DH drinking is it too much?

[TheRealBlueMember]

I’m getting to the end of my tether. For context, I run my own business, main breadwinner, do all cooking, cleaning, most kids stuff. Admittedly DH does some school runs and stuff in the garden, but 9/10 it’s on his terms. We both work at a different pace, I rarely sit down and always doing things with the kids or house, whereas he always says he needs to relax. He finishes work far earlier than me and gets lots of holiday. I still do the above when he’s on holiday.

so with the background of all this, we come on to his drinking. When the kids were younger, he’d drink - a lot in my opinion, so I stopped even having one so that at least one of us was responsible. We have had more instances than I’d care to remember of him, in his forties, wetting the bed or vomiting all over the house. Even on holiday, after the kids asked him to stop drinking, he carries on and gets in such a state that I’m up all night cleaning up sick, so the kids don’t see anything the next day. Then of course covering for him, when he’s incapable of movement the next day. He plans his drinking schedule a week in advance, eg, can you drive here or do this, so I can have some beers. Which I understand is ok, but given his inability to switch off, feels like he prioritises drinking over anything. I guess I’m bitter, fed up of the shit I get when he is drunk, fed up of lying next to a man that stinks of beer…. Really unattractive and fed up of not being able to have a few myself for fear that he’ll be unable to control himself.

I don’t feel like this is normal behaviour for a man with kids? Or is it? All he says is, stop moaning at me, I need not to be controlled sometimes and let my hair down. To be clear, I control nothing. Everything I do is around him and the kids, if there’s ever a problem, I fix it - he wouldn’t think to. Eg, his back card blocked the washing machine and I was up fixing it, while he went to bed. He was tired. How to get him to see my point of view without having it all thrown back in my face? I don’t like the drinking and I don’t like the repercussions from his benders. Admittedly not super often when it gets really bad, but often enough. Am I just being really judgey? I’d say he has 6 large cans of beer Thursday-Sunday evenings on an average week and pub one night a week at least. Now the summers coming and football on, there’s even more excuse. I’m staying for the kids, but deep down, I don’t want to live like this. Is it me? I’d love someone to give me some perspective

This is not a healthy relationship. It has to be damaging for the kids. If you said it was you + the kids or drink which would he choose?

Are you sure he's only drinking 5-6 cans of beer (still a lot) a night? As a PP days, It doesn't sound enough to be getting him into the kind of state where he wets the bed and vomits everywhere, especially if he's used to drinking regularly.

Alcoholics can hide the amount they drink pretty well, I wouldn't be surprised if he were stashing bottles somewhere.

You need to get yourself and your kids away, he won't change unless he wants to, and that doesn't appear to be the case here.

This is a night at home typically 4 but can be more. These nights don’t end in disaster, generally. Although they definitely have in the past, but he has at least worked on improving that. It’s when he goes out with his mates, he has no off switch and ends up in a state when he gets back. I believe and have told him that his body can’t cope with it anymore, which is why he’s such a mess. When these instances happen, he’s full of remorse and sorry, a few weeks of no drinking and then it starts sneaking back in. I don’t believe he’s hiding drinks, he has before - drinking while out doing jobs in the garden for example. So I’d say hiding it, he’d say just not overtly sharing that he is. I don’t think he cares what I say about it anymore, he thinks it’s me with the issue and not liking him drinking, so I don’t think he’d bother to hide it. He doesn’t think there’s a problem.

Therapy x

Better than a lot of strangers here telling you what you don't want to hear.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that he's just got better at hiding it, he knows you disapprove and so putting on the show that it's "just a couple" may be to keep you onside.

Regardless, his behaviour is affecting you and his entire family, he's a binge drinker and doesn't want to stop no matter how sorry he appears.

He needs to get professional help, you won't be able to fix him and it isn't your responsibility.

This is not only dysfunctional but it's actually dangerous. Drinking to the point of vomiting and/or incontinence is really unsafe.

Cleaning up after him is not helping. He needs to face his problems.

I'd give him an ultimatum. He quits once and for all or you leave. And follow through.

Sending you support as this must be horrible to live with

All your words are those that a wife of an alcoholic would write.

He is perpetually on a comedown from alcohol, he’s never really sober. And you remain here in your roles propping him up.
Your children are seeing this as the blueprint for their relationships, what are you both teaching them about relationships?.

Like practically all alcoholics as well he is denying there is a problem. He is mired in denial. And you are codependent and an enabler. It’s not working.

Your own recovery from his alcoholism will not start until you and he are fully apart. You are merely moving the deckchairs around on this sinking ship currently and that does not help you, your children or your husband for that matter.

And he is patently not a good dad either. Women in poor relationships write that when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. As indeed you have done here.

You're right @TheRealBlueMember he doesn't see a problem. You clean up after him, change your plans to accommodate his drinking, do a huge chunk of cooking cleaning etc and bring in most of the money.

Meanwhile he does what he wants when he wants including getting pissed most nights and only contributing to family life when he fancies it. Of course he doesn't see a problem!

Only you know what you want out of life and what you are happy with but please don't think that this is something you have to put up with. You really do deserve a lot more.

It's not clear what he is bringing to be honest so I imagine life without him would be perfectly manageable . Don't think that putting up with this is somehow helping your kids. It isn't.

My wife had a drink problem - you can choose to call it alcoholic, or not: Doesn't matter, it was a problem. Basically, I lost all respect for her, and you can't love someone who you can't respect.
Had similar conversations with the kids - remember DS saying 'have you any idea what it's like growing up with a mother you can't talk to after 7 o'clock?'.
Spent years drinking very little myself, for the same reasons as you, and as a reaction against her behaviour.
So this all sounds horribly familiar, I'm afraid.
This will damage you, and the kids. So no, you're not being judgey, you're being realistic about a real problem that only he can fix, that will only happen if he really wants to fix it. And in my experience, only you leaving (or kicking him out) will possibly motivate him to address this.

His first thought is alcohol and he’s planning his life around it.

My friend’s ex was like this, he enjoyed a drink so what he would say…. he was also sick and wet himself. She tried to help him with AA but he loved the drink more than her and she had to leave him. It was a terrible time for her but she is much happier now.

He needs an ultimatum. He needs to admit he needs help and then commit to it. The trouble is he doesnt think he has a problem

Take it from someone who comes from a family Of alcoholics your SHOULD is absolutely an alcoholic and no matter how good of a job you think you are doing shielding your kids from if they see it they know what's going on and it will effect them. Alcohol for obvious reasons is my hard limit if that was my DH I would of been long gone

Pishing the bed, being sick....get him some help and move on yourself.

What a life. Its like looking after a baby.

He's an alcoholic. You are not helping the DC by forcing them to live with an alcoholic. A grown man wetting the bed! How can you bear to sleep in the same bed as a bed wetter? As for cleaning up his vomit 🤢 why are you doing it? I'd have kicked him out when he refused to stop when his DC asked him too. His priority is alcohol, not you or his DC. He won't change because he's addicted. I'd issue an ultimatum. Go to AA and give up alcohol entirely or we divorce.

He's a seriously heavy drinker at best, even if he has 2 nights a week off the beer. How often does he drink until he's sick? That shows a lack of control.
Alcohol is a problem when it affects others around you, and your health. That should be your yardstick, not whether he satisfies the term alcoholic in his mind, he will deny it. There is no looking at the person in isolation to assess if they are alcoholic or not, it is assessed by how much it affects their life and the life of others around them. Which it clearly does.
You are enabling it by driving when he can't. If it involves driving him anywhere, refuse. Who does the weekly shop and is alcohol bought at the same time, or does he get his own? ( I'm just trying to see the level of enabling that you might not be aware of).
He's going to be tired, to the point where all he can manage is work, with that level of drinking. You are assisting by doing the work for him. If you do his washing stop, if you buy the beer, stop, if he needs driving tell him he can't drink because you won't be doing it. He probably does not see all you do for him because drinking is itself a distraction, it's a block to dealing with life, it's avoidance. Stop doing any jobs for him and make him see the difference, make him be responsible for himself. When he vomits, let him see it and clean it up, heck get twin beds that zip together, and if he pisses the bed, split them and leave him to deal with his half, he's not a baby.
If he's in his 40's, I'm guessing it's affecting his health by now. Overweight much? Beer gut? No exercise for years? Probably sleep apnoea that causes cardiac disease. You can maybe tell the night's he's not drinking because his mood will be different, more irritable.

You've let a lot go over the years and doubted what's normal, this is not it. Take the drinking out of the equation, and it would never be acceptable that the person who works the most hours does all the housework and childrearing too. It would be reasonable to leave a person for that alone. You've had alcohol on top to deal with. You can separate for any reason. A happier mother looking after her DC's and not an extra manchild for one.
You've got enough reasons to end this aside from the alcohol but you haven't so far as your bar is very low. He can't argue with the other reasons. Once you've had enough- only you know when that is, you could leave him for being obsolete in general, and its fine to tell him that you are sick of carrying him. Your life can be so much better than it is. Also, in the long run , you'd be giving him the chance to sort his own problems out by kicking him out until he's turned his life around. Whether he does or not, is up to him. You'd be doing him a favour, and protecting your DC's from the harm.

Where you are going wrong, op, is in expecting him to see your point of view and acknowledge that you're right. He will never do this, and will continue to twist things round and make out that you are at fault.

I know it's really hard but the only way is to give an ultimatum and then leave if he doesn't respect it. If you don't do this now then I honestly think you will come to regret it.

Best of luck

Agreed. You can't reason with an alcoholic, believe me. I lived with one for 9 years and there was nothing I could say or do to stop him drinking. Honestly, I'd get out. This will be having an awful effect on the children.

You say you're staying for the kids but all this is doing is setting them up for a life where they believe a woman's role is to do absolutely everything to facilitate a man doing whatever the fuck he wants. Including cleaning up his self inflicted vomit and piss.

Do you have daughters? What would you think of them being in this relationship dynamic as adults? Cleaning up a partners sick? Washing the bedding he's pissed on while drunk? Your grandchildren asking her husband to please stop drinking?

The longer you stay with him and they live under the same roof as this madness, the more likely they are to replicate this dynamic. Wouldn't that break your heart?

Did you grow up around addicts of some sort? Often doing so normalises behaviour that to others is shocking. If so, please break the cycle for your kids. And if not, please still leave for their sake. Staying for them is not putting them first at all. Quite the opposite.

It's not surprising he doesn't think he has a problem. He doesn't really as you clean up the mess and do the driving and pick up the slack so actually his drinking isn't causing any problems at all for him.

This is not normal . He is lazy, gaslighting you, prioritising alcohol over you and the kids. Even if he wasn’t an alcoholic, which he very clearly is, he doesn’t make you happy. You don’t have to have any more reason than that to leave him.

I agree with posters if he is wetting the bed and vomiting he is drinking far more than 4/6 beers. I bet he is easily drinking a bottle of spirits on a very regular basis.
You seriously need to leave him for your DC's sake

ReadFamilies under the influence. Get a book about ACOA : adult children of alcoholics and read about how utterly damaging your children’s childhood is. Then cut this drunken, whining, abusive man loose. Safe yourself and the children.

Stop arguing with him. You will never win. You don’t know it but by engaging with him as an honorable counterpart you have already lost.

He can’t be shamed, or reasoned with at all. He’s just a simple mechanism for getting drunk and avoiding responsibility. When you try to reason with him or block him he runs away, whines, abuses, or DARVOs you (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). These are simply classic forms of sn abusive relationship.

But my head is genuinely screwed, is it me rolling my eyes every time he goes for a beer (because of what I know can happen) that’s a dick and stopping him having fun, or is that he has a problem and I need to woman up and get out. I’ve had so many years of everything being my fault it’s tough, I don’t know what a healthy relationship is.

As you’re not happy and he’s not interested in changing, it doesn’t matter if he’s got a problem or not. You’re no longer compatible. End the relationship. He can still be a good dad to his children, but living elsewhere. He’s not a good partner to you.

He’s an alcoholic and a generally selfish arse. You could divorce him for either in clear conscience. He will only get worse with age.

You’re not being very clear op on how much he drinks and how often.

on an average week how many nights does he drink
how much does he drink on those nights
how often does he get drunk drunk?