Trouble in Paradise
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Alcohol and my marriage...
so, the same should be said for all the people who said this isn't a big deal, it isn't an alcoholic, and she should continue to expose her child to this right?
they aren't professionals and should not be giving her advice. a major recommendation like staying and putting her child in danger shouldn't be given on a message board from only half the couples point of view, because you know...he has a perfectly good explanation for blacking out and peeing on the floor.
signed,
hs drug and alcohol counselor
I never said he doesn't have a problem, just that I would recommend counseling. And I noted that some posters recommend divorce pretty much any scenario that is presented. I never said these boards are not useful (why would I be on them if so?) but that for anything other than very minor issues that can be helped by casual advice or venting (this NOT being minor) a couple should immediately seek a licensed therapist. And there are couples that should divorce. I didn't say this particular couple should stay together forever, just that there is an issue and it needs to be addressed in person and not online.
I even re-read the two posts I previously wrote. No where did I say people on here shouldn't be giving advice and insight. I never said the man is not an alcoholic either. For the record though my father was an alcoholic who successfully recovered. Never drank a drop for over 30+ years after completing AA when I was young. He was an excellent father. Truly exceptional. My parents were still together when he passed, so yes some couples can and do weather serious storms. I do realize this may not be the common outcome, but it was my family's outcome.
Have you people who are recommending AlAnon, and also telling the OP she needs to leave immediately, ever actually worked that program? Because they explicitly advise against telling the spouse of a drinker what she needs to do.
Being judgmental and coming on like a ton of bricks is not helpful in these situations. I wouldn't care except that, since you are referencing AlAnon in your lecturing, you are making AlAnon look bad.
OP, check out AlAnon. They are nice there. You do not need to be married to an alcoholic to go. You will find lots of women in your situation - uneasy about your partner's drinking, not sure if it's a big deal or not, and wondering what to do.
Don't worry about the what-ifs of custody right now. That's putting the cart before the horse, and imagining worst case scenarios can be paralyzing. Check out AlAnon, read a little about alcoholism and co-dependency (which is behaviors that spouses of alcoholics can sometimes exhibit), see if your husband might open up to you about his habits so that you have some more information (but please be aware that many alcoholics are talented liars, especially to those they love most, so evaluate carefully), and take some time to think.
As long as no one is in immediate physical danger, there is nothing wrong with staying and evaluating the situation so as to make an informed decision. And AlAnon will tell you the same (which is why I'm giving a serious side-eye to the people telling you to go to AlAnon and also telling you that you need to divorce immediately). Should you eventually decide to leave, it will be a good thing to be able to do it a reasonable manner with careful thought given to how to protect your child, as opposed to leaving now impulsively. But of course, if you or your child are in immediate danger, please seek help. A husband peeing on the floor is gross but does not put anyone in immediate danger, assuming there Is a sober adult caring for the child at the time.
Take care and I hope things work out for you.
The fact that your DH had a drinking problem while as a young 20 something in the Navy doesn't concern me that much. That you were able to communicate that his drinking was a problem and then he stopped and only drank what was an acceptable level to you for 4 years I think is pretty great and shows that he can control his addictive behavior to an acceptable level. He slipped up, drank more than he thought he can handle and got to a place that was out of control. It can happen, people screw up.
Not that you think it is funny now, but my DH had a drunken night in a hotel room where I woke up and he was pissing in my backpack on the floor, thinking it was a urinal. Taking care of him that night was one of the worst nights of my life. (we were also banned from the hotel from the damage). I was angry, wow was I ever angry. I was worried, stressed, you name it. Furious when he woke up in the morning. However, 5 years later we positively howl when we talk about it. My DH never had a drinking problem in the past though, so that's the part that concerns me about your situation.
You've already talked about it with him. He knows how upset you are. If you don't think this is something to leave him over ( I wouldn't), make it clear that if he gets drunk to the point that it makes you uncomfortable again that you will be immediately packing up the kiddos and going to a hotel for the night until he is safe to be around and then he will be moving out until he completes an alcohol program of some sort. If that doesn't work out then you will be separating, because you cannot live with this fear over your head constantly.
It might also be helpful for him to go to AA anyway after this incident - he has a history of addictive behavior and him going would be a good step toward this not becoming a recurring issue again. What could it hurt?
Best of luck.
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Your experience is with a trained counsellor giving you advice after working extensively with your family. Of COURSE a counsellor can and should be directive, AFTER working with you - that's not at all what I was talking about. I was talking about friends, colleagues, random people on the Internet, etc. going off about how the spouse needs to leave the drunk, after hearing one bad story. Those are completely different things.
I get that it's a message board, and people come here to give advice. I just wanted to disentangle AlAnon from the lecturing. If I were the OP I'd never go to AlAnon after reading this thread, because I'd be expecting total judgment, based on the personalities of the AlAnon proponents here. It's not like that.
It sounds like you gave recovery a shot, and took some time to decide what to do. Why not encourage the OP to do the same? Maybe she's married to a hardcore alcoholic who has been hiding it, and who needs inpatient rehab. Maybe he drank too much one night, for the first time in years, and he doesn't meet the diagnostic criteria for alcoholism. We don't know, and most importantly, the OP doesn't know. She needs to figure it out.
I think its wrong to encourage her to act impulsively and emotionally. If his problem gets bad, she could potentially be in a long, ugly custody battle with a liar. She needs to be thoughtful and smart about all this.
This is among the funniest posts I've ever read. I actually cried from laughing so hard while I read it to my H.
This is the type of behavior you expect from an alcoholic frat boy that's about to get kicked out of college...not a married man who is a father.
You said you do not believe your husband is an alcoholic. Ok. Fair enough. Maybe he just went a little overboard with the alcohol one night, right?
Tell me something. Surely you yourself have overindulged before, yeah? Maybe even vomited a little? Maybe even had a *** attack on the toilet WHILE you vomited? Maybe in college after a big party?
Have you EVER EVER EVER heard of someone PISSING themselves because they were so drunk and having NO idea where they were OR the fact that they were PISSING themselves? Have you ever heard of such a thing happening after a night of SITTING AROUND THE HOUSE? It's not like he had just come back from a bachelor party, for which he was the Best Man. It's not like he had just come back from his High School Reunion. Even if those situations were the case, it wouldn't be excusable, but at least you could argue that that level of overindulgence was the result of some large festivity. But he was SITTING AROUND THE HOUSE FFS!
The fact that in your relationship's infancy you expressed concern about his drinking sets up all kinds of red flags for me. The fact that, even after expressing this concern, he continued to drink at ALL, suggests he is not able to control his behavior. The fact that he got SO drunk that he PISSED himself and had NO idea he was doing so tells me one clear FACT: He is an alcoholic. And you're trying your hardest to bury your head in the sand.
Be a good mother. And leave him.
That's where it stands.
And this particular sentence is dead right:
The fact that in your relationship's infancy you expressed concern about his drinking sets up all kinds of red flags for me. The fact that, even after expressing this concern, he continued to drink at ALL, suggests he is not able to control his behavior. The fact that he got SO drunk that he PISSED himself and had NO idea he was doing so tells me one clear FACT: He is an alcoholic. And you're trying your hardest to bury your head in the sand.
Be a good mother. And leave him.I haven't gotten all the way through the other posts and stopped at this one (above) so far.
I'm a little thrown by some of the highly aggressive replies and the no-nonsense "leave him immediately" posts and I don't think they're helping the situation because you're not ready for that and I don't believe you were asking "should I leave him?" so I'm not going to head in that direction (straight away anyway).
My problem with your OP (and subsequent posts) is that you said this has hasn't happened before and claim that he hasn't drunk that much in 2 years (just bought a little bit here and there). You stated that you had, as a family, been sitting around watching a movie and somehow, inexplicably, after you went to bed he got SO drunk that he passed out, urinated in your room, and urinated all over himself... with no recollection of the events.
My problem with that is... he had no reason to be drinking (not that you mention). It was a family movie night. Why did he drink to excess? I'm not a drinker so it just doesn't make sense to me if he "only drinks occasionally", that he would get so trashed on a night where it wasn't warranted (bucks night, superbowl.. maybe.. but still not to that extreme). It just doesn't make sense that this innocuous occasion was the first time he's indulged in years... most likely it's just the first you found out about. This didn't happen overnight. Most likely something is going on that you don't know about.
I think he needs to see someone and get help. I think he needs to not be left unsupervised with your children until you get some trust back. I don't necessarily believe this is something you need to leave him over immediately, but it is something VERY bad and possibly VERY dangerous.
The reason affairs etc are so shocking is because the other partner doesn't see it coming. They think they know their spouse an would have seen the signs. Like an affair, you didn't see this coming. You've convinced yourself, though you didn't say you were looking for one, that there was/is no pattern of spending/behaviour issues to be found. Just because you have total access to the bank accounts and *think* you know where's he's been, doesn't mean you do.
Again, these things don't happen overnight. Your husband has a problem and it needs to be swiftly sorted out. He needs to come clean and admit what has been happening to result in this behaviour.