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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I totally understand all this advice and would say the same thing if I weren't living in the situation. I guess I wasn't too bothered by the behavior and lived with it for years because when he gets drunk, he just goes to bed early - he isn't loud or mean or even visibly drunk. I really wouldn't even know he was drunk except that I saw him drink 6 beers and then go to bed at 9 p.m. I definitely enjoy drinking myself, but I can stop whenever I want, and it seems to be difficult for him to stop if there's still alcohol in the house. He is great around our nieces and nephews (way better with kids than I am), never gets drunk at family events, etc. The only times he seems to have trouble are when he's bored on the weekend or when he's at a work event (he works in finance, in an all-male environment, and I believe that drinking heavily is encouraged by the guys that he works with).

I really do not want to get divorced. We are happy together (aside from this issue) and I can't imagine separating all of our assets, dating again, etc. No one knows that he has a problem (not even our families), and we appear to be a great couple from the outside. But this drinking issue has become a problem now that we're trying to conceive. I honestly think he would be a wonderful parent and I don't think he would get drunk around our kids. Maybe this is wishful thinking though.

Is there a way to get him to seek help if he doesn't think he has a problem? I think if you asked him, he would say that he works a stressful job and just wants to kick back with a 6 pack on Saturday night. He'd say that I'm jumping to do huge medical interventions like IVF without giving the TTC process enough time. He would say (and has said many times) that he can't wait to have kids and he is trying his best to support me during this journey. He would probably say that I'm a controlling perfectionist who has decided to blame his drinking for our failure to conceive. To his credit, he won't buy alcohol without my permission, so I do think that I could successfully keep him from drinking entirely. I'm just having trouble getting through the "withdrawal" phase, where he's asking for a 6-pack and pouting when I say no. I lose my resolve pretty quickly and say "okay, just one bottle of wine," and then we're back to him going through a 6 pack every Saturday, and me yelling about how I'm doing all this stuff to get pregnant and he's not helping.

Ugh. I know I sound like I'm in total denial here. It's just a hard situation when I don't want to divorce him because we have a wonderful life [b]aside from this[/b], he doesn't want to get help (and I'm not certain he's at the point where he truly needs help), and we both want to have kids. Thanks for listening and for all of the advice.

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Didn't read the thread, but I stopped at these three words. OP, surely you must know how deeply you are in denial. DH grew up with an alcoholic mother, and I cannot tell you how deeply scarred he and his siblings are from having a mother who was dead drunk by dinnertime, and fell asleep on the couch at 7 p.m. every single night for as long as he can remember. Do you really want this for your child?

Re-read your own post. You say you think your DH will be a good dad, and you think he won't drink around your child, but surely you can see that this is all wishful thinking. Of course he's going to drink around your child and of course he's going to be a terrible father because he's going to be drunk over and over and over again when your child will witness it and say nothing because to your child, this is normal, this is how a dad (the only dad s/he knows) behaves.

Stop trying to conceive. Just stop. Don't even think of having a child with an alcoholic. The definition of an alcoholic is someone who keeps drinking until s/he is drunk, even if it's only once a week or once a month. This is someone who cannot control his or her drinking. This is what you say your DH does.

BTW, my MIL was not a sloppy drunk. She was a quiet drunk. She never drove drunk, never screamed and yelled, she just drank until she slurred her words, and fell asleep. Every. Single. Night. No supervising homework, no checking in with kids to see how their day at school was, no working on projects together, taking the kids to after school sports and activities, no friends over because mom is always asleep drunk on the couch, etc. etc. All of these things are in your child's future, OP. Do you really want to impose this on your child?

Also, when I first met him, my DH described his mother almost exactly the way you describe your DH. "Except for her drinking," he'd say, "she's the nicest person in the world."  He doesn't describe her that way any more, because he's realized how abusive her behavior was. Drinking until you fall asleep is nasty, OP. Your DH, like my MIL, was not fit to raise a child. Your DH is going to be a terrible father. Get help. Tell him to stop drinking or you will leave. And do not keep trying to get pregnant with this man, no matter how wonderful he may be "aside from this." [/quote]

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