Am I overreacting, partner chose impromptu night out rather than spend time with me after 5 day tr

Pistachio19

You grew up in a home with an alcoholic parent and are now in a relationship with someone who clearly has a drink problem. He's not going to change any time soon so accept that the relationship is not worth maintaining and find someone who loves and respects you over their love of alcohol.

TheadoreT

You've a great job and your own place in Ireland in your 30's which in this day and age is a big achievement and must have taken a lot of dedication. You seem caring and see the best in people. You're a bloody catch, don't settle for wastemen who don't have their **** together and aren't even excited to spend time with you. Know your worth.

YellowLead

OP a kind and thoughtful person does not move into you house and then stay up until all hours drinking mid week so you can’t get enough sleep for work. It’s not that he is kind and thoughtful despite this, he just isn’t kind and thoughtful.

It seems like you ran into this relationship at lightening speed - potentially because of your age and fears around that. Otherwise it’s not clear why you would be putting up with this behaviour.

dontmindme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120113839#Comment_120113839

I also grew up with an alcoholic and pretty useless father

Now you know first-hand your mother's lot.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120114922#Comment_120114922

That's the good side and worth appreciating and maintaining if at all possible. Do the best you can to do that.

It's also true that the country is littered with couples where one or the other tries to change the other's behaviour. This pressure sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. The only reliable way a person can change is when they want change and invest in it themselves, so I'd say that's where this lies.

spaceHopper

You've know him a year or so and he's a solo drinking promises to change, let down. Was he drinking like this before he met you. If he was in his 20's I'd day he'll probably change - aka grow up. But he's in his 30's and probably this is how he is - he's not going to chance and you nagging him isn't going to make a difference. 

I'm sure he's very charming, but that's as far as I'd go. By all means give him a chance but don't waste to much time on him. In a blink of an eye 5 years will have gone by and he won't have changed. For now setup a spare room and if he's snoring wakes you, kick him out. As for puking and pissing, that's not good I've only ever one puked like that and it was very exceptional and I was 21. 

Tork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120114922#Comment_120114922

Did you ever figure out why you stayed with your ex despite all the red flags? I remember your old thread about your ex and how he refused have any food ready for you when you came home after a long day. It's interesting that you think that this new guy cooking for you is a big deal. It isn't but it is an insight into the damage your last relationship caused to you. Your bar for what's OK in a relationship is very low.

You said at the start of the thread that you grew up with an alcoholic father. I see history repeating itself here. When your mother first met your father, do you think she thought "Wow, I really like this useless alcoholic"? No, she started making excuses for him just like you are now. You grew up in that house so you know exactly how things went. You didn't say what sort of man your father is but plenty of alcoholics are nice enough people. But they also have a destructive addiction which rules their lives and ruins so many things.

Also, OP, don't underestimate your appeal. You're a young single woman with a good job, no kids and her own home. A lot of men would jump at the chance to meet somebody like you who doesn't have too much baggage. But, and this is a big but, you are also ripe for the picking when it comes to ne'er do wells. Your partner could turn out to be one of these. The haste at which you moved this guy into your house is something that is ringing alarm bells for me, as are your excuses for how he's behaving now.

Big Bag of Chips

I think the fact that he cooks dinner is really really clouding your perspective. I'm sure he's also eating. So he's not cooking you dinner. He's making dinner, because he's home and you're not. That would be pretty standard. It's just your ex wouldn't even do that much for you.

Better-than-your-ex still doesn't mean great! It just means slightly better than an absolute waster.

bitofabind

+1 to all of what Tork said. This isn't about your partner OP. The dog on the street could tell you these behaviours aren't OK.

This is about you running head first into another relationship draped in red flags that seem to signal "steamroll into this and move him in straight away", whereas a more self assured and self aware person would nope the hell out of there.

Why? Because it's familiar? Because of your age? Because it's easier than being single? Because the bar is pretty low considering how horrific your ex was and even "well intentioned" will do for you? All of the above?

I haven't even read your other threads about your ex but it makes complete sense to me that you'd end up with someone who doesn't meet your needs and violates your sense of safety like this. Your father did the same, right? Your ex did the same, right? And this guy came along in quick succession. There was no room there for reflections, learnings, taking space to figure things out.

We love what's familiar, even when it's not right or healthy for us. Changing those things requires space to think, to process the past, to see the patterns and grieve what we never got that made us believe we deserve no more than this.

You deserve more than this. Your instincts are screaming at you. But you've a choice to make. Keep on this path of dating guys that massively, massively under-deliver on the basics of what you need in a relationship. Or to decide you deserve to feel happy, safe and secure as a person, leading to better relationships.

If it's the second one, I'll be blunt. End it with him. Find a trauma therapist. Lean into the fear of being single for a while (it's not that bad and no-one dies!) And start to prioritise understanding and meeting your own needs for a while.

JupiterKid

I would fully agree with what most of the others on here opined, OP, that you rushed far too quickly into a new dysfunctional relationship after being through one before.

It is simply not good or healthy in any way to be so needy for relationships that you settle for abusive, selfish and unfaithful men with addiction/alcohol issues. There seems to be a repeating pattern here that only you can break.

I would also be far more concerned at your partner's drinking to the extent that he vomits on the bed and stays up late in the wee hours drinking downstairs alone than him wanting to go out with his mates after returning from a work trip. As a recovering alcoholic myself, now 4 years sober, I can tell you that your partner is definitely struggling with alcohol and if he has not already crossed over the line into alcoholism/alcohol dependancy than he is very close to doing so.

He will always put drink above you and you will not change him - only he can do that if he is desperate enough to want it. Ultimatums will simply not work. Do the right thing and end the relationship. Learn to be happy on your own and if that requires therapy, then please avail of it.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120114922#Comment_120114922

Alcoholics very often are very nice when sober. They know they messed up big time and try to compensate. If he didn't have to compensate, would he be that nice? And no nice thing can compensate disrespect. It's simply a different "currency".

It needs to change now

No, YOU need to change. Your acceptance of unacceptable behaviour needs to change. And drop the nagging and start doing, what is needed. Nagging only annoys people. Only action brings results. You can't change others, you can only change yourself. Much more difficult, huh?

doitlikeadude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120115697#Comment_120115697

Bang on the money. I hate those posts from women. 'The boy done well he made me dinner tonight' 'My BF is so great he put his clothes in the washing machine as by himself'

Yes, they are grown adults who can actually do things for themselves and others

Tork

While I take your point, there's a bit more to this particular Personal Issue. When our OP was with her ex, she posted here a few times about the unhealthy relationship she was in. One of the things her ex did was to weaponise the cooking of food. She explained that she was working long hours (Covid was raging at the time) and would come home exhausted after work. Her ex would've by now prepared and eaten his own dinner but not left a morsel for her to heat up in her own time. Instead, he told her that she would have to cook her own dinner because he wasn't going to. So I can understand why this new guy doing something very mundane and ordinary is a big deal to her.

Neyite

You are attracted to dysfunctional men because what you think is a chemistry connection is actually familiarity. I'd say if you sat down with a therapist and discussed your family setup, the examples of a relationship that were shown to you as a child and link it to the pattern of who you pick it would be eye opening for you. Personality wise there might seem to be no obvious similarities but one or two traits you don't even really notice are there.

Your mother stayed with an alcoholic so for you, you don't see heavy drinking as a deal-breaker. It's not the life you want, and yet, it's what you are actively steering towards the same. She took any scraps of occasional functionality from her husband as special moments of kindness or thoughtfulness from him. Your mother tolerated all the things that comes with living with an addict so she had a low bar - as do you.