I guess I'm naive for feeling optimistic that these words will finally work? Perhaps my optimism is because I know then that I'll have given everything, with absolutely nothing left.
I wrote this last night after one beer and two and a half bottles of wine. Stopped myself from sending it until I was happy with the words, which I've now finished. Shoud I bother? She'll pass out 3-4 times a week so I'll get a chance soon enough but at what point do I give up?
Please look at this, as many times as you can. This is you right now tonight, but could have been any one of many nights in the past five years. I haven't even been able to wake you so have come to bed alone having written this with you passed out next to me yet again.
This is the person I can't live with. This is the person I won't live with. I love the person I spend the day with and absolutely hate who comes out at night. You drink too often, and when you drink you drink too much. And when you are drunk you are argumentative and belligerent, you slur when you talk, and you stagger around asking me the same questions and shouting at the kids, and then more often than not you pass out on the sofa like you have again tonight.
Just so there is no misunderstanding I will not spend my life with this person. Someone who makes me so unhappy, night after night. Someone with whom I have begged, pleaded, and threatened again and again, over many years, but who hasn't controlled her drinking. Someone who has promised me more times than I can even remember that she'll control things, only to end up back where she was.
This is not an accusation, it is a statement of fact. You have a problem with alcohol. And of all the people in the world, I'm the one affected by it. It's not a little bit too much, every week or so, it's not a small glass to take the edge off a tough day. It's glass after glass, bottle after bottle, night after night. Empty bottles dumped on the fridge, thrown out the window, hidden on the windowsill. You're a staggering, slurring, argumentative wreck, a shell of a person, night after night, week after week, passing out leaving me alone, emotionally at least, often with me going to bed alone like tonight because if I try to wake you up you mumble something incoherent and pass out again. I hate to admit this, but sometimes I just can't be bothered so just leave you. How does it feel waking up on the sofa knowing you've passed out and I've gone to bed? Surely awful, but you keep doing it. Why are you doing this to me?
I know that you don't chose to drink so much, and am trying hard not to take it personally despite all the times I have pleaded, begging and even threatened you, desperately hoping you'll cut down, and despite the fact that I am the one most horribly affected by your behaviour. I know that because you are chemically dependent your body has a compulsion to drink, which I recognise must be immensely challenging for you. Having noticed you drink until you pass out, and then get up the next morning and tip wine away, only to go back out and buy and then drink more, means I know you must agree with this position, perhaps hating who you become, probably wanting to do something about it, but struggling to fight the urges.
I thought there had been a breakthrough in May when you finally accepted you had a problem and when you admitted you hated who you became and as you promised to do something about it. But it's now just as bad again, although in light of that recognition and in light of those promises, things for me now feel even worse as I also feel so let down and terrified by the prospect of having to continue to live with the person you become 3, 4, 5, 6, or sometimes even 7 times a week. Well actually, I'm not really terrified of that anymore because I know I can't put up with this. So, right now, I'm more terrified about the pain and anguish for all four of us if you don't beat this and I buy myself a house.
I really will do everything in my power to help you, but I can't stop you drinking too much, only you can control that. You have to accept the problem AND want to do something about AND actually do something about it. Unless you can do all three of these things, with my help, or with the help of friends, or with the help from a professional and / or from a support group then I will not tolerate this. It's a blunt as that. The love and compassion I feel for you during the day is simply not strong enough to enable me to deal with the stress, anger and frustration of living with who you become night after night.
The fact that I still hate the effect your drinking has on me is why I can't come back onto the mortgage, and won't until I know you've beaten this for good. I need that money, bluntly, in case you don't beat this and I need to buy my own house.
Please let me know what I can do to help you, please talk to me, and please seek help if you don't feel able to tackle this on your own, but if you don't beat it, with or without my help, and without or without any other help, there won't be any more messages like this. Love you x