When I met my husband, he was very much the same way. I thought he was the greatest guy. I thought we were going to have this great life, he was helpful around the house, we spent a lot of time together and talked about the future with kids. I thought he was going to be a great dad and husband. But he liked to drink a lot every night, and go out a couple times a week without me. When I moved in with him, that is when he slowly changed. Red flags started popping up. He didn't want to be as affectionate as he first was, I was too clingy, jealous in his eyes. He started needing more time and space apart. He would make plans with me but usually cancel, because he had drank too much the night before. But if friends or family wanted to do something, he was always there for them. I never got to be around him anymore, when he was sober. He would come home from work and start drinking. I started to see two sides of him; the sober and the drunk man. I held hopes that someday, he would want to be a better man and quit drinking, to be a better husband, and then better dad, as we started having children. After we got married, he went from beer all the time, to hard alcohol, drinking himself to sleep every night and barely spending any time with me anymore. I got pregnant and thought that would make him want to be sober, but nothing really changed with the first kid. But at least at this point, he was still helping around the house and yard, with dinner and shopping a couple times a week. When the second one came along, is when he got a lot worse. He stopped helping with most things around the house and with the kids. He got sober for a 1 year and a 3 year stint and relapsed both times. Fast forward. we have been together 19 years, married 17. I've been a single, married parent. Doing all the raising and care for both my boys, everything around the house and yard and cleaning up after him and his messes, along with my boys, all these years. It has been a roller coaster ride of covert emotional abuse, manipulation, control over money, abandonment even though he doesn't leave home to do it. Except the last two years, every night and day off, he goes out for hours at a time by himself and cannot seem to spend more than 30 mins of time when he is home, with any of us, drinks and stays in the bedroom the rest of the night.

Don't go down this road, every road looks different for everyone living with an addict. Love is not enough. I thought it would be. But his love and need for the alcohol, outweighs any love, affection and energy you may put towards this. I put so much energy and effort into helping him, holding our marriage together and doing everything I could to make our marriage work, until I was sucked dry and left a crumbled up mess of ashes on the floor. Totally lost all sense of myself and who I was, to someone who couldn't change and get the help needed to kick this for good. I gave and he took. Not a healthy marriage or relationship. Don't believe the lies he tells he. Notice the red flags and don't ignore them. They are telling you this is not a good, healthy situation to be in. You deserve to be loved unconditionally, honored and respected for who you are.

Ditto everything that blue said! RUN AWAY FAST. Listen to that voice telling you to leave - what you're hearing is the voice of reason.

He pisses on you in bed - if that doesn't speak volumes - he is pissing all over you in SO many ways. It will get worse. Eventually he'll lose his job, you'll have kids, he will suck at helping with them because what good is a drunk husband/father? It will all fall on you. When you have to work (because he can't keep a job), who will be babysitting? Are you going to leave your child with a drunk all day? This is the crystal ball to your future- take a good look. See the common thread in all these posts, they are basically the same story from many different women.

I know I sound harsh, but it makes me sad when I hear young women who know their boyfriend/fiancé is already a raging alcoholic (and he is), but they love him and feel they need to take care of them, or they can "fix/help him". You can't. They can only fix themselves, and it is a (lifelong) daily struggle to abstain if they do reach sobriety . These young women don't know it, but they are drastically changing the course of their lives when they sign-up with an alcoholic. You deserve a wonderful life full of happiness. If that is not what you have now, it won't get better- only worse and harder for you.

Hello Hopeful: I want to tell you that you are lucky that you can see the state of your boyfriend's alcoholism today. It sounds fairly advanced. I married my charming, intelligent, loving, alcoholic. Only he was a social drinker then and I suspected nothing, knew almost nothing about the disease....and slowly the insidious disease crept in and stole our happiness from us. We had four children by the time I noticed a problem and started to try to help him...he deflected as you describe above, telling me that I didn't have any interests, demanding his social life and all other aspects organized and handed to him since I had left my successful career to look after our children. As bluesprite describes...I was a single married parent. We lived with this secret for years because he was functioning and had successful career and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about his problem...that would be me "throwing him under a bus", and "ruining our family". Yes, he eventually lost the job. Yes, I eventually arranged intervention. Yes, he is sober today (almost 2 years). I'm in recovery from the trauma of the 8+ bad years. I might have to get a job after and extended career break...scary. I fantasize about going back in time and him asking me to marry him again...but I'm this version he explains how he will love me forever, but also will steal my youth, crap on his own potential, cause emotional scars in our children, embarrass me, lie to me, trick me, drive me and my kids while secretly drunk...needless to say, with hindsight, I would run away!! Please insist on sobriety before continuing your relationship. You are still young and you have a chance to be brave. He is in the grips of a serious and progressive disease...drinking is now a "need" for him, not just a "want". Even though my husband is sober now and we are trying to repair the damage to our relationship, I don't think I will ever feel the same as I did in the beginning. I'll never really understand why a successful and intelligent person did not listen to reason and fix the situation....the reason is that his brain was changed/ damaged by alcoholism.