Yesterday: Found Alcohol in My Wife's Trunk
Hello everyone and thank you for reading. Yesterday I think my growing concerns were confirmed. I didn't sleep last night. I actually stayed on the couch, feeling unsupportive of my wife as she slept alone upstairs. I guess I was torn between the hurt and shock of deception and my love and concern for my wife.
Let me explain. We both drink but she probably drinks 5 times a week. I'm a stay/work at-home dad and probably drink once a week. She's a fantastic mother and dedicated wife. Very hard working and very high functioning. But I'm growing concerned, and quickly. (I hope I'm making too big of a deal out of it all.)
Timeline:
Dec 2013 - We go out with friends and get in a pretty big disagreement. The next day she doesn't remember much from it.
Aug 2014 - We went to a wedding and had a great time. Until it was time to go and I no longer recognized my wife. It was eerily similar to what happened several months earlier. She was consumed with anger inappropriately directed towards me.
Dec 2014 - An obscene amount of beer & wine is consumed and she claimed to have dumped some of it out, but admitted to drinking heavily. Said she would be more careful about it.
Jan 2015 - Yesterday, I found beer & unopened wine in her trunk. She had a taillight out and I had just picked up a replacement bulb. She says it's from December and that she'd "forgotten all about it being in there." This occurrence seems to fall about 10 days after the time she said she'd "be more careful with drinking."
It turns out she drank the beer while driving home from work. The excuse is that her job is very stressful around the holidays, and that she recognizes the big mistake. My concern is the overall growing frequency and amount in which she drinks. Usually, it's minimal. But throw in a party, or extreme stress, and clearly self-destructive decisions can be made.
Questions:
1. What is my role in this?
2. Does my drinking have impact on her? I don't drink often, but when I do drink socially I can consume quite a bit.
3. Should I be concerned with her hiding alcohol?
4. How to I overcome the hurt of being deceived?
5. Am I forgetting something or jumping to conclusions?
She left the conversation by telling me she wouldn't drink for awhile. I didn't really say much as I wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't sure if an avenue like that could just make her work harder to try and hide it. Thanks for reading. I'm sure if I spent more time around the forum I could find some of this information but right now I just really needed to tell someone. As it's too early to reach out to my family or friends. As I don't want her to be wrongly judged, or whatever. Thanks again.