My husband annoys the hell out of me when he is pissed

[Crunchetta]

My husband works really hard to support us as a family and I’m very proud of him, he often maybe 3 times a week goes out to catch up with friends for a few drinks, he may only be gone 3 hours or so but he is so drunk when he gets home, he talks the most amount of shit, I do get fed up with the amount of times he goes out a week, and I dread him coming home because I find him so irritating and he stinks of booze, he went out today to watch the England Vs Panama game, and when he came back I could tell he was in an argumentative kind of mood, he stood in the garden and started talking about how some men are f*king pervy c*ts his words, I had to tell him to stop because our children were also in the garden aged 15 and 2, and secondly all of the neighbours were in their gardens too, it was so embarrassing, he threw his toys out of his pram big time saying that he’s never allowed to say what he thinks etc, I just said that what he was saying was massively inappropriate, but again I’m the bad guy, I told him to go to bed and sleep it off, am I in the wrong here? His going out drinking 3 times a week is starting to grate on me, but when I talk to him about it, he just says ah well I do work hard babe, but do you know what so do I!

It's just not good for his health if he is getting that drunk that often. I really don't know what to suggest if he doesn't see that himself. If it is the social contact that is important to him perhaps a sport would be better for him or going out later so he only goes for 1 round of drinks.

Oh and if he is getting very drunk he might not actually be ok to drive the next day. You can get home breathalysers pretty inexpensively so you could demonstrate this to him.

Maybe you should secretly record him and play it back so he can see how stupid he looks when he behaves like this. It would annoy me too. Most people are irritating when drunk, and you're not but 3 times every week is a lot to put up with. It would do my head in.
Maybe you should start going out with friends a bit more too - although its a bit tit for tat.

He plays football and cricket, and goes to the gym he is very sporty and fit, he’s a firefighter, so only drinks when he’s off shift obviously, but on his days off he just takes the piss, I can’t stand it, I know he works hard, but uses it massively as an excuse, I have recorded him before, and showed it to him, he’s a lightweight so it doesn’t take much for him to get drunk, my daughter hates it when he’s had a drink too, she says he’s an embarrassment, she’s right he is!

Crunchetta

You can only help your own self and your kids ultimately. Alcoholism is not known as the family disease for nothing; you are all being affected by his drinking here and your kids see your reactions both spoken and unspoken to their dad. You work hard as well and do not drink to excess like this, it is an excuse on his part and a poor one at that.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. What do you think your children, particularly your eldest DD, are learning about relationships here from the two of you. Would you want either of them to have a relationship like this?. No you would not.

You've already shown him recordings and he has still (unsurprisingly) not acted. He was never going to and like many people with drink problems is in complete denial. Unless he himself comes to realise that he has a drink problem and wants to do something about it there is nothing that you can do to help him. Infact he does not want your help or support in any case. You are made to feel the bad guy here deliberately.

Do you think he has a drink problem?. If so there is nothing you can personally do about that and he is coming out with all the usual excuses re same. You are also playing out the usual roles associated with such spouses; that of enabler, provoker and co-dependent. He has a job, well for now anyway. He could well go onto lose that along with everything and everyone around him and still choose to drink afterwards; there are no guarantees here.

Your own recovery from this will only start when you are all completely away from him. It will not happen until then.

I would also consider contacting Al-anon as they can be very helpful to family and friends of problem drinkers. At the very least read their literature, ideally you could attend one of their meetings.

I've been sober for four years. When I was drinking I was a vile drunk said the most inappropriate things, was just nasty and vindictive Your husband is drinking far too much. And you have a decision to make. So has he. The booze or his family, I hope he makes the right choice. X