Inconsiderate drinking

[bootsontheground]

Name changed. My husband gets drunk in the pub while I’m working long shifts in a hospital. When I come home after my long drive he sways and slurs is friendly at first and then he gets a little bit nasty - sometimes about our kids, but anything we are chatting about can start it. I ignore usually and take myself to bed to get away before things get worse and so I can sleep before my next 12.5 hour shift. One night recently I screamed at him to shut the fuck up and locked him out of my bedroom so he stopped talking to me for a week or so and didn’t save me any dinner after my long shift as punishment. But I’m a big girl and I can make my own food when I get home from work. He comes in to my en-suite when he’s ready to come to bed really really late when I have fallen asleep and wakes me up brushing his teeth etc. He then proceeds to keep me awake all night snoring loudly and telling me to fuck off. He often doesn’t remember the next day the way he has treated me but he really objects to me bringing it up - so I don’t usually. We have been married 20 years. I don’t feel loved. I’m feeling very lonely. He ruined our wedding anniversary last summer and he doesn’t even know it. I had the blues real bad after the way he treated me and spoke to me and I couldn’t snap out of it for days. I just tried to forget about and just sleep but I couldn’t. By our anniversary date he had booked a special day out with me and in the morning he said “are you not looking forward to this?” I said yes I am. And that was it. I try not to be down all the time but sometimes it just gets to me too much. I just wanted to get it out. I have spoken to him this morning about how I’ve been feeling and now he is really pissed off at me. I want things to be nice again. Why is that too much to ask?

That sounds dreadful, you poor thing. Does he not work? How old are your children if he is in the pub and you are working? I think maybe you have to give an ultimatum if he is just not listening to you and your perfectly reasonable view.

This sounds utterly miserable for you and it’s likely that your dc wonder why you and he are still together at all. You have been married a long time but do not get bogged down in your sunk costs. Talking to an alcoholic about their drinking or how you feel about that is a waste of time.

Please give yourself the best life you could have here for you and the dc by leaving him. He’s an alcoholic and abusive with. It. His primary relationship is with drink, not you and it’s likely never been with you either.

How can you be helped into leaving your abuser?.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. This is patently no relationship example to show your kids because they could well go onto emulate this dysfunction themselves.

you work in a hospital - are you a member of Unison?. If so contact them as they could be useful to you here also . I would certainly urge you to contact Womens aid too as well as a local firm of Solicitors re divorcing him.

Sounds so familiar. My alcoholic ex would also be drunk when I returned from work shifts, or from any evening activity I went to like life drawing classes. My ex would also not remember the things he had said or done. He also ruined my 40th but never remembered how, or acknowledged a thing about it. I eventually learned there was no point in talking about these things, or his drinking - I left with our child.

His drinking got so much worse when I left but after two years he stopped. Finally engaged with AA. He sees my child weekly. I have never had any kind of apology or acknowledgement but leaving was the best thing I could have done for me, my child or my ex. It is a progressive disease. It will only get worse.

I didnt read about alcoholism until after I left but everything resonated when I did - start reading, look at Al Anon.