I moved into the guest room this week
My Q is my husband. We’re about to hit 9 years of marriage. Drinking has always been present, and he’s always been a heavy daily drinker. I have my own issues with alcohol, but before we were together it was not centered in my life at all.
But it always had been for him, and I knew that but we were young and I think I thought he would grow out of it.
He’s always had a really bad temper. Tons of road rage, and if we got in a bad fight - which we used to have a lot of bad fights - he wouldn’t break things in front of me but after he’d storm out he’d like destroy a remote control or put a hole in the wall, throw something at the wall, etc.
Finally 2 years ago I’d been to enough therapy to realize I wasn’t going to put up with that behavior anymore, and told him if he didn’t get a handle on his anger and start going to therapy I would leave.
He didn’t start therapy, and things got a lot better. Not great, but better. He’s always been incredibly emotionally unavailable, and if he is he’ll be present for like a week and then it just slips away again. We’ve had tons of marriage counseling, lots of honest conversations where he sees where I’m coming from and promises he can get there.
This past month he’s punched a wall again, twice. The last time he put a hole through our bedroom wall because our power had gone out in that room and he was having a hard time figuring out how to fix it. He covered it up with paper and the next morning when I pulled the paper away and saw the hole, I just started moving all my stuff into the guest room.
He was so mad I did that, said “Seriously? Because I punched a wall?” Kept trying to downplay it, said he even paused and took a step to the left so he would hit drywall instead of plaster. He was almost bragging and sounded proud of himself but that made it worse for me. Said he’s “sorry it’s upsetting to me.”
After a few days I’m realizing I think alcohol is our biggest road block and that if he can’t make the choice to get sober I will be out.
I have felt horrible and also strong. I’ve been crying so much but also thinking about moving back into our room gives me an immediate full body panic, so I know I’m doing the right thing. But it’s really fucking hard.