I want to sit my wife down and have a conversation about her drinking. What’s the best way to have this conversation?
So my wife and I have been married for about a year and its been great. She is my best friend and we love each other very much. There has only ever been one thing about my wife, even while we were dating that has bothered me. Her drinking.
She doesn’t always drink too much, and she doesn’t always have this switch that gets flipped, but when she does she goes pretty hard and gets sloppy and sometimes really mean and aggressive. It becomes her world and she won’t listen to a thing anyone has to say.
One such instance was when we were out with a few friends and we were getting pretty loose. My wife is a social butterfly and through her job knows a lot of people in the bar/restaurant scene so we very frequently get comped drinks. My wife is pretty tuned up at this point and I want to head home and she agrees. We get an uber home and on the ride home it was like her inside voice left the building. She was yelling in the sedan sized uber and I was trying to get her to mellow out for just a second when she flipped her switch and started getting mad at me for trying to tell her what to do and we begin to argue a little. We make it home I go to another room for some space and when I come back she’s back to being sweet and having fun, leaving me frustrated.
There have been many times when I left the evening early because I needed to go home because I worked in the morning or I was just ready to leave and she wasn’t, she usually has a little debate about staying or leaving and I always suggest that she leaves with me before things get too far gone. Every time she decides to stay out and every single time she gets home and says the exact same thing “I should have left with you”. She also has terrible hangovers where she crawls in and out of the bathroom all day. I’ve told her plenty of times that her asking me what I think, and then doing the opposite is not appreciated. I also have told her every time, that I do not like when she comes home hammered, even when she hasn’t reached a point where the switch gets flipped. She is always apologetic and says that I’m right.
I’ve had my own struggles with alcohol in the past that I have overcome. I used to spend every last penny I had on alcohol and I was a real asshole to a lot of people. I was fortunate enough to hit a rock bottom that got me back on track. My wife has had her own rock bottom and I don’t think she’s learning from her mistakes.
We have had some small conversations about her drinking and come to agreements like not taking shots anymore (the real culprit IMO), or having hard cut offs for ourselves. Most of the time it works, but once in a while she gets carried away. We hardly/never even drink at home.
I don’t know how to really address this with her outside of telling her that it upsets me when these things happen. I want to have a sit down with her about how she acts but I don’t want her to feel like I’m telling her how to live her life or trying to control her. I feel like abstinence is the only way to truly solve the problem, but I also don’t want to completely give up alcohol myself (even though that’s probably the best thing to do) and If she gives it up and I don’t, then that wont be fair. So how do I talk to her about this?
TL;DR: My wife occasionally gets way too drunk and becomes really mean towards me and sometimes other people. I have told her how this makes me feel but there is still no real change. I want to have a sit down with her but I don’t know how to do that.