Looking4Clues

Sorry in advance for the length. I’m trying to encompass the last 6 months of my life in one post. Feel free to skim/skip over any extraneous details!

Like the username says, I’ve come here looking for clues into my boyfriend’s behavior. We have been together for 6 months, but have known each other for about 5 years since he is a good friend’s older brother. He had been living in a major city out of the area for the past 10 years and just relocated back home to the suburban area we’re all from last September to be closer to family and because he was ready to settle down (he’s 39). He left Wall Street to start his own investment firm here. We’d always had a thing for each other and just “clicked” so after we reconnected one night last fall at his parents’ house (his sister, my friend, was in town visiting with her 2 children) we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since. He made it very clear from the beginning he’s ready to settle down, wants to do it with me, that I am the girl of his dreams and he can’t believe how lucky he is to have me. He has included me in his family and has made an effort to integrate himself into my family as well. Even though it was only 6 months, I fully thought this was it, he was the One and that we’d be together forever, as we’re both adults, have relationship experience under our belts and know what we want.

I’d known he had a work-hard/play-hard lifestyle before moving back, but I didn’t realize how much of a daily drinker he was until we started dating this past November. I didn’t really notice it at the beginning because it was during the holidays, with what seemed like one social gathering after another (i.e. one excuse to drink after another). There was one instance only about a month into the relationship when he asked me to come over to his place to hang out and spend the night together after a networking event he had to attend. I got to his place around 8:00pm (he’d given me a key a week before this) and he texted me around 9:30 to tell me he was just finishing up, and I expected he would be home within 30 minutes. An hour later, I texted to find out where he was. He answered back to say he and his brother (who is his business partner) went for a quick drink at the hotel bar across from where their event was and would be home soon. Around 12:30, I finally went to bed because I was tired, and expected him to be home shortly. Well, he came stumbling in the door around 2:30am and I heard him pour himself another drink in the kitchen before coming to bed. When he realized I was still awake waiting for him (I was worried), he just said “Oh no, baby! You’re awake?! You’re supposed to be asleep. Oh my God, you deserve so much better than this.” I had never seen him that wasted before - severe, slurred speech and all. He was still drunk when we woke up the next morning around 9:00. The rest of that day he kept saying what a loser he felt like and joked that he needed to go to detox b/c of all the martinis they’d drank. Throughout the rest of the holidays, he drank a lot at various parties and gatherings, but never to this extent again so I wrote it off as a one-off.

A few days before New Year’s he said he wanted to stop drinking in 2018 because he’d read about all these famous successful people who have given up alcohol and gone on to do great things (which resonated with him as an entrepreneur) and also because he thought it would help with his severe sleep issues that seem to go in cycles (every month and a half or so he’ll have a week or two where he’s only sleeping like 2 hrs a night). He didn’t mention AA or anything like that, just wanted to try a “Dry January” to see how he felt. I was fully supportive, as I’m not a big drinker myself. He only made it 3 days w/o alcohol before the anxiety, sweats, irritability, cravings and insomnia set in big time. He had me stay with him to keep an eye on him, and half-joked that I might need to take him to the ER if it got really bad. He also had me run to the pharmacy during this time to buy him OTC sleep aids. I even remember thinking as I was walking through Rite Aid, “Wow, I feel like a codependent wife of an addict right now.” I also found out that he has never gone a SINGLE DAY w/o alcohol in the last 10+ years!! How is that even possible? I can’t imagine drinking 365 days a year. What about when you’re sick?? Anyway, on the third day of Dry January, he caved and ordered a glass of wine when we met up with a mutual friend. He then justified it by saying he’d just add a sober day onto February to make up for it. When we got home that night he had 2 more glasses, and Dry January was nothing more than a joke from that point on.

Fast forward over the next 4 months, there was a major shakeup in the stock market in February (he’s a professional trader) and I nearly broke up with him because his moods became so erratic. He was still sweet and loving with me, but a very selfish side of him emerged. It became very much about his needs, his moods, his comfort. I’m deeply in love with him at this point, so this all triggered my preexisting codependency issues, and I stuck it out. His drinking increased as well during this time, and for the most part he’s maintained what I consider to be an excessive drinking schedule - he has at least 3 large glasses of wine every single evening, often more. On weekends he drinks even more - usually a glass or two of wine before we go out, then 3-4 drinks at dinner, and the big thing I’ve noticed is that no matter how much he drinks while he’s out, even if he is legit drunk when he gets home, he ALWAYS pours himself another glass of wine before bed. He regularly goes through 6-8 bottles of red wine a week.

He’s gone MIA on me for nights here and there where he is unreachable and I have no idea where he’s at/what he’s doing. And a few weeks ago he went MIA for an entire weekend - the first time he’s ever done something like that before. He said he was working but I later found out he’d gone binge drinking Saturday night with his brother and another guy and then he was hungover all day Sunday.

Then two weeks ago I suggested we spend the weekend together because we hadn’t had a quality weekend just the two of us in like a month (we’d been doing a lot with each other’s families for Easter, birthdays etc and I wanted some alone time with him). He was all for it, even planned dinner for us Friday and a bike ride on the beach Saturday afternoon. On the bike ride we stopped at a couple places to eat/grab drinks and his mood quickly went from sunny and loving to irritable and as if he didn’t want to be there with me.

When I told him at the end of the day I couldn’t ride my bike anymore and needed to walk it back b/c I’d been drinking and felt dizzy (I have inner ear issues), he got annoyed and told me “that’s ridiculous, you can ride your bike! We’ve both only had like 2 drinks!” The truth was we both had a triple shot margarita and 2 beers over a 4-hour span. I am a very petite woman so that was a lot for me. And when I insisted I couldn’t ride the bike, he got mad again. So I said “fine just go ahead without me then” (obviously not meaning it) and he took off on his bike down the boardwalk! He had the backpack with all our stuff in it so I was without a wallet or phone. For a good 45 Minute’s I couldn’t catch up to him (as I was walking my bike), I couldn’t even see him that’s how far ahead he was. He never once stopped to wait or come back to walk with me/see if I was ok. I felt like I’d literally been abandoned and had absolutely no idea what I’d done wrong. When I reached the end of the boardwalk, he was there on his bike texting or doing something on his phone. I let him know how messed up it was that he left me and so he said that as soon as we got home if I could drive I should just go back to my place because he was no longer having fun. The whole thing was upsetting and bizarre. I started crying and we eventually made up (but he never said sorry) and ended up having a mellow evening at his place together. But obviously I was still thinking “wtf?” He drank about a bottle of wine after we got home (after all the other alcohol that day).

A few days ago, after what I considered a good week following the bike incident, and we seemed to be back to normal, getting along etc, he called me up Saturday morning to tell me not to waste my time coming up that evening because he just needed to do his own thing. He said he’s been wanting to do his own thing for awhile and that he can’t help how he feels. So now we’re not broken up but not talking and my head is spinning. He was so cold on the phone. I asked if we could talk in person because I felt I deserved more than a phone call after 6 months and talking about marriage and he said “why do you think you deserve that?” All the whole his speech was slurred like he’d been drinking. He then agreed to meet but said “I have to do my own thing today though. My brothers coming over and we’re going to watch the game. Let’s meet up tomorrow and we’ll talk about us.”

He texted the next morning to say can we meet Monday instead because he went to hang out with his scumbag buddy who lives an hour away. He hasn’t seen this guy the entire 6 months we’ve been together, but I’ve heard a lot about him. This friend also works in finance, is 43, never married, goes out/sleeps with with sometimes 2 different women a week (usually paid escorts) and is a heavy drinker. I texted him back that day to say I was busy Monday and that he made it clear he didn’t see a point in talking in person anyway, so no need. He hasn’t responded.

I guess I’m wondering - is this guy an alcoholic? Or just someone who likes to drink? How could someone flip like that? How could he be talking about the house we’re going to buy and “our kids” and all that stuff and then a week later say he just wants to do his own thing?

P.S. He never drinks before 4 or 5pm (unless our to lunch at a restaurant) and he doesn’t get violent or have legal troubles and he’s been very successful in his career