Married to a functioning alcoholic.
Posted , 13 users are following.
Please somebody help me. I have been married to my husband for 20 years. He has always enjoyed a drink, maybe 3/4 cans of lager after work, over the years it has increased to a bottle of wine and 4 cans every day. I worked out over a week he is having 100 units. His behaviour is disgusting, he's weed the bed, wet himself on the sofa, the list is endless. Myself and our boys have pleaded with him to stop, he won't admitt he has a problem. I've threatened to leave him and he'll go a couple of nights without drinking, but the excuses always creep back in. What do i do? I'm now on antidepressants and having councelling, I'm not sure i even love him anymore, please somebody help me.
2 likes, 98 replies
tess33005 alice80348
Posted
Alice, it seems to me that there are very stark choices when someone lives with a partner who has AUD.
You either decide to stay, because you know he is ill, and you love him and want to help him.................or you leave.
It sounds to me like you'd prefer to leave, if you could get your head round all the chaos that would entail. You're a young woman and it may bn-up chie a pity that you stay with him because you feel sorry for him. That is no basis for a relationship. Only you know if you truly still love him.
So, if you DO still truly love him, start going to Al-Anon and meet other men and women who are in your situation. Your grown-up children can also go. You will get a lot of support and if you do decide to stay with him, you will get a better understanding of how you can cope with his illness. You will also, of course, get a lot of help in keaving, if you actually decide to do that. I am worried that you wrote that your two children will be leaving the parental home next week, and you are dreading it.
Something has to change. Either your husband embarks on a course of treatment, or you get more and more miserable and desperate. You may, for all I know, alrready be thinking how much of your life you have wasted being with your husband.
My husband has AUD and I decided to stick with him because I still love him very much. That may be what you are feeling?
I think you need to examine your options, based on your true feelings.
Tess xx
RHGB tess33005
Posted
"My husband has AUD and I decided to stick with him because I still love him very much."
Tell me Tess, did you think he'd ever change whilst he had a hole in his bottom? Did he change when you changed tack?
tess33005 RHGB
Posted
Hello RH,
I never thought he'd change.
But when I changed tack, I realised that he was beginning to change, so I carried on with my changing tack ways of dealing with things, and the more I did that, the more he changed. He drank nothing for a month very recently.
Then we went on holiday to Scotland and he announced that he intended to drink whilst we were there. So I just said, Okay, You'll enjoy the holiday more if you have a couple of cans each day.........then I changed the subject.
While we were in Blairgowrie, he drank three cans a day.
On the drive home he announced that he intended to be sober again when we returned home, and had a plan to ease himself off the three cans...........so I just said, That sounds like a good idea........and changed the subject to the never-ending story of our malfunctioning Sat-Nav.
He's drinking two cans a day at the moment. I don't comment at all. When I used to, he got angry and told me I was treating him like a child.
He was right.
I hope that answers your question!!
gwen45436 tess33005
Posted
ADEfree tess33005
Posted
ADEfree tess33005
Posted
"... he got angry and told me I was treating him like a child."
Which would be a bad road for him to relive.
tess33005 ADEfree
Posted
joel66 tess33005
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Robin2015 alice80348
Posted
alice80348
Posted
Thank you to each and every one of you that have replied to my desperate plea for help, I have read every single one, apologies if if I haven't replied individually, but believe me, I have taken it all on board. I really appreciate all of the comments and thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly hope you can all find some kind of peace from this craziness. I have never posted anything on our line before and I'm overwhelming by the support from total strangers. I hope whatever happens in my situation that one day I can offer help, guidance and advice to people I our situation. Once again, thank you all, I'll keep you posted with my progress. Xxx
Misssy2 alice80348
Posted
I hope you do keep us posted...but if you don't...or can't...please remember YOU deserve to be happy...you do love this man but that does not mean that you deserve a lifetime of chains to a life of suffering.
You can always love someone from a distance.....I wish you the very best....and him as well.
alice80348
Posted
Hello everyone, I just thought I'd give you an update on how things are. I reached a decision that enough is enough for me, while I do love my husband i just can't carry on living my life in this way. We have put the house up for sale and are going to go our seperate ways. We are still friends and we made the decision to tell the extended family we've just grown apart. I have some very up and some very down days, I know I've made the right decision, we are currently on holiday, our last together ( was a gift for his 50th birthday) and every night he goes out drinking, the earliest he has come home is 4am and the latest 7.30am, what more is there to say really? I just hope one day he realises and accepts he's got a problem and gets help.
Thank you all for your support, take care, Alice.
olivo alice80348
Posted
RHGB alice80348
Posted
Good luck for the future Alice. Very hard decision given your circumstances. Some might say good riddance, but I don't think they understand the difficulty in walking away, especially if you don't actually hate the person and can remember happy times prior to the drink taking over. It would make it easier if you actually despised or hated the other person. You will go through a whole range of emotions, hate, regret, remorse, anger, the list goes on.
I'm afraid the only healer, is time, lots of it. It will get better and in time, maybe look for some else, to share life with.
alice80348 olivo
Posted
Oh Olivia, it's just incredibly sad isn't it? When you can see them destroying themselves and the love you have for them, mine has ebbed away for years. We have to be strong because there isn't anything we can do but watch, it breaks my heart. You take care my love, best wishes. Xxx
alice80348 RHGB
Posted
Yes, you're spot on, if only I could hate him it would be so much easier, but I don't, I'm not exactly sure what my feeling are, some kind of love and deep caring. I feel so sad it's come to this. I'm absolutely terrified of the emotions that face me as the house sells and we move in our seperate directions, most of the time it's all I think about. In the meantime he just carries on regardless, in fact he has gone out now, I've no idea what time of the morning he'll return.
Anyway, thank you so much for your replies, enough of my moaning!! Take care. Xxx
olivo alice80348
Posted
Keep us posted Alice on how you're doing - good or bad. We're here to listen. Rant away! Xx
RHGB alice80348
Posted
Eventually you will get some semblance of life back, you will move forward and life will get better. But you will always look back with a sadness and question yourself, it is only human nature.
No doubt, you will have some supportive friends, who willl help you through the next period. Your only problem, is that they might try to demonise him in an effort to think that they are helping you, this is quite natural.
It is probably a bit too early, but quite soon, you need to scribble down a plan. Of how you are going to cope, emotionally/financially - whichever. And also, most importantly, what you want from the future, which is perhaps, someone to grow old with.
gwen45436 alice80348
Posted
That is the tragic irony of AUD - it can take over your body and mind completely. Your patience has not won him round which is sad.
Thank you for sharing your worries and thoughts with us. We will still be here for a chat anyway for you.
God bless.
G. x
gwen45436 RHGB
Posted
This is the kind of human nature I love and treasure.
Alice will always have you and all of us.
G.