Looking for Validation OR Comments
I did it. I broke up with someone I still love deeply. For context. I’ve loved a person with AUD before, and have several people in my family with it. He knows about my history.
It started long distance, so I didn’t really know. It showed up in little ways. Him forgetting what we were talking about, while we were talking about it. Lots of blinking. Taking a drink to bed. I wrote it off as a phase, of moving and starting a new job. He said he liked to have a bourbon or two when he talked on the phone with his family members, or me.
Eventually, it appeared to me that it made his short fuse, shorter. I blamed it for some of our fights, or comments not landing right. He fell asleep after work and would not call me, often. So finally, I mentioned that I was worried. He said no one had ever been worried about his drinking before, and that he felt a lot of shame. I said it would mean a lot to me if he tried to cut back a little, and left it at that.
Then, he would turn the FaceTime away when he’d take a drink. I knew because he always made the same face after he took a sip. I thought that was weird, but let it go. In person, he typically wouldn’t have too many when I visited, and never made me feel scared or unsafe.
Finally, we decided to move in together. He quit his job and moved to be with me. That meant so much! But, he drank. He drank every night. I’d work my day job and my evening job and come home to him drunk on the couch. One day, he had put bourbon in a coffee mug during the day and said he was anxious about a job he was waiting on so he had a drink. Eventually we got in a fight. I said it was unattractive to me to find him like that, and it made me nervous that he was drinking during the day. We talked about some boundaries. Communicating when I was going to come home to him drinking. Limiting to a couple drinks so it wasn’t overdone. Measuring his drinks with a shot glass instead of just pouring them.
My therapist said that it’s okay for someone to want to drink at home. She suggested I communicate that the amount of drinking he enjoys doesn’t really line up with my values around health, and leave it at that. See how it proceeds.
It would get better for a while, and then it would fall off. He would just stop communicating. He told me he hated it because he felt like he was reporting to me, but offered no compromises. I knew he wasn’t measuring his drinks when I wasn’t home. Eventually, he started working later. I worried he was going to the bar. I started smelling his breath when we kissed. He said he didn’t want to feel monitored. Which was fair, but I couldn’t stop. Once, after a big fight, I found a bottle of bourbon in the back of his car. He took a break for a week but put bourbon in his sweet tea. When I smelled it and tasted it, he freaked out and said he couldn’t believe I didn’t trust him.
Once I finally got the nerve to ask about the bottle in the car, he said he had met a supervisor (he is the manager, the supervisor works for him) in the parking lot to have a few drinks. Isn’t that weird? The supervisor was going through a tough time. I said I thought he was drinking bourbon from a coffee mug on his way home from work, or in the parking lot. He said the supervisor is just a kid and his mom has early onset Alzheimer’s. He needed someone to talk to. I told him it really hurt my feelings that he didn’t share that with me, to think I was waiting at home with dinner and he was drinking in a parking lot.
Then, bottles of bourbon would appear and disappear from the bar. I told him I had a hard time trusting what he told me regarding alcohol. He took that as “I don’t trust you”. He came home one day with a half empty bottle. He said the supervisor was in deep in the parking lot and he needed help. I had to ask if he’d had a drink. He said no, the supervisor poured him one and that’s why he noticed the bottle was so empty, so that’s why he took it from him. He said he didn’t drink any, showed me a coffee mug with barely two sips of bourbon in it. Now the supervisor was a grown 65 year old adult. The story did not remain consistent.
I said why didn’t you help him if he was intoxicated. What does taking the bottle away accomplish? He said he got him to stop and sent him home. I didn’t believe him.
A month ago I got in a car accident. No car. He was supposed to pick me up from physical therapy. I had to uber. He came home staggering, with plants. Said he went to Lowe’s. Sat down and said he was looking for places to live, didn’t think we could work this out. Stormed out without letting me ask questions. I had a trip to Denver in the morning.
Called my friend having a panic attack, she came over to sit with me. He showed back up an hour later, drunk. Said “do I ask?” Then left again. Didn’t say where he was going. Drove drunk.
When I confronted him he said he wasn’t going to beat himself up for it. Took us a week to have a conversation. Two more days for me to end it. I love him so much but I can’t ignore the signs. It was the lying for me. The first thing he did when I ended it was pour a drink. I felt so validated and so broken all at once.
I guess I wanted to share because I’m looking for validation and support or even some constructive criticism on how the situation was perceived or handled. I still love him deeply and we live together, I gave him two weeks to move out and there were other issues besides drinking but this just was the biggest thing that brought up other issues and resentment due to my anxiety. I was also in therapy for two years and tried working through some of this with my therapist, but had to stop going when I lost my job. I am now employed and have a car. It’s so hard because he’s so kind to me and we’ve been through a lot of life changes together. However, I truly don’t think he thinks he has a problem and was only changing because I asked him to work on it, not because he wants to drink less. There is just a part of me that wonders if I should’ve given him more of a chance.