Hi Ever87 I am new to this forum and haven’t been brave enough yet to write my story but have taken comfort from some of the threads on here that ring so true to what has been happening in my life.
Your comment about friends and family just seeing the funny drunk side of your husband really hit a nerve as my children and I both find that really difficult. On the one hand there is this person who friends see – kind, helpful and funny and the flip side is the one that I thought only we saw which is the drunk, or partially drunk person.
Things got really bad this year and I did open up to a couple of close friends. I was amazed to find that they had either realised or suspected something was wrong. They have been an absolute pillar of support for the whole family. I chose who I confided in carefully as some friends wouldn’t have understood or would have been judgemental, I also wanted to pick friends who would be supportive of my husband if he needed them. I also spoke to a counsellor through a scheme provided at work and found that very helpful, in particular to realise I had been enabling my husband’s alcoholism.
I found being open and honest with our children (they are older – late teen and early twenties) was incredibly painful but really helpful as now we can properly support each other. I think I thought I was helping them by trying to cover up and carry on as normal but instead it shut me off from the affects of having an alcoholic father.
Whatever you choose to do I hope you get some well deserved support for you and your family.