1. He must be attending AA meetings every week.
2. He absolutely cannot drink ANY alcohol (including beer and wine).
3. He must continue this for at least a year before I will consider marriage.
4. I want at least 6 months of premarital counseling before saying ';I do';.
The only problem I have is, how will I know if he's truly being faithful in his endeavor? I'll know if he's attending the meetings, but what if he's sneaking drinks? I can't always tell when he's been drinking. And how should I go about telling him this? I know he's going to be upset. He's a great man in every other way but I'm not going to settle for less! I do really love him but I believe marriage is for life and I'm trying to be very careful about my decision. Please provide your input.Dealing with an alcoholic...?
Hon that's great and congrats on the baby. Unfortunately, you can pretty much know that he is continuing to drink BECAUSE he has not decided to stop drinking.... YOU have decided he's going to stop drinking and it doesn't work that way... I wish it did. The only way he's going to stop is when HE decides it's time to stop. He's the only one that's ever going to make that decision and nobody but him will ever make that decision. You can't reason with a drunk and you can't argue with a drunk and no one can ever tell a drunk to stop drinking. THEY have to decide when they're gonna quit. Best of luck to you... Honestly. I hope everything works out for the best. I've been through it myself and I know how hard it was. My husband is 15 years sober hon and it's well worth it.Dealing with an alcoholic...?
Thanks for the vote! Good luck to you... I hope everything works out for you.
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Don't marry a drunkard...
I believe you are going on the right direction, you have give him some trust and support...it will be hard but if you guys love each other he will change for himself and for his family...if he refuses to change then don't marry him because if he doesn't love himself enough to give up alcohol then he don't love ne one.
i was married to an alcoholic. my advice is don't marry him! ia m sorry i know you love him, i realize he is the father of your baby, BUT unless you KNOW he is sober you shouldn't marry him! my marriage was H8LL!
i can usually tell when someone's drinking just by smelling them when they walk in a room. even a beer. can you give a pee test for alcohol? or what about a breathalyzer? they are probaby a bit pricey but you can probably find one.
someone can be sober for years and then drink again....
Since he's lied to you all ready, I would give it some thought.
Going to meetings doesn't mean he won't drink. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. (Second step of AA).
But if you really want to do something have him start taking a med called Antibuse. It's a pill given to drunks that make them VERY sick anytime they drink. That would guarantee him not drinking.
You ideas are fantastic! Look, I've been in a 12-step program, and if he thinks he's better because he's stopped using hard liquor, he is dead wrong! He is in serious denial. The very first step reads, ';We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unamanageable.'; But if you're still drinking, you haven't admitted those things.
My sister married an alcoholic. Based on what I've seen of their marriage, I feel obligated to advise you not to marry him.
As a child of an an alcoholic i can tell you that everything you said is right,and you just need to tell him just like you told us,please understand though that no matter what you do or say he might always be an alcoholic and he might not change,i have watched several men lose EVERYTHING (including my father who died old and lonely)remember that it is an addiction and could even be genetic,i hope for both of your sakes he has the willpower., if for some reason you end up leaving please try to forgive him because he probably doesn't mean to hurt you.
DO NOT MARRY HIM!!! You cannot change him and laying down all the ground rules in the world is NOT going to make him stop drinking!! When/IF and only when/if he stops drinking it will be because he realizes he has a problem that he cannot fix alone. Threatening to leave, call off the marriage, etc etc will only add fuel to his fire and make him resent you thus pushing him farther into this destructive behavior. For yourself, for your baby, for your fiance you have to decide to stop enabling him and step out of the situation until he can get his life together, if he ever does. You also need to attend Alanon meetings to get support for yourself.
Good for you make sure that before you say your I do's you know exactly the type of person you are marrying I wish I were that smart with my first husband as he was also a VERY abusive alcoholic as well
but to answer your question if you can not trust him then don't do it
I hear you, and I agree with you.
I am divorced from a guy like this. He said he'd stopped, he hid booze all over. I left him. And then he quit and we got back together, and then I started finding the bottles and realized that there was never going to be a way to know if he'd actually stopped. In the end, I had to end the marriage. I refused to raise my children in an alcoholic home.
I don't have an answer for you. I wish I did...
Out of personal experience. Get rid of him. Sorry to say it but I was with an alcoholic for 6 years before I realized that nothing I ever did was going to change how he acted. He drank before he met me and I wasn't going to make any difference. At the end he was just sneaking around to drink, didn't come home for like 2 days and started snorting cocaine. That was it. I have heard to this day he still drinks and now he has a wife and kid with someone. I feel bad for them but I am glad it wasn't me. I don't need that kind of drama in my life anymore.
Well this sounds all to familiar. I am a mother of a two year old little girl and her father and I were together for almost 4 years before we became pregnant with her. His drinking never really bothered me until I found out I was pregnant. He told me that he would stop and attended meetings and he did for a while and all was good and then the baby was born. And the drinking started again and worse than before. I got fed up with it. I left with the baby and moved on with my life and he continued into drinking his self to death. He would call me plastered and tell me how sorry he was and how he wanted a family and I told him that when he wanted his family more than the alcohol then we would talk. Well I moved on with my life and got involved with someone else and that seemed to make it worse but I could not feel guilty because he chose that life. Well in August he was involved with someone as well and she turned out to be just like him a DRUNK and out for herself and went on a being and ran him over with her car twice and tried to kill him. My heart went out to him because we do have a child together and there is love there. As he lay in the hospital going thru DT's and the pain of the surgery he had to have he realized that the life style he was living was not what he wanted and to have what he wanted he had to give up the booze. He has been sober since August second and we have talked and I told him that I would consider our relationship again after he could give me a year of sobriety. We are working on it and there are trust issues that I have and he understands that and we talk about it. I am telling you this because yes they are right you cannot change the person the person has to want to change themselves. It may take you leaving and moving on with your life for him to see that you mean what you say. And be strong do not flip flop. And I know that is hard to do but if you want the relationship to work and you want to be with him for the rest of your life then you need to do it. Once there is just one sign of weakness that鈥檚 it he knows he can get away with it over and over again. I wish you all the luck with your child and with your relationship.
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