Alcoholism & Divorce advice

[QuiGon]

For my own mental health and my 2 children, I think it would be better that my husband and I separate. My husband has had an alcohol addiction for the past 3 and a half years and the stress of it all is slowly destroying me.
Financially it would be very difficult for us as if we sold the house, we won't have enough money to buy a house in our current area. I've read about a mesher order, where one of the spouse can live in the family home until the children are older. Has anyone had experience of that? How does it work? Does that mean both of the spouses contribute to the mortgage?

Does my husband has to agree where we move to. I had a look at property prices further north where I would be able to afford something.

My husband does not want to divorce, he currently works only 2 days and said he would stop working if we divorce and I will be forced to pay for his support. Is that correct?

Any advice from anyone who had an alcoholic spouse who had a divorce- glad they did or not?

Anyone who carried on and things got better?

Sorry but what a twat! No you don't need to pay him anything x

Yes me. He was is an alcoholic , I left 5 years ago.
Sold joint house, j moved back with my mum. He rents a tiny flat.

Life is great mainly because he isn't in it. An alcoholic will never change. Your children will be grateful that you removed them from this tocuc situation- as mine are,.

Toxic siyu

Lots of variables op.

Firstly, your dh would be expected to work full time, intentional unemployment would be hugely frowned upon in court and he would be quite unlikely to get a larger share of any assets if he pulled this.

Mesher orders are vanishingly rare. In any case, whoever stays in the house would be expected to pay ALL of the bills - all the mortgage, utilities etc, and the equity released at certain trigger points.

You would only be expected to support him afterwards if he could prove that his income has reduced significantly BECAUSE of the marriage, eg he'd given up work and career progression. Again spousal support is vanishingly rare, and you would need to be earning mega bucks.

If there is equity in the house then you would be expected to rent I'm afraid. Whether your ex is happy for you to relocate with the dc is another thread entirely

I don’t think he can just give up his job and expect a stbexw to support him.
I think you need to speak to a solicitor asap.
I left my alcoholic husband. He’d had a drink problem for many years. Best thing I ever did. Ime it doesn’t get better, only worse.
Please see a solicitor, get some sound advice and then plan your exit safely.

My ex was an alcoholic and my dc suffered because of it.

I left, eventually, into rented accommodation with the dc. The divorce took 4 years to finalize due to his silly games, but I'd do it again.

May I ask what you mean when you say your husband has an alcohol addiction? There are varying degrees of this e.g, he isn’t responsible enough to look after your children

All those who reply that leaving their ex with alcohol addiction is the best thing they ever did, I get that very much indeed, but may I please ask for some elaboration on how you handled visitation rights or care for your dc? Do your exes still see your kids, do they have them over night?

And I ask, since I am male 43 years old, two teenage children, have always drank a lot, never ever been abusive, although my wife hates my drinking and I do believe she will divorce me this year because of it.

@Treacle101 I would not trust him. He tried to go pick up the children drunk a few times but I stopped him. For my son's birthday, I invited a few children at home and he was totally drunk and couldn't join at all. Another time my little one was poorly and I was sent to the hospital by the GP and we were out from 1pm to 10pm and when we came home he was too drunk to care. We've had so may rock bottoms and everytime I thought now he will change but nothing. All the rock bottoms have come and gone and I've lost all hope now.

You are spending money on an addiction, which could go to savings, education of your children, towards the mortgage, towards the house or towards the family holiday - you have no idea of the resentment that causes, when someone watches an opportunity go by because you're too busy prioritising booze

You are wrecking your health and making everybody around you watch you kill yourself slowly

You render yourself incapable of being a half decent parent - teenagers are razor sharp at picking up hypocrisy, they know they can't talk to you about stuff and they are more likely to become heavy drinkers themselves - some example you are!

You can't drive - you'd be no use in an emergency

You say you're not abusive, but what would your family say? Inappropriate jokes? Stupid physical pranks? Sarcasm? Farting in bed?

Your wife wants a partner, not someone who 'opts out' and renders themselves too drunk for pastimes, talking, parenting and sharing the day to day burdens of life, housework and work

I need to add that wife has regularly belittled me in front of my children, called me an alcoholic, poured beer over my head, locked me out of our bedroom and house and told my children she is divorcing me and had told me she has never loved me. Fortunately, I have kept my decorum, at least I think I have.

If you can’t stop when you know it likely means the loss of your relationship/family it sounds like you have a pretty major problem. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing.

There is help out there to stop - but you have to want to do it. Good luck.

OP if he doesn’t want to stop you can only leave. Get legal advice although I think it’s highly unlikely you’ll have to pay him anything. I’m so sorry it has come to this.

Thank you, you raise some great points for me to reflect on. I don’t agree with everything that you have said, but I do appreciate your opinion. Thank you!

Thank you! X

This! @Treacle101 are you my STBEXH?! Im divorcing my H and you sound very similar. Big drinkers but no physical abuse/DV. Everything raised by @Gingernaut rings true. Resentment. Im better off without mine. Id rather be single

@QuiGon I'm separated from an alcoholic, he is making divorce very difficult but I'm still glad I did it. My quality of life with him was absolutely terrible.
@Treacle101 has your drinking ever disrupted your wife's sleep or messed up her plans? Do you do 50% of the housework and childcare? If so, how do manage childcare while drunk? Do you live in a fantastic house or could the money you spend on booze be used to make it more comfortable for your family? Are you a rare person who turns into a charming raconteur when drinking, or does drink make you tedious and repetitive?

You're doing the right thing Op. I was there many years ago. I still have flashback nighmates to this day.

I was the bigger earner, and so my ex ended up with a much better financial deal than me (despite me having sole custody of DCs) - basically his drinking had rendered him un-employable, so he could argue that he relied on me for income.

That said, I was very happy to walk away with less..... there is no amount of money in the world that would make me live with an addict again.

I was in this situation.

I divorced him, because I could no longer bear living with his active alcoholism.

He had lost his job but I was working full time. We had a 3 yr old.

However, he was on legal aid, and initially tried for £100,000 settlement, which, with the help of a v expensive 'SHL' we managed to greatly reduce that figure and I had to make 2 payments to him in a 2 yr timeframe.

He moved in with his parents. I was able to remortgage so stayed in the house.

His reality was batshit - he came to our marriage with nothing (I had a flat and that enabled us to buy our house), he had lost his job and I was paying for everything for 3 years before the divorce.

I also had to pay for additional childcare because of safeguarding wrt his drinking.

Well meaning people advised me to make him wait till our DD was out of full time education before making any payments but I couldn't risk that I'd end up paying more plus interest. I also wanted a clean break so I could rebuild my life.

I have essentially been a single parent for 20 yrs, still working in my 60s to pay off the mortgage. Sadly he died 5 yrs ago and never found sobriety.

But I have peace and serenity in my life now - it was worth enduring hardship to get out from it. And support from Al-Anon/Alateen enabled both DD & I to still have a relationship with him.

Why do you think he drinks?

Can he go to a support group to get dry?

I'm concerned about him threatening you by saying he'll stop work completely and you'll be punished by that.
Not a great thing to say to you.

Alcoholics drink because that's their 'go to' for emotional support

Stress
Resentment
Excitement
Parties
New job
Fired from job

etc.

The reason why they initally started drinking will be lost in time

So I wasn't asking everyone why people become alcohol dependent,I was asking the OP why her husband does,if they can deal with the root cause and his feelings, then it's worth exploring.

That's not how alcoholism works. alcoholics drink because we're alcoholics. We're not alcoholics because of stress, trauma, boredom or unhappiness.

It's a bit like saying "you need to find out why he's got a nut allergy" - it just is. Talking about "why" is a road that leads to "if I can find out why I drink I can become a normal drinker." For alcoholics, that doesn't and can't ever happen. Despite our best efforts to convince ourselves.

I do more than 50% of the housework,constantly cleaning, washing, taking the kids to and from school.I cook. That’s what you do when you’re a parent. I work full time, and have a very stressful job earning very good money. I don’t go out to the pub, perhaps I should, I don’t go chasing ladies, I pay for the majority of everything, I’m fairly good at DIY, I do my best to support my kids. My Achilles heel is that it comes for Friday and I like a beer.