's subjecting you to? You're choosing this lifestyle by letting him back through the door each time. He's learnt that you'll get angry, tell him to stay away for a couple of days and then it will all be fine again until the next month, when he does it again.

The level of selfishness you are displaying is pretty shocking, and pretty disgusting, to be honest. If you want to be married to a coked up alcoholic who spends all the family money and disappears each month, then that's fine, you crack on. You aren't hurting anyone but yourself. But the second you have babies, they come first. Before your husband and before you. But your reasons for not leaving are all about you. You love him. You don't want to be poor. Have you even thought about the things your children are going through? Where's daddy? What state is he going to be in? Is mummy going to be upset? Instead, you're all upset because your friends and family don't want to participate in this pantomime anymore? Jesus Christ, woman up and start being what your children need you to be!

His dad and uncles and cousins all meet for beers early in the morning then it carries on til the next day. So not something that's easy to cut out of his life. How lovely, a generational thing. Wait until your DS is in his teens and then, brilliant father that he is, your DH can start taking him to get drunk in Wetherspoons with all the other alcoholics. Utter bollocks. He just says 'No, I'm not doing that any more; my wife and children come first'. You agreeing that it's not easy to cut that out of his life is enabling him.

It took my sister 2 years of walking out on her abusive husband before she actually ended the relationship for good. She took her children to live with my parents at least 4 times leaving her ex in their family home. He spread rumours about her being an alcoholic, absent mother, gold digger and still she went back to him. When this happened she stopped answering her phone and she avoided family occasions. I can understand now why she did this but at the time I was angry. I couldn't understand her thinking. When the abuse got unbareable for her she finally had enough. Her children have been hugely affected by the situation they lived in. My own father was abusive,!I used to lie in bed at night wishing my Mam would kick him out or worse still that my Dad would die! at least then our childhood wouldn't have been so bad. Sorry for the essay