boyfriend didn’t stand up for me when I felt like he should’ve

I don’t know If I am overreacting

Please be patient with me as English is not my first language and my writing could use improvement. This will also be a long post, bear with me.

I 25(f) went out Saturday night with my boyfriend m(31) and his friend also m(31). Originally my boyfriend had gone out with his friends for dinner and I had gone shopping with my girlfriends. He called me an hour after I got home that evening and asked if I wanted to join him and his friend, let’s call him Brian at a gaming spot/bar. I agree and meet them about 45 minutes later.

For some background. My boyfriend and I have been together for about 5 years. The first few were very rocky because my boyfriend has a drinking problem. He drinks to the point of blacking out and when that happens he turns into a complete asshole and a different person. His drinking was something that caused me so much pain to where I would be begging him to stop, feeling like he loved alcohol more than me, and at some points drove me to break up with him. The last incident and last time he had a drink were after 6 months of him being sober but continually saying he wanted to drink again. we compromised and I stupidly was pressured into saying I was okay with him having one beer a night. It went from 1 out of a 6 pack, to a tall can of 4 Loco, to one night me coming home and finding two large bottles of wine empty along with some cans of beer and My boyfriend blacked out.

My bf is the kind of drunk that likes to pick fights and get into arguments and when he’s in this state, has no sympathy or compassion and will say anything to try to hurt me. That last fight was so bad, verbally and emotionally that I had to go to my sister’s for a few days and called his mom to let her know what was happening. This led to me giving him 30 days to pack up and leave the apartment. Over those 30 days, I softened and changed my mind. Like I did so many times in the past when I shouldn’t have smh.

After that incident he promised to get help and started attending AA meetings, apologizing to me constantly for what he’s put me through, and even getting a prescription to suppress his urge to drink. This was about two years ago and he’s been sober ever since then and hasn’t brought up wanting to drink at all.

Fast forward to this weekend. When I meet him and his friend Brian at the bar/arcade. Brian offers to bye me a drink and I say sure! Then he goes only if bf can also have one. I look taken aback and my boyfriend says come on I’ll just buy you one myself chuckling. I get my drink and we go to where Brian is, he’s clearly a little intoxicated, and right off the bat starts asking me why bf can’t drink and that I am being too controlling, and that he should at least be allowed to have a glass of beer. I explain to him why I am not comfortable with him drinking and how he turns into an asshole when drunk and his friends agrees with this and then goes but if we’re both there we can help him cut it off before it gets to that point. I tell him I am not anyways mother and shouldn’t need to monitor a grown man. I tell him I don’t want to be a controlling girlfriend but I will not be a part of his life if he chooses to start drinking again, Brian asks me why he can’t drink and also have me in his life and, again, I explain and recount all things we went through in the past that was caused by his drinking.

This conversation goes on for almost the whole night with his friend trying to convince me to let him drink and what upset me was the entire time my boyfriend said absolutely nothing. This is a topic we have discussed and he knows is sensitive and triggering to me and never attempted to step in and put a stop to it. A few times during I paused and asked him “are you going to say something?” And he goes he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to you.

An hour or so later we’re outside talking and trying to figure out where to go and I believe I Said something along the lines of I am just gonna go home and the friend goes okay well me and bf will just go pick up some “college bitches”. My boyfriend says chill out man and laughs. Then his friends suggest they go to a strip club and at this point I am getting upset and say, you’re trying to provoke me aren’t you and I don’t find this funny. Friend says it’s a joke, don’t you and your friends’ joke and I tell him we joke, but we don’t joke about cheating. Mind you, again my boyfriend doesn’t say anything, not no I don’t want to do that or anything, just stands there silent with a smirk on his face. I ask him is that what he wants to do and he goes you already know how I feel about that and I go yeah but you’re not reaffirming it. Then he goes hey I am just standing here and didn’t say anything about it and I go exactly, you not saying anything is saying you’re okay with it. He looks at his friend and says I am just gonna go home, man. At this point I am clearly upset and let Brian know his jokes aren’t funny and I find them a little hurtful, he then tries to apologize and insist he was just playing, and I say it’s whatever, say goodbye and leave. Boyfriend says he’ll see me at home and I drive off.

I didn’t want to go home right away because I was so livid the more I thought about the evening and the conversations and decide to drive around a little to calm down. Bf tries calling me but I don’t pick up. When I get home he’s showered and gotten in bed, so I go change and sit in the living room to watch TV. Boyfriend comes out seeing how upset I am and asks me what’s wrong, I say I don’t want to talk right now, he tries to push it for a little bit but I just tell him to leave me alone. He pauses the TV as I am watching it and tells me to tell him whats wrong, I grab the other controller and unpause it and tell him I don’t want to talk.

The next morning after calming down a bit, I ask him to talk. I tell him that I felt very disrespected by his friend and his lack of response to the things he was saying. I tell him that I felt like you wanted to drink and was okay with letting your friend try and pressure me into letting you. I tell him how I felt like he should’ve stood up and shut the conversation down knowing how uncomfortable it made me. I asked him why he didn’t object to his friend suggesting them going to a strip club and just standing there silently.

His response was, before you had gotten there Brian told me he wanted to grill you and see how serious you were about me not drinking and told my boyfriend not to intervene or say anything. I asked him why he let it go on for so long, to the point I was getting upset and he goes “honestly, you were doing so well holding your own and being so adamant and articulate and I loved seeing that. And.. I also found the whole conversation a little amusing.” I then question him about the strip club topic and he says he didn’t feel the need to say anything because I should already know how he feels about it.

None of his reasons made sense to me and frankly angered me more to the point I couldn’t sit there and listen to what he had to say anymore. The whole thing made me feel like my partner didn’t have my back and didn’t care how uncomfortable I was. This is also not the first time he didn’t speak up for me when he should have and he downplays my reasons for being upset or being offended/hurt by things his family or friends say.