How to approach?
This may get long so please hang in there!
My husband stopped drinking about 12 years ago. He was doing super well and our son has no memories of him drinking. Well....at Thanksgiving time, roughly, he asked me how mad would I be if he had a couple of drinks to "unwind" that weekend.
I know how I have reacted in the past so I stated simply, I am not your mom, I will not tell you that you can or cannot have some. He's a grown man and needs to make his own decisions on that but I'm not clear why after 12 years he feels the needs to drink. So he made the choice to drink that night (hiding it and his bottle from our son).
As you can probably guess, his drinking has progressively gotten worse. He's about 1/2 bottle a night but I may be wrong on that.
I've been very proud of how I have handled the situation, I haven't nagged, I haven't said a word or anything about it. He knows how I feel and why I feel that way.
However, he didn't go to work today and my guess is either he had too much last night or he is drinking now. I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize I know how much he has been using again and he thinks our son is clueless. He continues to hide his bottles and pour it into his pop bottles.
I guess I'm at a point where I need to say something to him...but I'm not sure what or how. That is the help I need. How do I approach this and I don't want to be the one who is his excuse as I've been using my steps to help myself but I do need to give him my boundaries and I need to make sure he knows I'm aware of it and not in agreement. I don't mean that the wrong way, I don't want to nag, I'm not going to give permission or tell him not to. I just want him to know that I'm concerned it's getting out of hand and what my boundaries are.
He's not an easy person to talk to about anything and he likes to just turn his head the other way about any problem and I'd really like to get my feelings and thoughts out without it being some huge fight.
The reality is, he's going to do what he's going to do but at the same time, I feel like it's time to at least let him know what my feelings are.....not even sure that is the right approach but I do feel like something needs to be said.
Thanks in advance!