I 28F am concerned about my 31M boyfriends alcohol abuse
I want to start with saying that I am in an overall really happy relationship. We have been together for 4 years and living together for 2. In this time we have had a lot of life changes that have rocked our (but mostly my) world.
In our first year of dating, we met in the restaurant industry working similar hours. I was younger at that point, with different priorities. My boyfriend and I would go out, get drunk and have a great time. We were enamored with each other for that year and into year 2. Every time we saw each other we were having a date night in, or out, that involved alcohol. I didn’t think much of it at the time because I really enjoyed going out, I was in love, and I thought it was something we were doing only together.
Emotionally at this time, my partner who is very emotionally intelligent, was helping me work through a lot of trauma I held and still to this day helps me self regulate my sometimes unstable emotions. When we moved in together I was changing restaurants to work at a much more high intensity place, and he supported me tremendously through that.
Once we moved in together around year
2 things shifted. We stopped having sex for about 2 months due to him not doing well with change, being stressed, and feeling a loss of libido. I thought it was so odd, but I wanted to support him knowing that sex changes and ebbs& flows in long term relationships. I also started to notice his love of high life wasn’t just at the bar, but something he brought home every night too.
At year 3 I noticed I was dating a high functioning alcoholic. There were times I would be guilted by him for not wanting to go out, or for not sharing a bottle of wine during the week. I started counting the beer bottles in the morning and doing the math of how long he’d been at the bar. He would often fall asleep on the couch with a beer sitting next to him, every light on in the room, and a video playing loudly in front of him. He stopped brushing his teeth at night because he was falling asleep before that step of a night routine. Even when he did brush his teeth, I could smell alcohol on his breath. He can’t wake up easily in the morning and sleeps so hard even an alarm can’t wake him up. It was in this year that my stepfather that raised me died a very traumatic death in the ICU. We didn’t know it would happen so fast and my boyfriend missed the FaceTime to talk with him one last time because he was asleep and couldn’t hear the 15 FaceTime, calls, and texts at 10:00am. My stepdad died the next day and I couldn’t look at my partner for weeks. I knew with almost certainty he went out the night before and was drunk all night, over slept and slept through the pre planned meeting. This was the closest I had gotten to leaving him, but we decided to work through it. In therapy I learned to forgive him for what was a horrible accident that I either had to move on from or let go. I watched him show up for me in different way after that, but the drinking didn’t change.
Over the years I would get the braves to tell him about his drinking problem, and he will admit that he is a high functioning alcoholic but does nothing to change it.
Year 4 it’s a lot of the same. He still falls asleep on the couch in the same conditions, I’ve nagged enough that he brushes his teeth (even if it’s at 5 am when he gets up from the couch), and our sex life isn’t much better than when we moved in together. But now, it’s me who doesn’t want to have sex. I’ve asked him many times to participate in dry weeks or months and it is inevitably broken or answered with “what about the trip we have this month?”
This year, my mother died of terminal cancer, we found out and 6 months later she was gone. In this time he was incredibly supportive to me. But I was also absent and with my mom in another state for most of that time. It’s been 4 months since she passed and I have been accepted into my dream grad program- abroad. My boyfriend wants to come with me and work in his specialty (he is a sommelier) in a neighboring country. He recently reopened the conversation of marriage as well.
I’m writing this after a week of him falling asleep on the couch in the same conditions for the 4th time this week. I woke him up this time, and snapped at him to get up brush his teeth and go to bed. After he fell asleep I went to the couch. I counted the beers in trash can, a new pack that he went to buy while I was asleep. 4, 9.5% beers he drank alone playing a video game.
I guess I’m not only writing to vent, but for general advice. I’ve voiced to my bf that after losing both of my parents so young, if I’m going to marry him he needs to get his shit together. I need to be with someone who is choosing health, wellness and a better life. I can’t lie and say that i have been a perfect partner, I drink though not nearly as much as him, I have been emotionally volatile after learning about my mother sickness, and I absolutely nag at him about his behaviors. Part of me thinks we just need couples therapy, and the other part thinks I should take this opportunity of moving abroad to leave him. I love him deeply and want it to work, but I’m worried this is only the beginning of a very ugly path.