I need to vent. So please don’t feel you need to respond but I am in a foul-breathed tyrannosaurus of a mood and don’t know where else to turn.
And I don’t know where to start.
Sometimes I want to leave my husband. And I feel bad for that because y’know, relationships are complicated and most of the time I love him, but am I “in love”? I don’t know.
He is successful and takes care of a lot of things financially. This is good and bad, mostly because I’ve been trying so hard to forge a career but so many things - redundancies,health, miscarriages, babies have gotten in the way of me being able to forge a successful (read: better paid) career. I’m working hard to make up for 10 years’ lost time but I am 3x behind him in salary and do dependent on him in that way. I don’t make enough to pay my share and save.
Most of the time we get on well; we’ve had no arguments during lockdown (that is not the case now it’s easing - he’s really anxious about it). This is mainly because we’ve not actually spent much time alone together! We have two young children and I do most of the childcare.
He is a functioning alcoholic (his description) and so my life is built around that. For example he can’t get up with the kids because he has a hangover most mornings (he tries not to drink one night a week - it used to be two but he is working from home now so doesn’t need to make sure he’s safe to drive the next day). It’s his way of dealing with a job he finds stressful. I can tell when he's in a work call and is still a bit drunk. He relies on me being a “morning person” but having to get up early every single day is wearing me out. He cannot see that.
He is fine most of the time. He is absolutely not a violent drunk. He has never so much as lifted a finger to harm anyone. But sometimes he does get verbal and there have been more times than I care to think of when he has sought to destroy any self confidence that I have. I am too fat. I have an over expressive face and make “weird faces” when I speak to people. My behaviour is embarrassing or makes others uncomfortable. I am not clever enough for him. I am “punching above my weight” with him being so clever, slim, intelligent and handsome. it was hard to take that seriously from a man barely capable of sitting in a chair, but it hurt nevertheless and all these years later the memory is sharp for me, while he has forgotten.
And these things stay with you. I’ve had 18 years of these comments and I’ve tried so hard to ignore them. But they’re not from someone I don’t know or don’t care about. He, for the most part, can’t remember saying any of them. But I then have to tell him the next day what happened. He is extremely remorseful but we both know that pretending it will never happen again is bollocks. It will and he has admitted that himself.
And god knows this is the tip of the iceberg. I’ve gone on for long enough here. I don’t know what to do anymore. He has said that, as an addict he can only stop for him. That hurts but I get it. The fact is that drinking is his escape and he has no other way of coping with that. I can’t even raise this with him because that would be a “trigger”.
There is so much more but I have to stop. I’m scared to post this because I don’t know who will see it or where it will go. I just need to get it out there.
Thank you for reading this.