My husband (31 yo m) is a vacation drinker, and I (31 yo f) am not so much. Weve been married 8 years and are high school sweethearts. He’s always been a binge drinker with friends and is very hard to handle alone when he is too drunk, i often need friends to help me with him or we always get in fights cause im a “buzzkill” or “too uptight and I cant let loose”. The reason i am a little uptight and dont drink more than a few beers with him is because at some point in the night there is always a turning point where an argument starts and on those few nights i do drink with him he winds up trying to blame me saying im drunk and start it, which is rarely the case, or its because im trying to cut him off. A lot of my worries stem from when he used to drink and drive or go out with his friends who would drink a drive. One night he decided to drive home (from 1 hr away where his friends live) because his friends pissed him off. On his way home he got turned around and lost in a town he knows like the back of his hand. His phone was dying and location was off and i could not find him. He was atill 20 mins away from home, and i went out searching for him. This was after he told me he was staying with his friends that night and a terrible gut feeling at 2am woke me up out of a dead sleep that night. I went out to search for him. Thankfully he found his way back home. And i found him on the usual path and followed him the rest of the way watching him swerve terribly… but that night has stuck with me since. After that night, i don’t let him go alone when i know he will be drinking. I offer to be his dd so i know he gets home safe because he’s too impatient when he’s drunk to call me or wait for me to get there. I know it’s is enabling him… but i don’t want my husband hurt.
I see these patterns when he drinks and i am highly sensitive to that “switch” when he starts acting like he’s had one too many. He’s only really a social drinker and may occasionally have a beer or two after mowing the lawn or when we’re home at our own pool, but never drinks unless we’re on vacation (which feels like it’s centered around drinking), or when he is with friends (even on his work trips). This all comes down to tonights fight where he began “acting” like he had too much. We are staying in a very very nice hotel where i am here on business and invited him along to relax and have some time off because hes been working a ton. Well, we had plans to go out after dinner tonight and i had asked him earlier that day to not drink too much so we could still go. After work i went out to join him for a bit at the pool before we got ready and he seemed ok but had just made himself another crown and cranberry in his smaller yeti. He bragged to me how the crown bottle was only 1/3 gone when he started at 1pm. It was now 5 and another 1/3 or a little more of the bottle was gone. Maybe down to 1/4 of the entire bottle left. I didnt say anything then but i could feel myself geering up for anything. I continued to have a good time until after we started walking back to our room he was “pretending” his speaker was a gun and was making gun noises and shooting at things and people and saying “fuck them kids” when i told him to be careful cause we were coming up to a crowd. I dont think anyone heard him but i was being very cautious because of, again, where we are staying. His attitude began here and he started saying “fine ill just be boring then” and started acting cold. We got up to the room and he began acting silly again but started becoming kind of abnoxious making noises and mocking me loudly. I asked him if he was ok and tried to tell him only water at dinner, and he said “i didnt want a soda anyway” where i reponded with a small laugh that a soda was ok. He kept getting louder and i asked if he was ok again because i wasnt sure if he was being extra, or the last drink did him in. This is really where the attitude came into play. He said he was just going to be boring the rest of the night and started having a really bad attitude. At dinner it became it worse and tension built. We decide to come back to the hotel but everything was ruined. We started arguing and i just feel exhausted. He said it was because i wouldnt let it go and he just wanted to be normal and boring how i like him. I really didnt want this to happen on this trip and am very sad now because he told me that i ruin all our vacations because i just cant handle him being lively and that i cant handle his drinking and dont like it. . Hes told me in the past he likes drinking and ive continuously asked if he could just be mindful and stop himself when hes getting buzzed so hes still here with me. Hes told me before he wants to slow down on drinking, which i have seen him attempt like twice since hes told me that but the last few camping trips he always has to “buy more beer cause he drank his other half for tomorrow”… idk if im being too uptight or what. When he drinks too much he gets all in his feels and usually gets angry with me. Idk what to do. His dad was a bad daily alcoholic and he’s nothing like that, but im tired of the roller coasters and ruined trips when i just want to enjoy his company but he thinks I’m just trying to be his buzz kill. I am a big believer in working things out and that we are all human. I am a very understanding person and do forgive very easily which maybe i need some harsher boundaries… i don’t want a divorce if its redeemable or fixable, which i believe it could be because it’s only situational not daily.. Any advice? What can i do to encourage him to be sober on vacations at least. Am i delusional?
Td;lr: my husband ruins all our vacations with his dining and not being able to pace himself. Tonight he started another fight and said it was because i can’t handle him being lively and hate his drinking. What can i do to encourage him to not drink.
Comments
You can’t encourage him not to drink, he sees no problem with it and doesn’t want to change. You can leave him or avoid any situations with alcohol with him if you’re not willing to put up with it.
He’s got a serious drinking problem.. he’s not going to change or get better while he doesn’t understand he has a serious problem.
You say his dad was a bad daily alcoholic.. him not being as bad doesn’t mean this isn’t really bad.
Only a bad drunk on vacation or socially is way too much. Acting like this more than once isn’t acceptable.
You aren’t being too uptight.
Babe, he’s an alcoholic. He needs to stop drinking and start a program (rehab, therapy, 12 steps, SMART meetings, whatever it takes).
In the meantime, it might be helpful for you to try Al-Anon meetings. To get some support and/or see how others cope with alcoholic loved ones.
Your husband is an alcoholic. That’s it. People don’t change unless they want to. Accept it or don’t.
You are married to an alcoholic. What are you going to do about it?
Hey darlin. I went through exactly the same thing.
He’s an alcoholic. Binge drinking counts. He has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. He uses drunkenness as an excuse to be unkind to you. He gives himself permission to be like that.
I got on my knees and begged my husband not to make me divorce him, and to his credit, he quit cold turkey. If your husband won’t stop, you should prioritize yourself, whatever that means to you.
You seem to be doing mental gymnastics to trick yourself into thinking his drinking isn’t a serious problem
If he’s only a nasty alcoholic on vacation, he’s still a nasty alcoholic. He needs treatment.
Your husband is an alcoholic. If his life, the lives of others, his literal freedom, his money, and his wife’s happiness are all less important than being drunk…then he has a drinking problem.
You need to walk away from him, he will not get sober with you enabling him, and this will get so much worse for both of you.
>And i found him on the usual path and followed him the rest of the way watching him swerve terribly
Oh cool. So not only does your husband drive drunk, risking the lives of others, but you knowingly allowed him to drive drunk. How little care or respect do you have for other people that you wouldn’t take his keys off him or call the police?
Your husband is an alcoholic and a danger to other people. And you’re enabling him. He should be in jail, and you should be ashamed that you make decisions like this when you’re sober.
Talk to some people at Al Anon- even a virtual meeting helps give you some perspective and strength.
Your husband is putting a lot of people in serious danger- a man just like him mowed down my two teenaged sisters when I was a child. He’s already begun ruining your life, you need to stop every bit of enabling today and get yourself away from this.
So, your husband is an alcoholic. Will he admit that? Is he willing to get help?
Obviously he is an alcoholic. He also just sounds like a nasty person. No respect for anyone. I would have ditched him longggggg ago. Be free of him. Enjoy your life without having to babysit your partner. Make steps to leave him as soon as possible. He is a drain on everything.
Be kind but firm that he needs help (probably a rehab to change his thinking if he can’t do it on his own) — he can change but he has to want to
This sounds like an incredibly stressful and scary way to live.
It will be very difficult for your husband to fix his drinking problem as long as he believes he doesn’t have one at all simply because it manifests differently than his dad’s alcoholism.
You don’t have to say he is an alcoholic, but what you’re describing is a person who verbally abuses and belittles you, and endangers himself and others—and if I’m reading correctly, he only does those things when he is drunk. So either he loses control of himself and becomes a different guy when he is drunk, or he is using the alcohol as an excuse to let himself become that guy when he is drunk. Doesn’t really matter which one it is. Either way, Sober Normal Husband refuses to stop actively choosing to drink enough to become Drunk Asshole Husband.
Do whatever you want, just don’t have kids with him.
This is a form of alcoholism. My spouse is like this- drinks once or twice a year. But gets so out of control. He just cannot drink. Period.