Derbygirl

I'll try to keep this short. Try!

So my husband loves to drink. He's gotten in trouble with the law and done some pretty stupid things while drunk. We've been married for about a year and a half and it's been the hardest year and a half of my life.

The fact that the army moved us to Texas from my home, Washington, doesn't help one bit. I'm painfully homesick as are my 4 kids. Also, he is set to deploy to Afghanistan in December and I am dreading being here alone with no friends or family and 4 kids to take care of, alone. Especially if when I think in the back of my mind that our marriage isn't what it should be and I could be sitting here, sacrificing my current happiness for an empty hope of future happiness.

We have come up on problems in our marriage that may or may not have anything to do with his drinking (intimacy issues due to my low sex drive), and I have put it out on the table that I can't stand his drinking anymore. At that point he wouldn't agree to quit completely but to only drink weekends and only beer. He say's that it's his "right" to drink and asking him to quit drinking is like trying to take away his masculinity. He still puts away a 30 pack over the weekend, easily, and doesn't get "drunk". He never gets violent or stupid at that level of drinking but rather he gets into his "fun" mood.

Up until I put my foot down last week , he would buy beer even if we had little-to-no money for groceries. Luckily my anti-depressant has kicked in and I have an easier time rationalizing and taking a stand! Anyway, life feels a lot more normal now and I feel like if life stayed at this level, I could tolerate it.

It does however still bother me that my kids (all are his step kids) see this regular drinking and see that he uses it to put him into a different mood. He argues to this point that it's not like he is an ******* when he isn't drinking, which is true.

I still worry too that the alcohol, like it has before, will creep back in and get worse. This change in him over the past week seems way more sincere than past attempts to 1) cut back, and 2) make sure that we take care of necessities before his luxuries (beer and cigarettes). I still have an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude that he can see. At the same time I have been telling him how nice it's been to have my husband back. Am I being naive in thinking he can cut back his drinking? If I am, please tell me outright. Should I leave his ass and save myself and kids while I can? Give me the truth, even if it's gonna hurt.


Thanks so much!
P.S. No need to suggest Al Anon because I'm doing that.

Florence

Yep!

Normal social drinkers don't upset their families with their drinking. Normal social drinkers (with FIVE children!) don't spend the last of the grocery money on beer. Normal social drinkers, if they were told that their drinking was harming the family, would not have much issue with quitting.

parallel

Hello Derbygirl, I get you. It can be quite confusing to deal with mixed situations such as the one you are currently experiencing. Things seem to be relatively under control but you can’t help having a feeling of restlessness and worry.

From a distance it doesn’t seem like a happy situation, when you say the years of your marriage have been the hardest, that you feel worried and lonely away from home, and your husband doesn’t support you psychologically, still engaging in drinking, even if ‘moderately’. Frankly, if you feel that his drinking is a problem – or even if you have a gut feeling that it might just turn out wrong sooner or later – you should examine the situation.

Like Florence said, normal social drinkers don’t upset their families with their drinking… your worry is a warning sign!

And you are right about protecting your kids from a drinking environment, and should also protect yourself.

Of course it's tempting to lovingly accept the apparent change, to "believe"..
But I guess that when someone changes for good you get to "feel" it through concrete, long lasting actions, if you feel finally safe, happy and relaxed, for good. I don't know if that can happen if the drinks continue...

lillamy

It's difficult when you WANT it to work so bad. It's easy to tell yourself "it's not really that bad" because [insert sentence of choice here, for example: "he doesn't get mean" or "he doesn't hit me" or "he doesn't yell at the kids" or "he doesn't kill people" or "at least he's not doing meth" or "he hasn't run over anyone while driving drunk yet"].

The thing is... in our heart of hearts, we know something isn't right. We know this is not the life we want. And yet, we try to talk ourselves out of it, because the alternative -- leaving? uprooting the kids? again? finding a job, can I find a job in this economy? will we live in poverty? etc -- that's frightening.

You say you've been married for a year. After a year of marriage, I was still worrying and wondering. But I shut that feeling off and down, more and more. I spent 20 years in an alcoholic marriage because I fought my gut feeling that this was wrong.

You have choices.

Derbygirl

Life without being sure I will ever be happy is killing me. Will I ever get to be happy?

I crave being on my own to "regroup" and think things over but he tells me that if I go home while he's deployed will mean the end of us.

Hello disparity.

Learn2Live

An alcoholic "cutting back" accomplishes nothing. Alcoholism is a disease that progresses unless the drinking is stopped completely. He will return to the same level of drinking as before, sooner or later. And I'm betting sooner.

This is completely your own decision, no one else's. But in my opinion, yes.

NWGRITS

Plenty of spouses go home during deployment. I can't because the only place I'd go is to where my AM lives, and I'm NC with her. But anyway, put yourself and your kids first. It seems like the military life usnt really for you anyway, if you're horribly homesick. Moving is what we sign up for when we marry a man in uniform. You did not, however, sign up for the abuse and the living hell that is being with an alcoholic. Get out while you can. You're not safe there.