I (29F) have been with my fiancé (29M) for four years. We live together and got engaged last June, and we’ve been genuinely happy for the majority of the relationship. He is kind, considerate, and my genuine favorite person.
Some background info:
Last April, I started to notice he was drinking a bit more than usual. We were on vacation at an all-inclusive resort, and he was consistently ordering a beer and a shot every time our server would stop by our cabana. I’m talking at least four our five times in the span of four hours. That was during the day, before we’d grab drinks in the evening. The next few months, I didn’t notice anything too unusual besides him occasionally drinking 4-5 beers while watching sports on a Sunday. Those days did concern me, but I never said anything.
In August, I was in our basement (that we both rarely enter) trying reboot our WiFi router when I found a bottle of vodka and some chaser behind an old chest freezer. I asked him about it, and he told me it was his. He’d been sneaking downstairs to drink without my knowledge. He started crying and apologizing. I was in complete shock. He had never lied to me before, and I couldn’t believe his drinking problem had gotten this bad.
He then told me he could feel himself developing a dependency on alcohol and wanted to start seeing a therapist. As someone who regularly sees a therapist myself, I was, of course, incredibly supportive. He started seeing a therapist who specializes in substance abuse, and things were going really well for a few months. His goal wasn’t to go completely sober, but to have more self-control around alcohol and not use it as a coping mechanism.
At the beginning of this year, his therapist went on paternity leave for about six weeks. During this time, he would frequently get drunk or high in the evenings when I wasn’t in the room. When I’d ask him if he was drunk or stoned, he would deny it over and over again, even when he was clearly not sober. Sometimes, after repeatedly asking him, he’d admit he had drank/smoked, other times he would continue to deny it until I dropped the subject. The times he would admit, I would tell him that the lying upset me far more than the drinking, and that I could not marry someone who was comfortable lying to my face. We then decided to get all alcohol and weed out of the house.
This all came to a head earlier this month. After three evenings in a row of me asking him if he’d been drinking (one day he admitted it, the others he denied), I came home from work on the fourth day to him in really bad shape. He was slurring his words, and he couldn’t look me in the eye or answer any question without pausing for at least 30 seconds. I begged him to tell me if he’d been drinking and told him how scared I was. After about five minutes, I called his best friend/brother-in-law, who is a psychiatric nurse. He came over right away and said my fiancé was exhibiting signs of alcohol withdrawal and that we needed to take him to the ER.
He was in the hospital for four nights, and it seemed to be a true wake-up call for him. He’s since gone back to weekly therapy sessions and started an intensive outpatient program (all local inpatient programs were full). He hasn’t had a drink since (to my knowledge—but he’s passed the screenings at his IOP each week) and seems to be taking recovery and getting sober very seriously.
However, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get back the trust that he broke. The lying to my face on multiple occasions has really shaken me. He knows he has a lot of work to do to regain my trust, but part of me is afraid that he’ll do everything right and I still won’t feel good about things.
I was already having anxiety leading up to the wedding next spring, but my therapist and I determined it was likely a result of me being an overall anxious person. All of my “what ifs” about our relationship and future had no real problems to go off of. That was, up until now.
This situation has definitely not helped my anxiety. My therapist has reminded me that it’s only been a few weeks since everything went down and that gaining clarity will take time. However, with a wedding date on the books, I feel pressured to decide my future sooner rather than later.
I told my therapist I refuse to get married with any doubts in my head. Some days I feel confident that he is my person and I will get through this, and other days, I feel like the walls are closing in on me and I need to get out.
Should I end things or stick them out? How long should I expect clarity to take? I feel like I’ve been in fight or flight for nearly a month now.
Would love some advice from people who have gone through similar situations. TIA