Hi all,
I'm in a similar situation to many of you. My wife is an amazing woman. Incredibly successful, amazing work ethic, loving mother, but every night she drinks at least a bottle and a half of red wine (it's getting more and more over time) and she just stares at her phone. If I try to broach her drinking she gets angry, blames me for it, and drinks more, and we have a fight.
So, now I just try and survive each night not getting into a fight or hoping she will only drink one bottle. But that's rare nowadays. She claims she doesn't get hangovers, she says she's "piss-fit", but she never sleeps that well, is always tired and stressed out from her work, and then explodes if I haven't cleaned the house as good as she expects.
I'm so tired and drained, and I have no-one to talk to about it (that's what I'm here!)
I've looked into Al Anon etc, but all there meetings are at night, and there's no way I could leave the house then as that's when I'm cooking dinner/putting kids to bed.
I love her. But I'm so worried about the damage she's doing to herself, and the example she's setting for the kids. My wife's dad was an alcoholic and she doesn't speak to him because of that.
She used to be addicted to pot. Then it was cigarettes. Then it was party drugs like e and coke. Now, she's completely addicted to work and alcohol. I just am completely lost.
Because of COVID, she's home most of the time, and starts drinking at lunchtime every day.
I feel completely trapped and scared. I cry all the time. I do exercise, breathing exercises and all sorts of things, but I have a history of mental illness so I really struggle to cope. My coping mechanism when I'm upset is to bottle up my feelings and think about suicide. It's really not good.
I just feel drained.
From the outside, I probably look really successful. But I feel like everything I project to the world is a lie and not what is really going on in my life.
I just want to cry.