Partner drinking/depressed/contemptuous - or I am just a pain in the ass?

[Bennois]

It’s really hard trying to be objective about your own relationship, which is why I am posting here and asking, Is It Me?!

My partner and i have been together for 9 years - we have a 5 year old boy and a 6 month old daughter. We’ve had lots of ups and downs over the years - mainly over his drinking - secret drinking/lying about drinking/binges when he’s made a twat of himself - we’ve all been there, but he is 40+ now. He has cut down, but he still has issues - he can go days without it, but it’s not something he has ever contemplated giving up, despite the amount of shit it has caused.

I think he finds family life mundane (it rarely gives him any joy) - beer, football, his mates and popular culture make him ‘happy’. He loves his kids - but struggles to actually parent - he himself can be the teenager in our family. Calls me a nag, says ‘whatever’, ‘yes chief’, I’m unable to hold a conversation with him without him making me feel like I am ‘interrogating him’

He’s now on anti-depressants and has been going to counselling. He won’t talk to me about any of it, it’s ‘private’ apparently - I don’t really know who I am living with from one day to the next. Some days he is all over family life, can’t do enough for everyone, the next he is acting irresponsibly and childishly, or just lazing about. The lack of consistency is what messes with my head the most!! When he’s ‘into it’ he’s great and I tend to forget about the bad stuff - where he ignores the kids for a day, hardly speaks, is short tempered, sweating, just a general mess.

I know I can be a bit moody, but for maybe an hour or something because I am tired out by the baby - not just sulking about for days with a huge chip on my shoulder!!

Anyone else live with someone so confusing?

I just want out, but staying for the kids for now, and I worry that his depression, if that is what it is, may spiral and he might do something daft.

Sounds like a nightmare for you OP, and I would definitely be calling time on this relationship if I were you.
Have you got any RL support?

Sounds like my binge drinking ex who couldn't cope with normal family life. Lots of promises to change but never happened.

Yes, plenty. My family think he is knob, to put it bluntly, but they are a judgemental bunch, and I don’t see things quite the same as them. I have plenty of friends, but all the good ones are a fair distance away. I have support though.
My main fear is that I’m contributing equally to our problems and I would want to make sure that wasn’t the case before I gave up
on the family unit. How do you ever fully know though?

He definitely uses booze as a coping mechanism, and he’s not stupid - he knows alcohol and anti depressants don’t mix well, but he has never gone without for longer than a few days. Only beer, nothing heavy, but I would just love him to knock it on the head.
He is very irritable, I just feel like I constantly get on his nerves and bore him to tears! He’s so nice to his mates though, which is why I always think it must be me!? I’m quite headstrong and bossy.
Did your ex ever give it up? And did you have kids together?

So sorry, it's true, family life can be mundane! Not fair on you to be called a nag. It must be awful for you - with him not talking to you about what's going on. What makes you think his depression will spiral? It's very unfair on you as you say you don't know who you're living with from one day to the other.

StrawberryDaiquiriPlease
I think he is TRYING to be a better person sometimes, but it’s an act he can’t maintain. I worry that if I left him it would (at some point) finally hit home just what he has lost, and he would wallow in it. Despite not currently liking him most of the time, I do essentially care about him.

Have pmed you x

Alcohol is a huge depressant and I don't think he's doing enough to self help. He could look after himself better and in some ways has a responsibility to.
Don't be brow beaten down by all this, and don't live in fear of depression causing him to do something drastic.
If it does, it is neither something you have been the cause of, or can be the saviour of. Mental illness is very selfish.

He is an alcoholic.
YOU will not be able to fix him.
YOU need to kick him out or pack up your kids and leave.
Don't waste your breath or your time or another minute of your precious DCs childhood in his polluted world.

If you or he doesn't like that word - just call it 'problem drinker" - all the same at the end of the day.

Doesn't matter if he doesn't drink every day from 11am or even drink every day, he is consumed by it 24/7 - as he either in a bad mood obsessing and white knuckle riding to the next drinking session, then pissed/incoherent/, then in a shitty hung-over state....and the cycle begins again. You are all living this toxic roller coaster with him.

You are moody and nagging because he is absent from the marriage and family life emotionally, practically and physically.....anyone would be at the end of their tether in this intolerable situation.

Parenting and drinkers don't work together. He is probably still secret drinking by his behaviour - but dont waste your tie trying to catch him out.

Your DCs don't need him in this state and they don't need their only available parent exhausted because of the extra workload, unpredicability and stress he causes.

Get some help in RL from friends/family (even if they do think he is a knob) and Al anon.

This will drag you into depression and will fuck your kids up for life. Have a look at the Adult Children of Alcoholics website to see what is in store for your DCs if you don't remove them from this.

UPDATE*
So my partner has left me to go and stay with his mum. We are over.
He came home the other night a bit stressed and he had a few drinks inside of him. Not loads, but enough. He was in an ok mood, but it soon escalated into a row when we started taking about money in front of my mum. He said I always want more, more, more from him and I am never happy. Then he flipped and said what an awful person I was and that he didn’t like me. My mum stepped in and told him he was being abusive. It all kicked off horribly and he called my mum a wnker, amongst other things, and told her to shut the fck up. He was ranting away, swaggering, like Liam Gallagher or something - no violence but intimidating. I wish my mum hadn’t got involved as it was like a red rag to a bull, especially when talking about money - he thinks I spend loads (he gives me £2,500 a month - (£1,300 goes on rent alone; the rest goes on bills, plus we have 2 kids - 1 is just a baby mind - 1 dog and 2 cars to run)

The following morning there was no remorse. He said he doesn’t give a f*ck what me or my mum think - we are both ‘evil’ and manipulative.

My mum can be a nosey pain in the ass, and I can be controlling (more responsible) but surely his behaviour is excessive? His mum has said I am far from perfect and we are toxic together. Clearly that is true.

I care about my partner, although I really don’t like him a lot of time - he absolutely hates me though which hurts. I don’t think I am that bad, but maybe I am?

I am going to go and see a counsellor to try and get my thoughts straight.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated! Xx

Taking aside the alcoholism, he sounds like a fucking bore!

You can't have an intelligent conversation with him, that alone would be a deal breaker for me.

Family life can be mundane, but that's life, I'd get rid and find someone better!

Sounds like my exh, a lot. He used depression as a justification to be a twat, mixing alcohol with ad + sleeping pills and letting me worry if he would wake up or not. The final straw was when he let me think we were always skint, blaming me for it when in fact he had been spending all our money. Threw him out and filed for divorce. Bloody blissful.

I've just read your update!

Good riddance I say, honest he's a loser.

Let him hate you! You need to crack on with your life, any man that's speaks to you or your mother like that isn't worth shit.

Just focus on your kids and let him drink himself stupid.

Maybe supervise visits with the kids though.

An alcoholic not taking steps to address their drinking will blame people (in this case you/your family), places (your home environment) and things (money) to justify their destructive behaviour. In their mind it means they don't need to look at themselves.

I'm a recovering alcoholic, he just sounds like a textbook alcoholic that is still in denial.

Al-anon might be really beneficial for you.

Absolute good riddance; he's the bore, not you. He's an alcoholic, plenty can function but he's still an alcoholic; drink makes you depressed and on top of that he's mixing it with anti depressants, what an idiot; it's all about him and he's been using you as his hangover punch bag; enough is enough, now this has happened use it to be strong and keep him away from you and your kids; he has done jack shit to improve the relationship with you; he thinks you will just put up and carry on nagging, show him you are better than that, he needs a good fucken wake up call, disgusting behaviour.

You are not bad at all OP, don't listen to a drunk arsehole who is in complete denial, blaming you for his own inadequacies; as for money, imagine he must spend a shit load on it.

Onwards and upwards OP. xx

Sounds like my ex too. I ended up leaving him, and he then lost the house, became "no fixed abode", lost his job and eventually drank himself to death 20 years ago. Such a shame. But when we were together and I was begging him to stop, it was me that had/was the problem. Apparently.

Thanks for your responses everyone. It really helps Xx

Just keep thinking about you and your dc OP and keep actioning things to keep you and them safe and living in a calm environment.

By him not living with you, you are not enabling his behaviour which is an amazing thing you can do for both you and your dc.

Alcoholism can't be cured but there are ways to live a long and sober life if an alcoholic is willing to do anything necessary to achieve this. There is nothing you can do or say to make someone want to live a sober life nor did you cause it.

If you can get to an Al anon meeting please do so, it is not AA but support for those affected by an alcoholic.