I'm an idiot

[NuttyMacaroon]

I'm such a fool. I'm in my 40s, married for 15 years, 2 teen DC and am so miserable. My husband can not control his drinking. He doesn't drink every day, but when we socialise he is always the most drunk, making a fool of himself, is nasty to me and then keeps me awake all night with his drunken fits and spasms. He spouts gibberish throughout the night once in bed, gropes at me and absolutely reeks of booze.

We recently moved hours away from friends and family due to his job and as much as I would love to up sticks and move back to my friends and family, our DC are about to start important years at school. I work part time so I guess I could try and up my hours then I could move out to a rented place. I have no friends here, but in a few years when the DC have finished school I could move back home.

I should have left him years ago, he has promised to change so many times but never has. I'm no angel, I certainly used to enjoy a drink but am now at the stage where I hate drinking and have stopped because as soon as I have a drink, he sees it as encouragement to have 10!

Thanks for reading, not sure what I am hoping to achieve, I think I just need to see it all written down!

It's never too late.

Why would an older person not deserve a happy peaceful life? Why do we all think that the things we want aren't available to us because we're too old?
Too old for what? to make a decision, to find employment, to organise a new life, it will be effort but if you can do that you can do it. Are you too old to enjoy being responsible only for yourself? too old to enjoy the peace to spend a day how you choose?

Leave him now because in ten years you could be wishing you left in your forties.

ps, I don't mean that you're an older person. I mean that we all always feel that we've left it too late to make it worth it in these situations. I know I thought like that.

Well, you could stay with him and live like my mum's long suffering neighbour. She and her husband are in their 70s. They often have to rely on neighbours to help out when he gets in sticky situations. They can't have a car, so she is cut off with him. Their kids won't have him in their houses so she can't see their grandchildren.

Leave. Please.

"About to start important years" and "recently moved" stick out to me - surely if you acted quickly, you could return without too much disruption to your dc? Maybe they'd even be happy to go back where presumably they had friends?

Thank you for your replies. I hear what you are all saying, I definitely don't want to be in this situation in 10 years! But I think I have to just suck it up for maybe 2 years, until the eldest has completed GCSEs and before youngest starts. We have been here 18 months now, so whilst I haven't settled, the DC have. Plus they are unlikely to get places at their old school. When I say that 'D'H and I socialise, it is with old friends that come to visit. So I will just have to put up with the few visits we already have on the calendar, then no more! They are mostly my friends anyway, I can just arrange to go and stay with them for a change, on my own!

I will try to think positively - in 2 years I can definitely get myself organised, ducks in a row etc etc!

I think you can travel in yr head. Secretly save. Think through all the steps you would/will take if you were splitting up. Research new locations etc. You can go far in yr head

Am still here, still in the same predicament. I'm starting to wonder if the problem is me. When we have these social events where he gets hammered, everyone else seems to think he is so much fun. My good friend even told me I do pick on him. This happens when I say something eg the music is too loud, he rolls his eyes and makes a big show of how unreasonable I am, which just gets me irritated. So then I go off to bed as I can't stand him in that mood and the people left socialising all get the run down on how he "loves me so much" but he "can't do wrong for doing right" and gets them all feeling sorry for him. (I often hear this as I am getting a glass of water or whatever). This particular time, he was slurring and making no sense and my DS15 laughed at him. He retaliated my telling DS he would humiliate him in front of his friends, see how he likes that etc. My friend and her husband didn't bat an eyelid at that! Am I over-reacting? At that point I said I was off to bed and encouraged DS to go too. He was reluctant as was enjoying the evening around the fire pit, but came anyway after his Dad started telling the others "she has had too much to drink that's why she is off to bed" DS and I had a bit of a heart to heart, I apologised for him having to experience that, he said it wasn't my fault etc.

Maybe I am just a fun sponge. I am really starting to feel I will have no friends of my own when I do finally break free, they will all stay friends with the fun guy who is always drunkest and probably makes them all feel better about their own drinking! My parents have commented on his drinking before so at least I am sure they will see my point of view.

Anyway, just feels good to get this all out, I can't talk about it with anyone irl. Thanks for listening

He's an alcoholic OP. The "poor me" schtick is par for the course, it's your fault. As your DC get older, they become the ones at fault (unless they start drinking with him).

Have you tried Al-anon? You and your DC may find it helpful if you stay with him.

You are living with an alcoholic. Not fun for your children. They see and will remember everything. Follow the earlier advice. Go full-time, save money and get out. If you could get him out, better again. Either way, awful to live with someone who is a drunk, much less share a bed with them. Yuk!

nutty

What do you get out of this relationship now?. Nothing has changed and will not change unless you yourself decide properly to make changes and better decisions.

re your comment:-
"Thank you for your replies. I hear what you are all saying, I definitely don't want to be in this situation in 10 years! But I think I have to just suck it up for maybe 2 years, until the eldest has completed GCSEs and before youngest starts"

You have a choice here re your H; they do not. Do not waste another two years being with this person and certainly do not further suck this up. Is this what you want to teach them about relationships, what are they learning here from you two?. Its a terrible legacy to pass onto your children. Its really not worth it and doing that will just give him another two years to get further drunk in yours and your kids presence.

Your own recovery from his alcoholism too will only properly start when you and he are apart. I would also think that you are a codependent spouse as well as provoker and his enabler; these unhealthy states and alcoholism often go hand in hand.

Do not use your children or their schooling/future exams as a reason to stay with your alcoholic husband. They won't thank you for doing that and its a shockingly poor reason to stay. You're staying for your own reasons really by doing that and its nothing to do with your children. Their lives have been and are disrupted enough already; their lives at home are not great and you personally cannot fully protect them from the realities of their dad's alcoholism.

Your H's "friends" are likely to be all drinkers themselves; such types tend to stick together.

You are not a fun sponge but your H is an alcoholic.

Talking about this in real life via Al-anon will help you. Alcoholism thrives on secrecy and its time you bust this wide open. It will also help in your recovery from his alcoholism, a disease which affects all family members and not just the alcoholic.

He's already insulted and otherwise embarrassed his son in company and in your son's eyes also you are complicit in his dad's alcoholism and otherwise enable it. Your own relationship with your children going forward could be affected to its detriment if you stay for your own reasons.

I sincerely hope that you leave your H before your own self and your children are further dragged down by him into his pit. There are no guarantees when it comes to alcoholism and he could still choose to drink even if he went onto lose everyone and everything around him.

What will it take for you to say no more to being abused like you all are?.

You need to get out of there. I was dragged from pillar to post growing up so I always do have a bit of a hard time understanding the "but the kids are all settled here" line. How do you think army kids cope? Diplomats' kids? Immigrants' kids? Expats? It's life. Is it ideal? No. But sometimes change is necessary. And you wouldn't be moving them across the world. You're moving them to a place they already know. So what if they can't get places at their old school? They'll still be on their old stomping ground.

The alternative is you stay put, travelling in your head, slipping away into the shadow of the woman you once were, postponing and postponing until one day you no longer have the confidence to change anything anymore.

I just get this massive sadness from your post OP. Big hugs.

That's the thing - my kids are ex Forces kids - we moved here after a few years abroad, they were already upset to not be moving back to where we were before, where all my family are (near previous posting). But we got through that and they settled and we told them we wouldn't be moving again now Dad has left Forces. Whilst I would move back to my hometown in a heartbeat, I can't whisk them away again at this stage (eldest year 11).But that doesn't mean I can't leave the marriage, I just have to stay local. I am reading all your replies and am processing them all. It's really hard to read, my mum was an alcoholic and my childhood was shocking, I suppose I have had my head in the sand thinking that as long as things are better than my childhood, it must be ok. But I am seeing from the replies that that most definitely isn't the case. I am being a martyr and that makes me dislike myself even more. Plus the fact that I'm not teetotal. Makes me feel a hypocrite. But I know when to stop. (usually one drink before the husband has had too many). Then I go to bed. I am only now seeing that I do that because of him, not because I'm a boring old fart!

I guess I have lost sight of the fact that a happy home life doesn't have to have the parents together (mine were not, my father left after my mum's drinking got out of hand).

Thank you to everyone who has replied, I'm looking up Al-anon and Citizens Advice in my area. I don't think I earn enough to get a place of my own, but I will see what they say. I am still on the hunt for a FT job.

More hugs. First of all, it is absolutely not necessary for you to be teetotal. You are NOT the one with a drinking problem. You are in no way a hypocrite. Your husband is an alcoholic.

I think you need to break this down into small steps to stop yourself feeling overwhelmed. Your first step is finding a full time job. Don't worry about the rest for now. Focus on the job. Have you seen many opportunities near you?

I have seen a few, I have applied so fingers crossed. I am looking a bit further away than I was originally, as we live quite rurally so there wasn't much nearby. Fingers crossed one of these will be a successful application. Thank you, it does help to break it all down.

You can do this OP.

You do not need to be teetotal.
He is the one with the problem.
I think Al-Anon would be life changing for you.

Sadly you grew up seeing your alcoholic mother drink to excess with your dad playing the enabler role and this is partly why you went onto marry someone like your H. You are now playing out the same roles your dad did with your mother. You really did learn a lot of damaging crap about relationships when you were growing up but it does not have to be the same for your children. You have a choice re this man and your children do not. Do not make the same mistakes your dad made.

SSAFA may be able to assist you as well here.

DO get yourself along to an Al-anon meeting and at the very least read their literature.

Hopefully CitizensAdvice will be able to point you in the direction of a good local Solicitor. You need them rather than CA solely.