Jules89

Ok so here goes my first post. I’ve been with my partner for 3 years. We moved in together a year ago and have three children between us (1 living with us and 1 about to move in - both mine. Other is his living with mum). Alcohol has always been a huge part of his life. He spent 9 years in the army (not involved with him during his service), have heard the stories, and his family are big drinkers. Alcohol for me has always been social or occasional and I’ve never struggled with it (except for 2 years ago when I recognised I was using it as a stress reliever due to sever bullying in the work place) but I quickly nipped that in the bud! My drinking has definitely increased during our relationship but not to a point where I am concerned for myself. I will have a glass or two of wine with dinner a few time’s a week, other days I don’t touch it. If I have the day off work I will sit in the garden with a glass during the afternoon but always stop at my limit, I am by no means perfect and I do suffer the very rare hangover, maybe once or twice a year. I have a horrible fear of hangovers and they are just not worth it anymore. That is the extent of it for me. My partner showed erratic behaviour early on into the relationship, would cancel our plans last minute to be with his friends instead, lie to me about his whereabouts (nothing dodgy so please no nasty comments). He would tell me he was at work but actually down the pub! Of course all this behaviour in the beginning appeared to be cheating, but it wasn’t. I have suffered trust issues since this but have worked with him over the years to regain that which was successful. He was aware something was wrong in his life but couldn’t figure it out. With it being early into our relationship I didn’t know him well enough to realise it was anxiety and depression. It took him lying to me to go out on massive benders to realise what the issue was, which is where he then went to get diagnosed with it officially. He began medication and still takes it to this day and began therapy. He has come on an incredible journey and in general anxiety and depression is at bay. He is the sweetest person and we have a very happy and wonderful life together. He loves me so much, and likewise. But he still drinks. He drinks to excess and doesn’t know when to stop. I want to be clear that he has NEVER been abusive, physically or mentally. He is in fact the complete opposite when drinking, he is even more loving and caring! Which is why this confuses me! He has a tendency to become a little argumentative or take things the wrong way when he’s had a drink. It’s never big things but perhaps a comment that’s perceived in the way it wasn’t intended. If this is the case I have always apologised for coming across wrong and I correct myself with my original intention. Of course when he’s been drinking he won’t have any of it or accept my apology. When this happens I step back and keep myself to myself until the next day and we talk and make up when everything is making a bit more sense. His drinking has landed him in some trouble which has resulted in punch ups and loss of friends because of this. Not that he is always at fault, he has had some questionable friends and has said he’s a lot happier without them. He feels strong loyal ties to these people because he met them in the army and sees them more as brothers, but with a little more understanding he realises that they were not good for him. Anyway, when these situations have occurred he would call me on the phone in tears telling me he can’t do this anymore and doesn’t want to be here which as I’m sure you can understand has been so distressing especially when these incidents have happened far from home. Earlier this year the drinking was getting out of control again, he would go out and not come home until 4am! One night he was robbed because he thinks everyone he meets out is his friend! He lost a lot of money, all of his cards which had massive withdrawals on it! A lot of the time he’d come home with the person he went out with (not the ones he met) and fall asleep on the sofa with the kids having to come down to see their step dad/dad and his mate passed out drunk on our sofa, snoring, making very loud, uncomfortable noises in their sleep! I have had to shimmy the children through one at a time to have their breakfast on the floor in the kitchen (small house, they usually eat at the coffee table in the living room) and then send them back upstairs again! Giving them excuses ‘oh haha your dad must have fallen asleep on the sofa again’!! One night he passed out on the floor in the kitchen and it’s just become a nightmare! He has been quite disrespectful of me, going out with his male friend, meeting girls on nights out and acting single. He denies this of course but I hear their conversations when they get back of ‘how fit were those girls we were with’ 🙄

Anyway, all that stopped, probably largely due to lock down. In February I encouraged a complete detox of alcohol and we threw out all our drink and everything was amazing, he promised me a sober 2020 and things were going to get back on track. And then lockdown happened. And it has just got progressively worse. I suggest we start running and stop drinking, and we did, we ran for a couple of weeks until I injured myself (unrelated) and he went to the pub for leaving drinks and the drinking has continued. He doesn’t drink every day (I know this is a common trait even for alcoholics) as he works shifts and work has a strict no drugs or alcohol policy. He did try to go to work one night (he had booked it off but then we fell out) and I had to stop him as he clearly wasn’t ok to drive or work, luckily I managed to stop him! He has missed a few shifts he was due to work as he was having too much fun sitting in the sunshine with a drink. He was supposed to work the other night but he had a few drinks in the afternoon (said he’d be fine after a sleep) we had a small fall out and he said he couldn’t sleep so went to the pub instead, which is where he stayed for the next 5 hours. Missed work. It’s safe to say I’ve really had enough, But the thing that is bothering me recently is that he gets himself so drunk, he sleep walks when he needs a wee and 5 times out of 5 (the actual total I have counted in the 3 years) he never makes it to the toilet! This has happened twice at a hotel (once by himself, second time I stupidly cleaned up after him) once at his old place and twice in OUR home. The second time he was so drunk he didn’t even manage to sleep walk to the airing cupboard, he did it on the sofa in his sleep. I’m embarrassed for him, but we have a home with 3 children. We are in our 30’s and I cannot accept the fact that this is normal!? How has life come to be accepting ridiculous behaviour such as this? I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or just venting. I’m lost and confused. I have read a few posts here and understand alcoholism is a progressive disease, now what terrifies me is if it’s like this now, what will it be like in the future?

Everything is perfect when he’s not drinking or has only had a few, we love our life and we make each other so happy. We know how to communicate like adults when we don’t see eye to eye, we are loving and supportive always. I can not fault his intentions and morals. We have had discussions around his relationship with alcohol but no ones ever said alcoholic. What do I do? 😞 thanks for reading if you made it this far, I hope I’ve made sense