[LauraJ86]

Hi All

Im feeling a little delicate about this situation so please go easy on me!

I am in a some what long distance relationship with someone who drinks heavily at the weekends. He works a night shift four nights a week and doesn’t drink  and then on a fri- Sunday evening he will drink heavily to the point where I would describe his a blurry round the edges. Not always drunk, but enough to make me feel he isn’t present and that feeling of ‘losing’ part of him because of the dulling effect that alcohol has on him.

He’s been very honest with me about his drinking when we met and I never had much exposure to alcohol before as I rarely drink so took it for what it was. But now I feel it’s problematic.

For context, my partner meets his commitments, both with our blended family and he is ambitious and hard working at work. He’s saving for a house and is incredibly determined to reach his goals. In the last five years he has given up gambling and smoking (both before he met me) and has reduced his alcohol intake from drinking every day to drinking at weekends. I say this not to minimalise the problem but to show the trajectory or how his lifestyle has gone. He’s turned his life around for the better and I’m very proud.

however, on the weekends we have a lovely time together, go on dates etc but when I go to bed at 11 he’ll stay up another couple of hours to watch sport and drink to ‘unwind’. The amount he drinks are somewhat irrelevant but the effect it has on him are that he comes to bed not really ‘with it’. It’s started to create a barrier in my mind and a tension in me. He doesn’t get outrageously drunk but it’s still a ‘thing’ for me.

I’ve spoken to him and he says he’s changed his life for the better on so many ways but alcohol (lager ) is how he unwinds after a week on night shift.

The advice I need is whether this type of dynamic is sustainable – is it down to me whether I have a problem at the end of the day? I love him dearly but it is becoming the elephant in the room xx

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