Is this letter to my DP any good?

[AmcryingbecauseIloveyou]

Below is a letter I intend to give to my DP tomorrow. I'd like to know if anyone could give me some feedback, how they'd feel if they got this, anything I could rephrase/omit/make clearer?

There are a lot of things I want to say so it seemed easier to just write it all down and give it to him. Also less risk of getting emotional (I cry at the drop of a hat!)

Thanks in advance

So it begins:

Dear DP,

I love you and want to be with you always. I am committed to us, and believe we are a good match for one and other, and want us to work through everything together.

I have thought long and hard about this situation, and the only thing that is in every way non-negotiable with me in our relationship is the issue of your drinking.
I acknowledge you have worked incredibly hard to change this, both for your own personal reasons and also to appease my feelings. But the situation is still not resolved, because on some occasions it still creates a problem in our relationship. It is not acceptable to drink to excess, to the level you do on rare occasions, and I will not tolerate it happening again. I know a lot of people struggle with it, but it is just not something I am capable of accepting anymore. If it happens again, that will be enough for me.

Other than this, I am very happy in our relationship. I love you very much and think you are very considerate and loving. I am so grateful how you provide so much for me and offer me so much commitment.

I need to work on:

• -Considering your feelings when I make judgments about your family and your career/job / work relationships
• Supporting you in your decisions in relation to your career
• Being so anxious about our relationship and consequentially letting this anxiety effect my mood
• Stop being so dramatic / unnecessarily emotional and letting any situation elevate into a full-blown crisis
• Try not to go over and over the same things (though I do this as a result of my anxiety, I appreciate it is stressful for you).

I think these are the things that effect you the most, but I would really like it if you could give me your own list, so I can take in everything you need from me.

I would like it if you would:

• Continue to address your drinking
• Work towards being more attentive to details and planning and sharing the responsibility for these things. It feels like a burden sometimes to be the only person who seems to be worried about the how, when, how much aspects of the plans we make together
• Work on being better with our money (and your contributions to that)
• Try to remain as calm as you can when we discus things that are stressful. For example, our plans for mid year ? even though I know I do ask you about this a lot.

I am not trying to make you, nor do I want you to feel as if all our problems belong to you. You support me much better than I support you. I think we contribute equally to what works and what doesn?t work with us.

I love you, I will always love you. This is a particularly hard time for us, but not in terms of our relationship, I don?t think, more so in terms of the situation we find ourselves in. But I am prepared and believe we can get through this time if we communicate better together.

Now then, there's a can of worms if ever I saw one!

I wouldn't put consequentially I would say consequently.

I'll neither encourage or discourage your handing your dp the letter... just wish you the very best that it strikes a chord in him and you both move on from the place you find yourselves in harmoniously.

Thank you for replying wabbit - not the most eloquent thing I've ever written as I'm up long past my bed time.

hope he takes it oook.

I should add for any one else that reads - we are currently living in separate countries and visiting for a month a time a few times a year, so everything is emotionally heightened / more difficult.

I think it's a good letter, and I think a letter is a good idea. I've recently done something similar and it was productive.

You are the best judge of this but my only reservation is that you put your "jobs" in the relationship first.

Maybe you could try saying "we both have jobs in the relationship" (I'm paraphrasing obviously but you seem very articulate so you will know how to put it) but then putting his responsibilities first.

I say this because I am cross on your behalf -- as the last thing on your list ("going over things") sounds like nagging, basically. But if he is being a little bit passive aggressive about the other stuff then your "nagging" will only be an attempt to get some reaction, to get him to listen to you, and you shouldn't be apologising for it.

I am no marriage guidance counsellor so please please take all this with a big pinch of salt.

How much is he actually drinking and WHY he is drinking to excess?. There are always reasons and he alone can only address those. He may ultimately choose not to, can end up losing everything and still carry on drinking. There are no guarantees here. He cannot do this to appease your feelings; he has to want to do this for his own self. You cannot make him stop drinking much as you'd like to.

How is he continuing to address his drinking, has he made real attempts with outside help to address this?. If he has write that down in your letter.

With regards to this point in your letter:-
"Being so anxious about our relationship and consequentially letting this anxiety effect my mood"
You're anxious most likely because of his drinking and the effects from this. He has caused you to feel like that in the first place.

I ask as well how is he exactly supporting you?. Think you are carrying him as well as you.

You also sound like you're enabling him (how many excuses have you made for him to date?) which is what most people in these situations end up doing. You can communicate till the cows come home but he has to do the legwork here and if he does not want to, no amount of pleading from you will make him change his mind. Whether your letter will actually make any difference or not is another matter entirely (it probably won't but you probably feel like you need to do something).

You should also be looking at other support for your own self as he is actually not best placed to help you - as you are not best placed to help him. Al-anon for instance are very good at working with family members of problem drinkers.

I think you need to define excessive drinking. 'It is not acceptable to drink to excess, to the level you do on rare occasions, and I will not tolerate it happening again.'

Almost guaranteed that what you see as excessive, he doesn't. So, tell him what this looks like. Is it when he gets angry/emotional/abusive after drinking?

And, if he has an issue with drink shouldn't it be that he doesn't drink ANY at all?