Abusive drunk man the real them ???

[giffyp]

I’ve just come out of a 3 and a half year relationship, and looking back trying to see the break up as positive as I’m hurting and missing him my question is ….. one of his flaws was drinking he wasn’t an alcoholic but could never stop at one and would disappear off alone drinking at least once a week, a lot of the time when drinking he would be argumentative and put my family down saying negative things about my children and parents and even me a few times, the next day he’d say he was a bad person and be upset…. I just wondered if anyone else has seen this sometimes I wonder if drunk him was real him?

He knows what he's like when he's drunk. He still chooses to get drunk.

What do you think?

Yes very well put! X

It's all the 'real' him. The good and the bad.

It's easy to want to put someone in a box post-breakup, to make things black and white and easier to get your head around, so I get why you're asking the question in this way.

But someone doesn't have to be all bad, or fundamentally rotten, for you to be allowed to leave and for it to have been the right choice.

He can still be an alcoholic if binge drinking. Alcoholism is an illness. So whilst it’s part of him I do believe it’s not the soul of the person.

My ex was like this. He'd get bladdered and call me every name under the sun, shouting and swearing at me. Then the next day he'd be all loving and apologetic. But the next time he drank he'd be back to shouting and swearing. He cheated after 6 yrs, best thing he ever did for me tbh. I promise in time you'll see the split as one of the best things that has ever happened. I'm now happily married to an amazing man who wouldnt dream of treating me like that.

It was yes

In vino veritas.
The real them comes out when they're pissed.
Bin him.

It's not about 'fake him' and 'real him'. Every bit of him you saw was him.

We are all good and bad at the same time. We all have good and bad traits and characteristics. We can choose how these are displayed to the outside world, and decide whether to do things that make us display nice or not nice aspects of ourselves. That's what being a responsible adult is.

The nice him was nice like chocolate is nice, and the horrible him was horrible like feeling too fat. You can't have just the good bit; if you want him, you'd have to take the consequences. If you want chocolate, you have to accept it's excess calories. So yes, of course you'll miss nice him, but keep in mind that he chose to continue with behaviour that he knew would likely turn him into horrible-him. He was willing to take the risk of upsetting you, and thought that it was worth it, for a bevvy. He prioritised drinking over being nice to you. Sober-him did that.

This.

His outbursts when drunk were a manifestation of his own trauma and mental health issues, and as much the real him as the times he had his emotions under control.

alcohol.org/alcoholism/or-is-it-just-a-problem/

This may be useful to you

Everybody has dark, horrible and bitchy thoughts but when we are sober we control them by dispelling them, challenging them... by suppressing ourselves from expressing them.. when you are drunk and you've bottled things up it all comes out but more intensely. So it is the real him however, in reality we all carry negative and hateful thoughts about someone or something we just lose the ability to filter and control ourselves when drunk. None of us is all good or bad.
The problem is that he still drinks even though it's once a week it's once too many and the fact he bottles things up and holds grudges is not great as he should resolve things and face them sober.