Backstory. I met my finance while working in a bar in 2017. We were both very much in our partying stage in our lives. After being off and on for the first year, I fell pregnant and had our first baby in 2019, we bought a house the next year and had our second baby in 2022.
My fiancé grew up surrounded by alcoholics. Totally believes it was normal that his parents, aunts and uncles brought him to bars with them on a regular basis as a child. His mother was a saint of a woman, she took care of the house and family while his dad worked and then would come home and drink until he passed out and was a very angry and aggressive man all through my fiancé’s upbringing. Like father like son.
It has been a continuing issue between us that I carry all responsibilities of the house, managing our bills, caring for our children and pets, as well as working multiple jobs. He works a full time job and will do certain tasks when asked, but will also stomp around/slam doors, curse/ throw things around most of the time when asked to do them. And ALWAYS does the famous eye roll, sigh, etc to show he does not want to do the task (hoping I’ll just tell him forget it and do it myself) or has flat out just told me no when asked. It’s exhausting. When he’s home alone with the kids if I have to work odd hours nothing is ever done, sinks are full of dishes, piles of laundry, dirty floors, etc. He also has a temper that’s out of this world, and when posed with confrontation uses his very loud voice and goes over the top. He’s never hurt me and I don’t believe he ever would stoop to that level.
He has a habit of going to the bar after work multiple times a week. It’s slowed down because of how much I’ve complained and thrown fits over it, but it’s still at least 2-3 times a week and if he’s not there, he’s finding other reasons to stay away from home. He’s expressed to me that he “ gets so stressed at work and needs time to himself to decompress” but also as flat out said he just doesn’t like to be at home, he’s not a homebody and never has been. Says it’s not that he doesn’t want to see us or spend time with me and our children, but he just doesn’t like to be at home. He’s almost never home before our kids go to bed, sometimes he’ll catch them right before and read them a story or tuck them in. It breaks my heart when they ask where he is or say they miss him.
I confronted him a few weeks ago saying I was uncomfortable with how dedicated he was to seeing a specific bartender every time she worked. So last week he asked me to join him and we had dinner and I went home, he soon followed. Tonight we went a different night than when she worked, but I had to be home to relieve the sitter at 7 and made the joke I probably wouldn’t see him until midnight. Well, I just happened to wake up at 11:59pm (I swear it was like my intuition) and he wasn’t in bed next to me. I called him and heard his phone ring in the house and he walked in our bedroom a few minutes later. Not a word was said.
I don’t want to have to beg for my fiancé to choose his family over the bar. Or just to come home at all. I am torn between knowing my worth and what I deserve and keeping my family together. The narrative that “relationships are hard work” and “you have to choose your partner every day for a marriage to last.” I also know it would financially be hard living without him but as I’ve always said, I’ve done it before I will do it again if I had to. I do love him and I don’t want our family to fall apart. Is it worth fighting for?