alcoholic husband. please reply even to tell me to grow up and leave him!!

[mickeylou]

i have been with my husand for 5 years and we have a 2 year old son.i noticed over the last 18 months he changed in personality - we started to row all the time. my husband always drank most evenings to wind down after work. i used to enjoy sharing a bottle of wine with him to be honest. i did not think it was a problem. i did not notice he had become an alcoholic. he started being sick every day and refusing to get out of bed. he was taken into hospital but still never admitted he was drinking vodka all the time.he would really get to me when he fell asleep really early or went back to bed in the day. he said it wasnt his fault he was ill and i felt guilty for resenting him as i was working and doing everything with the house and the baby. a few months ago i snapped. he would not get out of bed and i slapped him. he put his fist thru the door in rage after i left the room. he admitted to his doctor the next day that he was an alcoholic. after 2 failed detoxes in hospital and several binges (during which he was just evil - nasty insults, hidden vodka bottles, overdoses) he has now been sober for 2 weeks. i wish it was all sorted now as i do love him but i found out last week that he had bet the equivalent of my months wages on poker. we are in debt and our house is on the market for sale! he said he was drunk and apologised. he cried and cried and begged me not to leave him. i could not bring myself to make him leave. thing is he has turned really nasty again.last night he threw the phone at the wall and kicked and wrecked a cupboard in the kitchen. today is my birthday. he did not bother getting up then complained i spent the day with my sister. he keeps accusing me of cheating on him (which i havent done) and says i am always talking about other men in my sleep (have no idea whether this is true cos i am asleep!!). he say he is leaving me tomorro!! i dont think he will follow thru but know in my mind i shud make him go. most imprtantly i dont want my son to be hurt by this.when sober he is great daddy and my son adores him.

i am really tired and found it hard to read your post without paragraphs -

but you know- hes an arse.

give him an ultinatum and mean it

you expect X,Y &Z or you are OUT of there.

do it, mean it and carry it through.

actualy you cannot lose

good luck

I would leave or make him leave. Sorry you're going through this. His behaviour isn't acceptable. You shouldn't have slapped him though.

Thanks for answering. i agree i was wrong to slap him - as for ending the marriage i think you are right. i know i have given too many ultimatums and not followed thru. guess the hard thing is we were very happy before all this and part of me hopes the person he used to be is not gone for good. we had a nice life.

Message withdrawn

I am sorry it is so awful for you - it was not meant to be like this! Sometimes life is just awful. You have behaved as though you were in a 'normal' relationship; well, as you realise, you are not: you are married to someone who - for whatever reasons- is now no longer emotionally available for a relationship. As hard as it is for you, the best gift you can give your child is that of being a role model, ie: it is not ok to live this kind of life.

Maybe you and your hubby will find a way through this - but the onus is on your husband to change his behaviour 'cos that is the behaviour that is impossible to live with. You can not change him, but you can show your child that your child deserves better.

Sorry if i sound harsh, but statistically, I believe what I have said is right.

best of luck

it sounds grim for you at the moment, not sure staying with him is the answer, he may come to his senses quicker if you kick him out

thanks to you both for those messages. he is going to AA, his GP and a private counsellor - would not engage with nhs as knew people there its a small town and we both have professional jobs. he seems to really resent going to the counsellor and does not think he is as bad as other people in AA. i have pointed out he wouldnt know as i am bearing the brunt of it when he is drunk.

we went to a wedding on saturday and i was really pleased he stayed off the booze. but come sunday it was carnage again.

also he has stopped taking the anti depressents he was prescribed. think this may account for alot of his behaviour this weekend as he has not been obviously drunk. i am concerned he may have a mental health problem- as he seems paranoid about alot of things - my fidelity for one. either that or its the after effects of the vodka.

he has a scan on his liver and pancreas this week - part of me hopes the doctor scares him into stopping what he is doing.

i have read that alcoholism is either learned or genetic. clearly my little boy is at risk on the genetic front so i realise i cant let him learn from his dads example. i actually have my divorce petition on my computer at work - the unreasonable behaviour part keeps getting longer and longer!

Have you considered contacting Al-Anon for families and friends of problem drinkers so that you can get some support too? It sounds like you've got lots to cope with and maybe it would help to talk to people in the same position?

Sounds like your husband is in denial - but that is pretty common with alcoholics. If he stays, do you think that things will change - and if not, how is that going to be for you?

ML

It never fails to amaze me that the "good dad/great daddy when sober" comment nearly always crops up in such posts. Its like a compensatory comment for the rest of the rubbish you're putting up with. He is a paranoid drunk with a gambling problem - he is patently not a good Dad at all to your son. What example is he setting him?. You also play a part in the merry go around of alcoholism, you enable him by staying with him.

You can save yourself and your son from further misery by breaking away from him; you cannot save him or help him no matter how much you think you can or want to. He has to want to help his own self.

If you really want to help him then you and your son need to completely separate from him with no contact until at the very least he manages to complete a detox without bailing out.

The scan on his liver and pancreas may shock him but equally it may not. There are no guarantees here; he may carry on drinking even when he loses everything around him including his health.

I will tell you something else - you as an adult can choose to ignore all this (and thankfully you seem to be waking up to what reality with him is really like) but your son cannot. Growing up in a household where one parent is alcoholic is no fun at all for the child and can bring with it its own set of problems in adulthood when they form relationships of their own.

I would also second the comment made by another poster to contact Al-anon. They are very good at helping family members and you need to talk to someone too.

25 years ago, I left my H, he was a alcoholic, like yours he gambled.

For 4 years in which time he began to get violent, I tried to get him to stop drinking, made hm go to the Doctors councillor the works, I learnt that until the alcoholic sees that they really have problem, which yours is denying, nothing will work.

I stuck with him even when he knocked me flying at 7 months PG, resulting in prem birth and the baby dying at 36 hours, through having no money for DS second birthday as he had bet it all, through being scared of what mood he would come in at, through all the shit he put me through.

Then one day he went to far, he put me over the bannister's, I came to to hear my two year old DS crying ' leave my Mummy alone' I left with him then.

25 years later my DS tells me he can remember that day as clear as a bell, and a lot of the other things that went on.

Unless you want your son to remember things like that . Get out now.

Hi Mickylou - Its sounds like you have done more than enough to try and encourage your DH to stop the booze. Living with an alcoholic is sad, lonely, frustrating, angry emotinal time. Thats just you...for you son it can be worse if thats posible. I lived with an alcoholic parent and really cant remember most of my childhood,as i think its bcause I dont want to...first memory realy im 9 !A few drunken memories before that..but no good ones. Do you want this for you son? The other thing is..alcoholism is a disease...and you cant help or make anyone give up, they have to want to..I think leaving or making him leave may shock him into doing something, but its not guarenteed. You have to protect yourself and your son. Al-anon can help you understand and cope with things...I really wisgh you all the best xxx

As Attila very accurately says, I'm afraid he's not a 'great daddy' simply because he's great when he's sober. A 'great daddy' certainly wouldn't gamble with keeping a roof over his son's head for a start. A 'great daddy' would put his family before anything else. I'm sure you know this though.

Everyone here seems to have useful advice, so I'll just say, good luck with it all.

Agree please contact Alanon, they will offer you support without judging, mum was an alcoholic and died of an overdose, when I was 20, we cant tell you what to do and whether to go but we can say to get the support you need, it is not a bunch of tree hugging wierdos it is a really friendly professional organisation. Google it and you should come up with a local contact and it is anonymous.

I';ve changed my name for this, but couldn't read this without replying, especially in light of what shosable said.

My father was/is an alcoholic - my mother left when we were 4. I can clearly remember him fighting verbally with her when he was plastered when I must have been about 3 - and shouting at him "don't make my mummy cry - i hate you".

He went through another 2 marriages after that to women who thought they could change him. Had periods of normality, intersperced with binges. Turned up at my wedding, got pissed, was a bit of an embarrasment etc.

He's been "dry" now for 6 years, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to get your son out of there. The message should be to him to "sort yourself out, show me you can do it and WHEN you have convinced me you can live without alkcohol and function as a normal human being for a protracted period of time...we MIGHT have a future".

Please, please - you and your son deserve a life. With a functioning alcoholic that is unlikely

My brother refused to believe he had an alcohol problem, after every binge he truly believed he would stop.
He was a professional and so wouldn't engage with services.
He was married.
He died 2 months ago from a fall during a binge.
You have to look after your son please. You won't be able to fix your husband, only he can do that, and that is by admitting to himself he will never ever be able to drink alcohol again.

thanks to all of you for all of your advice and words of support. it turns out he was drunk this weekend hence the nastiness. i dont think he is capable of violence although 12 months ago i would not have thought him capable of ruining our lives like he has.just thought he was overworked and stressed out!

he took quite a big overdose in the night and is now stable but in intensive care. said he could not see any other way out. his family are in bits.

he has begged me to give him "one more" chance.i said i will see him thru this but he has to earn the right to live with us again. i really want to stick to this but know its going to be hard. xx

I really dont want to sound nasty, he is obviously very ill, but my mum took overdoses like you and I would take a phone call, always when she felt she was in a corner and would use huge emotional blackmail to get what she wanted, heartless of me to say especially as she died of an oeverdose I know. I hope this is a turning point in your lives.

I am going to come in with a different point of view and i dont want shooting for it. Bear with me.

My dad is an alchoholic and has been for about 15 years. He was abused as a child and damaged through other things that happened as a youngster. Despite all this my mum stayed and I never understood why, cause he did all the same things as worse as your husband. I can assure those of you who accused the good dad/bad dad thing as compensation that you are wrong. When my father was sober he was amazing. When drunk a bastard, and that is one of the things that make it so hard. People who love an alchoholic can still see the "real" person underneath it. Recently he finally hit what is known as rock bottom and got proper help. It had to be HIS choice, for HIM not you or your son. For the first time in years, even though he is coming back we can see the man he really is.

What i want to say to you is this. You do need to put some distance between you, because its not fair to you or your son, but you are not weak or wrong to have stood by him. He is not a bastard, or evil or an arse, he is a very unwell man, and he and only he can deal with that. I agree completely with calling the lines that support families dealing with addiction issues as it is never just one person in a family who suffers as a result of alchohol abuse. If you love him as much as i suspect you do then leaving him isnt about "cutting the bastard out of your life". Its about not watching someone you love destroy themselves and refusing to enable his behaviour anymore. One day when he is well you can help your son build a relationship with him.

I suppose what i am trying to say is that it is very easy to judge and much harder to deal. I wish both you and your husband the very best of luck and i really hope he finds the strength to deal with his issues soon, as you sound like you would be much more of a loss to him then the bottle, and his son certainly is!

i am sorry that dh is in such a bad way...but you need to realist that no-one can help him but himself.You do not deserve the guilt trip for his actions, your child is going to suffer if he has to witness things like this growing up.you only have one life, do you want to spend it like this??????.Is there nowhere else he can stay when he gets out of hospital,because as you say he needs to earn the right to be part of the family.If he loves you and ds enough he needs to prove that he is worthy of his family.

Mickeylou - so sorry to hear what you are going through. My dm has been an alcoholic for 28 years, I understand the utter hell you must be going through trying to find all the bottles and stopping the drinking, the madness and the keeping up appearances, being at the mercy of his moods, its all so utterly exhausting.

All I can say is this - The alcoholism belongs to him, it is not your fault, you are not responsible.
He is doing his best, by that I mean he is suffering from depression or anxiety, maybe from childhood or ongoing problems/pressures. He may blame you for the drinking, this is only to divert the attention away from the real problem.
The alcoholism is secondary, he is trying to self-medicate, to numb the depression or seek oblivion.
Try to find the reason behind the drinking and work with his responses to his problems.
I understand your worries for you little boy. I have 3 boys and have been terrified about the same issue. Some kind mumsnetter posted on one of my threads once an article from the Guardian (I think), about a recent study in medical circles stating that mental illness wasn't necessarily genetic, but could be simply bad coping mechanisms being passed down from one generation to the next.
Ironically, the only way I managed to help myself and my mother was to move away. It took me a long time to realise it wasn't about me, it wasn't my responsibiity. I had nearly forgotton the feeling of peace you can have and allowing myself to live my own life.
I know there is a lot more at stake for you and your son so just wish you lots of strength with whatever decision you make xx

pretty fly 1 and fawkeoff thanks for your messages. i agree its easy to say he is a waste of space and write him off but much harder to put it into practice. i do love him. he was the nicest, funniest and most loving person i have ever met and unfortunatley he has become very very ill. this has not been going on for years and although he has been v bad for about 3 months the feelings i have for him are still there. in the hospital today i just saw someone i loved and still love in pain. i realise the illness was prob always going to rear its ugly head but things seemed to go wrong for him last year when i was on maternity leave. he had exams, two jobs and just could not cope. i am not trying to make excuses for his behaviour it has been very bad recently and i know i cant live with that anymore. i guess what i am trying to say is i cant write him off completely; i am going to insist he stays at his mums and once our house sells (its on market now) get somewhere new for me n the goregous one. the rest is up to him and maybe i am kidding myself but i hope he sorts himself out cos i would very very much like my family back! x

"I guess what i am trying to say is i cant write him off completely; i am going to insist he stays at his mums and once our house sells (its on market now) get somewhere new for me n the goregous one. the rest is up to him and maybe i am kidding myself but i hope he sorts himself out cos i would very very much like my family back! x"

Hi ML,

Admirable as it is not to write him off completely at what cost will that come to you and your son ultimately?. You need to think long and hard. I do agree with your writings re staying at his mum's (if you really want to help him he will need to stay away from you both). The rest is indeed up to him but there are no guarantees here; he may still continue to drink and overdose once he recovers.

I hope too that he manages to sort himself out but you cannot do this for him or wish that it will be so. You and your son could ultimately form a nice family unit of your own. It is entirely his choice and you need to realise as well he made a conscious choice to start drinking.

I think as well that you're perhaps just as caught up in the merry go around of alcoholism and thus talking to Al-anon would be timely for you. You need support too as I would think this is very difficult if not impossible for you to openly discuss this in real life.

You love him yes, of that there is no doubt but he is not showing same towards you both. He has and continues to put alcohol and drugs before his family unit and may well continue to do so. You and your son are well down his list of "priorities"; his primary relationship is with drink. Love alone for him won't save him. He has to want to address the reasons for him drinking, you cannot do that for him.

hi its me again, really beginning to think i am losing it. sitting here waiting for my sister to bring by little boy home. went from being really hacked off with dh on monday, feeling sorry for him tues and today i am just so flippin angry with the idiot. my mortgage bounced today and i am raging that my house is for sale when my wages went not on my mortgage but to some one i do not know playing poker against a my very drunk dh. must have been the easiest grand hes ever won, pity it took me 4 weeks of 9 til 5, away from my son to earn it! i am annoyed that my lttle boy will see me for half an hour before i visit his dad in the hospital. i am mad that my secretary is taking a week off sick cos her boyfriend of 2 months dumped her at the weekend yet i was in work today! i have read my earlier comments and feel pathetic for putting up with all the sh** he has thrown at me. maybe later i will feel sorry for him again. just felt i needed to have a rant. thanks for listening.xx