PerSe

Hi everyone, after a few brief posts in 2015, it's been quite a long time since I've posted or visited these boards. I guess I've been working on making it just work with my DH whom I love and who is a great dad to our two kids. I want to keep this fairly brief and not too deep but I am hoping for some feedback on something that just happened.

DH was out playing catch (using a hard baseball) with our 9 year old DS after drinking 1/2 bottle of wine. He accidentally hit DS in the jaw with the ball. After tears and an ice pack I confronted DH by saying maybe it's not a good idea to play fastball catch after drinking a bottle of wine. Big time my mistake since it was only half a bottle he drank tonight. (Not every night, but on drinking nights 2-3x per week, it's usually two.)

Anyway I cannot tell if I am just being controlling or something or if I have a legit observation on this. Is 1/2 bottle too much to be playing fastball catch with a 9 year old?

Thanks for reading.

PerSe

AnvilheadII

DH was out playing catch (using a hard baseball) with our 9 year old DS after drinking 1/2 bottle of wine. He accidentally hit DS in the jaw with the ball. After tears and an ice pack I confronted DH by saying maybe it's not a good idea to play fastball catch after drinking a bottle of wine. Big time my mistake since it was only half a bottle he drank tonight. (Not every night, but on drinking nights 2-3x per week, it's usually two.)

your child was hurt. doesn't matter why, how, or by whom.....your CHILD was HURT. nothing else matters.

but a drunk ADULT throwing a hard baseball at a child is NEVER a good idea. a drunk adult throwing ANYTHING at a child is wrong.

PerSe

Thank you for your perspective.

LexieCat

Well, I don't know how dangerous catch is, in and of itself. Accidents like this are likely to happen even without drinking.

I'd be more concerned about the effects of living in the house with an alcoholic whose drinking is progressing. You told him a couple of years ago that you would "not live with binge drinking." And there you and the kids still are, and he's drinking more, and more often, than he was then.

How about you? Are you still sober? Did you ever get to Al-Anon?

PerSe

Hi LexieCat, thanks for your reply. I remember you from before. Oh gosh, where to start! I can say that, yes, I am still sober. So that is a positive thing. I went to Al-Anon a few times in 2014-early 2015 but kind of just stopped going.

Too much to cover it all in one post probably, but he does still binge drink 2-3 nights per week mostly after the boys have gone to bed. (Or am I just making a big deal out of nothing??) It's usually 2 bottles of wine. He also has what seems to be fairly severe psoriatic arthritis and says the wine helps the pain. We no longer sleep in the same bed, ostensibly because our bed hurts his back. (We talk about getting a new mattress but then we don't and I am fine with it this way.)

The thing is the boys ADORE him and he is a great father and partner in many ways. Even though I have lost most of my affectionate feelings for him I feel like staying together is best for the kids at this time. Probably not smart I know, I quit my job in 2015 so that I could be more available to the kiddos. So while we've had 2 great summers off together and they don't have long hours in daycare before/after school, I have no income source even if I wanted to leave. I am working to change that so that I have the freedom to choose that option if I decide to.

That's us in a nutshell. Thank goodness for anonymity because I could never say this in my day to day life.

It's going to be rough for a while now since I confronted him about the baseball thing.

Thank you again for your reply.

PerSe

dandylion

PerSe.....I agree that it would be an important step to return to work. It makes you much more independent. In addition, returning to alanon would give you the much needed emotional support....in a place where you can safely express yourself......

dandylion

PerSe.....I see that, in the past, you have had a therapist and have been to AA....
I am glad of that, because it means that you already know where you can get support....
One thing that I wonder...if you grew up in a home with any alcoholism or some other kind of severe dysfunction....The reason I mention this is that Adult Children of Alcoholics can be very , very helpful for dealing with the effects that this can have on a person.....

PerSe

Hi and thanks dandelion. Yes it is true I identify with lots of the traits of adult children of alcoholics. I will continue moving toward getting employed and getting back into alanon, possiblyACA. Appreciate the replies.

PerSe

hearthealth

Accidents do happen. What if he was driving on a car alone and a car accident happens. It sounds like you are trying to establish a boundary that your husband does not want to listen to. Wishing you the best.

Mountainmanbob

These things do happen but, seem to happen more often when one is drinking. I would only take it as a sign -- something to be on guard for in the future. If the problems persist and drinking seems to be a common denominator -- a drinking problem has been noted.

Drinking 1/2 of a bottle of wine while playing ball is not a good idea.

M-Bob

VigilanceNow

PerSe... You are not making a big deal out of nothing! Drinking half a bottle of wine is a LOT! Of course mistakes happen, but we all know they happen with much higher frequency and severity when we attempt to do things after drinking. Why shouldn't you say these things in your everyday life? You're a concerned parent and wife. You have every right to stand up for yourself and your sons!

CaptainM

Hi PerSe - nice to meet you! I am no professional, just a friend on SR, but what you wrote concerns me, "it's going to be rough for a while now since I confronted him..." what do you mean? Is he a threat? Please take care of yourself and your sons!

You're also NOT making a big deal about nothing. Binge drinking is not something to be taken lightly.

I hope you do what is right for you - sending you (((hugs)))

soberandhonest

I'm getting my 8 yo ready for baseball, and, in my stone cold sober state, I've hit him more than once with a baseball. I switched to the softer baseball just for this reason. I don't want to hit him, but he needs to learn the game, and getting hit with a ball comes with the territory.

None of that changes the fact that there are significant issues with raising a child in an alcoholic household. Nor do I mean to suggest that drinking did not play a role in the specific incident. If it did, and it could have, then that is an obvious problem.

maia1234

PS,
Glad you are back and good questions. My question to you is, is this the marriage you want for the rest of your life? You are room mates, not husband and wife. You can only live like that for how long? What I didn't realize for my 34 years with my addict, is that alcoholism is progressive, it will only get worse. I thought I could handle everything as I had, forever!!

I agree with the other posters you need to take charge of your life. Your kids love their Dad but those little bouts of "anger" will come out more and more, slowly so you have no idea how this even happened. The kids will see the anger, the kids will hear the fights. Kids are not stupid and even young, they know that something was up.

Seek out support for you so you have the strength to move on in your life. You joined here almost 2 years ago. Is your marriage the same , gotten better or worse?

PerSe

Hi maia1234,

Thank you. You are right it is like we are roommates. It is becoming clearer that I need to return to therapy and go to some alanon meetings. The marriage is about the same as before I guess. (I have kept myself distracted from thinking on it too often or too deeply.) We are kind of co-parenting under the same roof. I have lost so much affection, attraction, and frankly respect for DH over the years. It all erodes away bit by bit every time he binge drinks. But he is the kind of guy who really is a good partner - he assumes equal parenting responsibility, wants the best for our boys, gladly cooks dinner on many if not most nights with the clean up always being a team effort. He fixes stuff. He volunteers as a den leader in the Cub Scout pack (hates it, regrets it, grumbles about it.) he unofficially stands in as an assistant coach for the boys baseball teams. He supports any endeavor I've ever had. He tells me how happy he is in our family life. I mean he really is a great person in so many ways. So maybe I am just a controlling @$&:; to be so deeply concerned and put off by him just drinking a few bottles of wine per week. Or maybe under it all is a person with the emotional maturity of about a 18 year old who wants nothing more out of life than to have a cozy nest where he can binge drink a few times a week. Or maybe both.

Sasha1972

Binge drinking 2-3 nights a week doesn't sound like a minor matter to me. And it is clearly having negative consequences - he hit your kid with a hardball when drunk (and whether it was half a bottle of wine or a full bottle doesn't matter, the point is not to drink and then do things which are potentially harmful). You also say your respect and liking for for him is ebbing away, which is not good. He may indeed be a good father, helpful partner, nice guy, etc, but not someone you should be married to if he won't stop binge drinking.

Your scenario sounds a bit like the boiling frog, in which the temperature keeps getting turned up and up slowly so that you almost don't notice it, until one day you realize you're boiling. The comment about "losing respect" rang a bell for me.

I know that at the end of my 20+ year marriage to an alcoholic, he accused me of "not respecting him". At the time I thought that was wrong, but in hindsight I think he was right. I had seen too much of his behavior (stumbling, slurring, smelling of alcohol in the morning, lying about his drinking, blaming everyone, increasingly bizarre actions). It took me a long time to move from a place of looking down on him for being such a mess to a place of having some empathy for him, even though I am still angry that he continues to drink and and behave destructively towards me and others. If I had left the marriage earlier, before I had seen him deteriorate so far, maybe I wouldn't have lost so much respect for him, and it might have been easier to work things out after we separated.

(I will note that after I left, things got a lot worse at his house - hoarding, bad hygiene, absence basic life competencies that he had never acquired because I had always "over-functioned" for him. This may happen to you too. But don't let it be a reason for you to stay if you need to leave.

Maudcat

Hi, PerSe. Nice to see you here. I can't speak to having a spouse who drinks, as the alcoholic in my life is my sib.
But your most recent post about how good in so many ways your husband is resonated. There's just this teeny tiny problem of him drinking too much at times.
Loving an alcohol dependent person isn't easy, even more so when there are children.
You have to look, as you do, at the positives they bring to the table as well as the negatives.
Day's end, only you know how you should go on. Just a reminder that this crappy disease doesn't get better, only worse, unless the drinking stops.
Peace.

dandylion

PerSe.....If it is a problem for you...it is a problem....
Perople don't usually find themselves posting on a forum like this if they are happy with their relationship.....
there is usually a significant amount of pain involved.....

You can take a perfect person...add a few bottles of wine...and, all hell breaks loose.....
Alcohol rearranges the brain.....

Gonnachange

I can understand your concern about your son getting hit by the ball, and maybe alcohol was a factor, but probably not. Of course, it's impossible for me to say because I wasn't there, don't know the velocity your husband was throwing, don't know the distance involved, and don't know the athletic ability of your son. My kids are in their 20's and for years coached their baseball teams; accidents happen which is why there's a reason that organized leagues that are age appropriate for your son use softer balls than those that kids a few years older use. Maybe a suggestion of that, which can be bought at any local sporting good store, is the way to go; your husband will still be able to be engaged and the possibility of injury is diminished.

Sorry I can't comment on the adult aspect of your posts as others have.

LexieCat

Ya know, you don't have to hate someone to divorce him. It's sufficient to be unhappy and disconnected from each other. In fact, I didn't hate either of the two alcoholics I divorced. One had long-term sobriety (he's now been sober 37 years) and the other continued to drink and I simply couldn't endure watching him kill himself any longer.

I had an amicable first divorce, and we cooperatively co-parented the kids (who are now grown) and we remain good friends. Second divorce, no kids, but a relatively painless process.

I was very happy I split up with both of them before resentment led me to despise either of them.

How will you feel about staying, ten or fifteen years from now? Knowing that the binge drinking is likely to progress, and that you are sacrificing years of your life? The kids can still love him and spend time with him to the extent it's safe for them. You may be overestimating your ability to protect them from the effects of living with an actively drinking alcoholic parent. Sooner or later, he's likely to be drunk when the kids bring friends over, or to try to drive with them when he's not fit to do so.