[verytired]

I always knew my husband liked a drink, but it wasn’t until after we had our children that I realised that he was an alcoholic. Even though he drinks every day, he still has a good job – if we had real financial problems it would be far easier to confront things and say ‘your behaviour is unacceptable’. As it is, the financial result is that we have a lower standard of living than you would expect from his salary, and I struggle to make ends meet with the money he gives me. What’s far more of a problem is the way it affects our day to day lives. Years ago, even though he drank far too much, he was still a nice person when he was drinking, but now he’s unpredictable and can be really horrible. He knows he has a problem, and has gone to the doctor for help. They gave him Antabuse. He goes through cycles – he takes it for a while, then decides that he will take it mid-week and stop for the weekend, and then stops taking it altogether. He doesn’t drink spirits, so I feel that perhaps people don’t take his drinking as seriously as perhaps they should.
The end result for me is ever increasing levels of stress, which I take out on people around me. He blames it all on hormonal problems after I had a hysterectomy earlier this year, and says that even if he does have a problem with drinking, I have a problem with my temper and it’s nothing to do with him. It has all left me doubting my own sanity – perhaps I do have problems of my own and shouldn’t blame him for going to the pub if I’m yelling at the kids. But then, I think that if he didn’t leave everything to me, I wouldn’t be so stressed all the time and wouldn’t shout. He also tells me that I always want more from him, and that I’m never happy – I don’t think this is true, but I’m not sure about it any more. Occasionally, if we do discuss what’s going on, he gets worked up and pushes me about and threatens to harm himself. I KNOW this is wrong, but it happens so infrequently I think perhaps me being argumentative is part of the problem there. He was very ill a while ago (genuinely not drinking related) and has said recently that he doesn’t think he should be alive after that, and that he’d be happy to die now.
I really don’t know what to do. I know I need help to cope with what my life is becoming, but I really don’t want to go anywhere near religious-based help schemes and that seems to be where most of the support comes from.

[redshrimp]

What about asking your doctor to be referred for some counselling? Sounds like you could really do with some extra support right now – he isn’t your responsibility, but I can understand how it feels like a weighing burden x

[Author]

Posts