This is all quite new to me.
I’ve (35F) been dating my partner (40M) for a year and about 3 months in he opened up about his struggles and complicated relationship to alcohol. He made it seem like it was under control but he would like to be more of a causal drinker. Him and his friends are all heavy drinkers and so is his dad, so he’s been around it his entire life.
He has the sweetest soul, everyone loves him, barely changes when he drinks but he’s almost an every day drinker and uses it an emotional crutch. For me, it’s more about his shame spirals and sadness that follow the drinking, that’s the problem. He’s the most caring fun loving guy, but obviously when he’s in a shame spiral he isolates himself and doesn’t let me in emotionally. Recently I noticed that these shame spirals and sad moments were happening more often so I told him that it’s now at a point that this affecting the relationship and hurting me too because he disconnects and avoids me in these moments. We had a great talk last week and had a sober weekend and he’s trying to very hard to manage it. And I told him I’d be there with him as long as he’s actively making changes in the right direction.
But am I being dumb? Is there no way to manage this? My therapist said that I have to tell him it’s me or the alchohol but it seems so extreme and not empathetic. I love him so much and we have such a great relationship and we talk about everything so openly but im scared that im just being dumb and having not enough boundaries.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks for listening.