The impact of being married to a (non-violent) alcoholic

[PeggyGuggenheim]

I'm 20 years into a relationship with a man who has a drink problem. He stopped for quite a few years - although I've since been told he was secretly drinking when he got the opportunity - but since summer 2018 he has been drinking again. Cue the repetitive hell of huge fights, apologies, promises, falling off the wagon, broken promises, falling out, I threaten to throw him out, he goes to a support meeting here and there to pacify me, he's sober for a few weeks, cycle starts again. I'm so tired of it but I think the problem is, he truly genuinely doesn't believe that his drinking is impacting me.

I think he thinks I'm fixated on it, and I'm over reacting, because after all, he's not a violent monster when he's drunk, quite the opposite, he gets quite chirpy and friendly, before bumping into things and losing the power of speech.

Please don't think I'm being dim, but for whatever reason, I am finding it hard to articulate (to him and to myself) quite how exhausted and emotionally destroyed I am feeling.

I think if I could bring him to an understanding of the impact on me, he might be able to stop.

Writing this post has exhausted me and I'm a bit nervous to read the replies

You can’t make him stop. He view his relationship with booze more then that with his kids or you. You can’t control his behaviour. You can only control yours.
Leave.
Your poor kids deserve to be away from this. An alcoholic doesn’t have to be violent to wreck lives.

I had a long relationship with an also non violent alcoholic. I loved him very much but I’m glad it didn’t work out because it was exhausting always having to consider the role alcohol would have in everything from our sex life to whether he would stay awake til the end of a film. I don’t know what to tell you other than it’s shit and life without him is much better.

Please don't think I'm being dim, but for whatever reason, I am finding it hard to articulate (to him and to myself) quite how exhausted and emotionally destroyed I am feeling. The book 'Codependency No More' by Melodie Beattie will help with this (not with the clarification for him, but for you), reading it may well be hard, but keep going. For me it also explained exactly ^how^ we enable.

I think if I could bring him to an understanding of the impact on me, he might be able to stop. The book did give me the words to articulate to him how his drinking affects my life, but by then I had gained a certain amount of detachment so it didn't really matter so much. Anyway, you can guess what happened...some lip service from him, a short attempt of change and then back to normal.

I am also exhausted by it all (15 years in) and am getting the ducks in a row. My DH is also not a stereotypical drunk (well apart from the odd binge when that are fairly large ramifications) so my worries are generally downplayed too.

What would you do if he'd been fucking another woman for the last twenty years? Occasionally, when caught out, he'd stop actually seeing her, but thought about her constantly, everything you did was centred around not making him want to go back and fuck her again and, the moment you thought everything was OK or he said the right manipulating words, he was off and cock deep inside her again.

Every can of Tennant's, every cider, every bottle of vodka, all the scotch, gin or lager is him fucking that woman. His choice. His decision. Knowing what it does to you.

You have to get away for your sake and that of your DC. Just so they don't have to watch him doing it.

Mitzik that is a really powerful analogy. We often hear about their primary relationship is with drink and not the DW - but your graphic description hits home.

Just bumping this thread which I started in 2019... Wow, pre-Covid! In the past few weeks we've decided to get divorced. Thanks to everyone who posted before.

Peggy well done, sensible decision.

Let me leave you with something I heard recently in the support group I still attend, over 4 years on from him starting failed rehab.

One of our newer members mentioned that it wasn't enough that her family member was an addict, because they had never stolen anything from her.

At which point the recovering weed addict we had speaking with us pointed out that he had stolen from her. He had stolen her peace of mind.

Stay stron.

“Congratulations” Peggy. I hope that this process can be as straightforward as possible and that you have access to professional emotional support to see you through as well as to “de-brief” as I would imagine that there will be a lot of reflection and processing to do around once you “free”.

Was there anything specific from this thread that resonated with you?

Or was it the usual progressive grind of another 3 years on top of two decades that finally took its toll?