feeling lost
I have been dating an A for 2.5 years. We dated when I was in college for 2 years and broke up. He was a heavy drinker and at first I didn't mind because, as I said, I was in college. I started to realize he was an A and we ended it. I remember him telling me he didn't want me to go down his same path. That was a wake-up call and I got out. Fast forward five years and we bumped into each other. He's now a bartender and lives above the bar he works at. We started dating again, everything seemed fine. I could tell he seriously cut back on the drinking and thought he had it under control. I moved from another city not only to be with him but to futher my education. I sit here on the wee hours of the morning because I just can't take his drinking anymore and I don't know where to start to find me again and to try not to take his hurtful comments so personally. I feel lost. He told me the other night he drinks because of me and I sobbed. I know it's not me but it was so hard to hear it. Three nights ago I was trying to sleep and I heard him talking to the window AC! He doesn't remember doing that and when I told him the next day he said "well at least it doesn't yell at me."
I attended my first Alanon meeting 2 nights ago and I walked out feeling better, but here I sit as he's passed out in the other bedroom feeling like it's my fault. I am unemployed (though i'm looking) so it's hard to say I'm leaving when funds are low and I don't know many people since I've moved. Tonight, I was surfing the net when he came home and he seemed somewhat sober, afterall he was only at the bar for 3 hours, I was wrong. I have told him I don't like his drinking and I worry about him. He has no problem admitting to others he's an A, afterall he calls himself a "functioning alcoholic", but to me he gets so defensive and mean spirited. I've been called every name in the book, every judgment made (I didn't find out till tonight that he didn't like me wearing my hair in a pony tail!) and mocked because I don't drink around him. I try to stay away from him when he comes home drunk but that doesn't work. He gets mad when I tell him I don't want to talk to him when he's been drinking. I have become an angry, resentful person. It's such a sticky situation since I know I have no other roof over my head. I try to be in bed when he comes home and I've asked him to not wake me if I'm sleeping but he still does. His comeback to my request is "what do you have to do in the morning?" How do I deal with him? How do I at least attempt to tell him I don't want to talk to him when he's been drinking? Is him getting mad at me when I say I don't want to talk to him when he's brrn drinking a form of denial? How do I not take what he says so personally?
It feels so good to be able to write this knowing that there is help out there, knowing that even a kind strangers words may make the biggest impact.