So fed up with husbands drinking

[sassypants72]

Dh is only working tue-thur and has been for a while now. The problem is that he absolutely bing drinks over his 4 day weekend.

Today he's had a few beers and 2 bottles of wine and acts happy for a little while and then gets nasty. It's like he can't stop, he has to drink until passing out which was 8.00 tonight.

It's every weekend, and he scares me when that drunk as his mood is so unpredictable.

He's not physically violent it's always verbal and is really getting to me now.

Tonight myself and dd (age 8) went upstairs to get away from him and his ranting, bullying behaviour. I normally avoid him when he's drinking.

This evening I was in the bathroom and I heard shouting downstairs and dd came up in floods of tears. This is when we hid upstairs.

His drinking has always been a problem and I don't want dd growing up thinking this is ok.

The thing is he's a lovely man when sober and dd adores her dad.

I'm so so upset about tonight I just can't cope with his drinking anymore.

If you've got this far thank you. I know I have to leave and it's going to tear the family apart.

I'm glad you are taking steps to leave. I know how scary it is. My ex is an alcoholic. And it didn't affect his work. Until it did. He's now jobless and living with his adult son from his first marriage.

I was terrified of going it alone. It took me years to be brave enough to do it. But I've never been happier. All that anxiety around him drinking or even just coming home to him in the house even when he was sober - gone. Such a relief! And I realised I'd been doing it all on my own anyway - he was never any help, he was always too drunk.

Thankfully my ex wasn't abusive particularly, he'd mutter awful things under his breath about me from another room but never dared say anything to my face. And I was the one that sorted the money so I'd made sure I had enough in savings to help me till the benefits were sorted.

You will be so happy in your own home, so free!

What @AudTheDeepMinded said was also a good point. My ex developed a bad relationship with alcohol due to his mother. He was alcohol dependent because drinking copious amounts was ‘normalised’ in his household.
Then you have my friend who had an alcoholic father, she’s the opposite end of the spectrum and can’t stand the smell of it on anyone and gets anxious around people that drink. So sad.

I think op that you’re making the best decision for not only yourself but your daughter who needs to see that this behaviour isn’t okay. If he has upset her like this once then the fear would be that it becomes a regular behaviour towards her.

Don’t worry about his access to her yet. Your first step is just to get away from him.

Also do use this thread to read back on and tell us more. I did when I left my ex with the help of Mumsnet. When I started to feel weak, I read back on the posts as not only a reminder of what he did to me but also to keep my strength up to stay away because I was given positivity and courage by other people on here.

Take this rented house tomorrow and grab it with both hands. Your DD will also thank you for doing this and you both need time and space away from him in order to heal from his alcoholism.

You can do this and you are not alone here.

Thank you everyone, I've been like an ostrich in the past!! When it all got to difficult to leave I'd just tell myself everything was ok and that I was happy. It was far easier to just put blinkers on myself.

I was always making excuses for his behaviour in the past. My in-laws are big(huge) drinkers as well and I've had to stop mil giving dd swigs of alcohol before when she was a baby. It's all so normal to them.

But I've now had enough, I am at breaking point and just can't live with the stress of it all. I haven't been able to eat anything but a very small amount for days now.

Incidentally I had a very abusive upbringing from narc parents and moved countries when I was younger to get away from them. I have therefore probably put up with far more than the average person would.

You’re right op. If you grew up in a narc household then you more than likely have put up with a lot more than perhaps many others would tolerate in a relationship.
Also it’s very easy to put blinkers on and pretend it’s all okay. I did. I watched my ex drink 8-10 cans of Strongbow during the week and up to 16 cans a night at the weekends. He was really nice when he was sober (hungover) but I just never knew what I’d get when he was drunk. One wrong comment on my part, or even nothing at all and he could launch into a vile drunken rant lasting up to 2/3 hours. One rant went on from 9pm till about midnight because I walked in front of him in a pub

Honestly difficult decisions at the time to get rid of him but now I look back and think why on earth didn’t I get out sooner but I do remind myself it’s so much more difficult when you’re in the situation at the time.

Hand hold here....be brave and leave....it will be painful in the short term but long term far the best option...

Mello, I know what you mean, dh has drunken rants that can last hours too. I'm now at a point where I'm so scared of his unpredictable behaviour I just agree with everything he says (he won't remember in the morning anyway).

We were on holiday once in Spain and I had a headache so went back to the appointment leaving dd (then 5) with dh. He then proceeded to get vary drunk and completely forgot about dd. I woke up at 10pm wondering where they were so walked down to the local bar looking for them. I found dd wandering alone outside the bar in the dark. Dh had got so blind drunk he could hardly stand. I go cold just thinking about what could have happened. As you can probably imagine I went completely mad at him, we were supposed to be on a day out the next day which dd had really been looking forward to, as you can probably guess he was to hungover to get up.

We were at a family party once and dd accidentally dropped a cake on the floor, his exact words were 'get down and eat that up like a dog'. I was understandably 😮 as were all my family. You guessed it, drunk again. The next day he tried to justify his behaviour as just bro's joke.

*just another joke (predictive text)

@sassypants your DD will remember those things. She will also remember when you the best thing you ever did for her and took her away from such appalling and damaging behaviour.

Doesn't divorce damage kids though ?? It's also this thought that has kept me where I am for so long.

Your DH’s behaviour is much more damaging than a divorce OP.
You need to leave and you can do it.

Does divorce damage kids more than being abused throughout their childhood? Is that your question?

A five year old abandoned in a foreign country. Yeh, I'm sure she found that amusing not frightening.

Being publicly humiliated for dropping some cake. I'm sure that did no damage.

Her home is so unstable and frightening she doesn't feel safe to sleep alone.

The question here is how much more damage are you going to allow him to cause your daughter before you step up and protect her?

@sassypants72

So sorry you are in this position. My husband drinks excessively , probably along the lines of yours.....with wine and beer. I'm well over twenty years into this relationship and for my husband he refuses to even acknowledge he has a problem.

Hegets quiet and a bit moody when he drinks and I can't bear that, so you must be going through a much harder time. I'm going to look into al-anon as well. I'm so sorry you and your daughter are being affected like this.

What happens when we are in abusive or terrorising relationships like you are in is that we forget the details of very traumatic incidents - or the whole incident altogether as we are panicked and just trying to survive - so we end up on this memory loss loop.

Now that you have plotted an escape plan other memories and incidents will likely come back to you in the coming weeks.

Keep documenting and adding them to your list. Then you will see the patterns, the intensity, the frequency, the triggers and most importantly the totality of what you have both endured.

You will also see that alcoholism is a progressive disease - he drinks more and more and may not even get more “drunk” but his behaviours and health will deteriorate over time. As will his functioning at work etc. I would look at a clean break settlement if possible because his career will end soon as this isn’t sustainable.

Keep looking at that list.

I just read all your posts.... He sounds horrendous, I feel upset reading some of the things he's done to you and your daughter. Please leave him. He's abusive.

I asked my ex of 15 yrs and father of our 2DC to leave at the beginning of July. His drinking was mostly conducted in secret and invoked lots of lying, manipulation and gaslighting. I found one too many hidden bottles.

It has been bloody awful - he has told everyone we split due to not getting on so again just moving the blame to me. Of course we were not getting on!!! I am the baddy and none of his family have reached out. The second weekend he had them my son text me to collect them as he had got blind drunk and wet himself. So we moved to day only care and he then turned up drunk at 7am. He has told me he is contacting a local addiction support centre but I think he is yrs away from his rock bottom.

It is scary as I have no close friends or family nearby and have had to return to work full time. But I am slowly building up my support network locally and panicking less.

It is hard but it is the best thing I could do for my children.

Once when I tried to leave him he told me he was going to go for full custody of our dd. Of course only scare tactics but at the time it scared me enough to stay

That’s bullying and threatening behaviour. Find out from your solicitor what info / evidence you need collate to demonstrate that he can only have supervised access due to his addiction putting her at risk.

I am not sure how it works - but I think that you can insist that he applies for access via the courts if you leave and have concerns for his capability. I don’t think you are obliged to hand her over.

Do not leave your house without speaking to a solicitor. I repeat do NOT. You may well put yourself in a harder position going forward financially. You can leave him but do not leave the house.

And no divorce doesn’t damage children. But alcoholic abusers do....

He won't leave, we've been here before and will just make mine and daughter life hell.

He can be made to leave. Just go and see a good solicitor before you do anything. If you leave the house I believe he may have more clout in child custody arguments too. They may say the child should initially stay in her home. And it could be months before it gets to court

Also dd's anxiety stems from him trying to kick me out of the house in front of her when she was 5. She has only insisted on co-sleeping since this happened.

At the very least call Women’s Aid. You need professional advice