My boyfriend parties and I do not. He hurt me. Will this be the end?

[jillian_nicole]

I feel like I have been the age of 30 since I was 14 years old (I am currently 22, almost 23). I’ve never really gotten along with my peers, and I was never the type to drink, smoke or party. my boyfriend, however, has been partying since he was 16 years old, with no breaks. Every weekend, a new party. Then he went to college, more partying.

 

Today, my boyfriend is 25, has a great career ahead of him, and he and I are perfect for each other. We have been dating for almost two years, and we have talked about the future — not in a permanent way, but whether or not we are headed in the right direction. And we are. But there is one fatal flaw — his past.

 

He likes to party every once in a while. He likes to get drunk every once in a while. And because of his partying past, he believes that he can control himself; he's had "so much practice". Only problem is that he can’t. He doesn’t know how to anymore. He's grown older and his alcohol tolerance has changed. Here are a couple of situations:

 

He went to a high school friend’s wedding. It should be said that there was already a promise made that he would go to the wedding, have dinner, and leave for work. He needed to go to work afterwards, that was the plan. He has something big coming within the next couple weeks and he needs to be incredibly diligent of work. He drank, normally not a bad thing, but he drank too much, and he could not drive. To me, this shows a lack of self-control, especially whilst partying with his friends.

 

And this is something that I prefer not to talk about, or even think about. But my boyfriend once hurt me. I had just graduated college a few nights before, so we went out with some of his friends. I got incredibly drunk (it was my party, after all), but so did my boyfriend. My boyfriend was unable to help me at all, because he was more drunk than I was.

That night, he held me down, and as I screamed him to stop, he would not. He was covering my mouth, suffocating me, telling me to shut up. I was terrified. I had never been so scared in my entire life. Sooner or later, he got mad because I would not stop crying and screaming, and he left the room. I then locked him out, because I was scared of him coming back.

 

So with this being said, I do not believe that he can control his alcohol. At least, not by himself. When we go out together, I’ll tell him to slow down, and he will be very receptive of this. He is not a bad man. He is the kindest, most gentle man that I have ever dated, and I feel lucky.

 

We have fun together; we go wine tasting, we go hang out with friends, we will go to brunch, and it is so much fun. It’s almost as if we are two people in the 30’s, just wanting to go out and have fun. We are nearly perfect for each other.

 

But that’s not enough for him. He needs to party. So flash forward to now. I am okay with drinking, smoking, and hanging out with friends. However, he needs to party. Like he would die without it. His friend’s birthday is coming up and they want to go to Las Vegas to go clubbing. I was invited, but I would be absolutely miserable, so I turned it down. But he wants to go. He wants to drink. But he knows very well of how he is when he drinks.

He acts as if it is required for him to go to Las Vegas because it is his friend, but it isn't. I know the real truth is that he wants to use it as an excuse to party. I don't know how far he will go. He has not been drunk without me since the night that he hurt me.

 

So now I’m terrified that he will get too drunk and hurt someone. I’m terrified that he will not know when to stop. I know that he cannot control himself, and he knows that he cannot control himself, but he refuses to change this partying side of himself, even though he has hurt me once before.

I do not know if this is who he will permanently be when he blacks out, but he’s willing to take the chance of that just so he can become that high school boy all over again.

 

He's not willing to change, even though this side of him is detrimental to our relationship and anything that we could possibly build in the future. We are so compatible, but I'm not compatible with the side of him that refuses to change his ways that are only pulling him back from his amazing career path and the amazing person that he can be.

 

I don’t know what to do. I'm lost. I love him, but I'm also afraid.

[MsJayne]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you sound like you're his mother. Add an 's' to mother and it becomes 'smother'. And smothering someone is controlling behaviour. There are few things more irritating in a relationship than someone who is always disapproving and trying to make you change to suit what they want. He may well have an issue with alcohol, and you may be trying to protect him from himself, but why not save yourself a lot of drama and face up to the reality that he's not really ready to be a grown up?

[ExpatInItaly]

OP, if you have talked to him and he hasn't made any changes, it's because he doesn't want to.

 

You have seen what he is capable of under the influence of alcohol. The fact that he has already laid his hands on you in anger and then doesn't see the need to change is a gigantic red flag. It will happen again, I can nearly guarantee you that.

 

Sadly, we cannot change others. You are right to be very concerned about your own well-being here. I wouldn't stay in light of the above. He is putting his alcohol consumption above you, and it's not just a case of party animal refusing to settle down. This guy is violent when drunk.

 

Get out. All the ways you are compatible simply aren't enough to override abusive behaviour.

[basil67]

I'm double your age and arguably drink too much. Alcohol tolerance doesn't decrease with age. It's the recovery period which gets tougher. And even then, you'd be pushing 40 before you start to notice it.

 

Regarding your boyfriend, my husband was a party animal at 25. Every weekend. Going away for weekends. Drinking till he could barely walk. And he lost a long term girlfriend over it. It wasn't until he was 30 that he decided that he was ready to slow down and I met him after he'd made that decision. There's no way I could have been with his former self.

 

For the record, while he admits that it was his alcohol use which cost him the previous relationship, he doesn't regret it. He says he had to do things in his own time.

[Arieswoman]

gillian,

 

So now I’m terrified that he will get too drunk and hurt someone. I’m terrified that he will not know when to stop. I know that he cannot control himself, and he knows that he cannot control himself, but he refuses to change this partying side of himself, even though he has hurt me once before.

 

I think you know, deep down, that this is not a healthy relationship.

 

How much hurt are you prepared to take before you walk away?

 

There is only one person who can change his drinking habits and that's him, and he's chosen not to do that.

 

So you put up with it or walk away.

 

I know of two women who were/are married to alchoholics (and that's what he is).

One was regulary having to drive him to work because he was drunk/hungover. He died of stomach cancer in his forties, leaving her with 4 kids.

 

The other is still married and her husband has been told that his liver is basically shot, and if he has another "bender" it could kill him. She walks around on eggshells, dreading coming home to him passed out in a pool of his own vomit.

 

Is this the future you want for yourself?

 

If it isn't, then you know what to do.

 

I'm sorry, I really am. x

[elaine567]

So did I read this right, when he was drunk one night, he raped you?

[Poppyolive]

This reminds me of my ex. It will get worse. We were together almost 6 years. Trust me, the dynamics of the relationship will take its toll. Mostly on you. Please consider leaving him.

 

Look, he knows how you feel, he knows he is hurting you and your relationship, he knows you're cutting back on spending time with him because of his drinking, he knows. He knows ...but he is choosing to continue drinking. This here, should be enough.

 

My ex promised changes, he needed time. Apologies, gifts, cards, we'd be better....but it became a cycle after a few years, those apologies, cards, etc meant nothing, then they stopped. He simply couldn't be bothered. Alcohol was his priority. Like your boyfriend , mine didn't drink that often. But when he did he was a sloppy arse.

 

It hurt me a lot. I became scared of going out with him incase he got too drunk, I became his minder and controlled his amount when we were out. I missed out on many parties, festivals etc because he couldn't control his drinking and I didn't want to be around him. He too, like your boyfriend, knew all.of this. The day we split, he told me he never had any intentions of stopping until he was ready. I wasted years believing he would change/stop for the health of our relationship. I believed his promises.

 

Look at what he is showing you now. Believe that.

[PegNosePete]

That night, he held me down, and as I screamed him to stop, he would not. He was covering my mouth, suffocating me, telling me to shut up. I was terrified. I had never been so scared in my entire life. Sooner or later, he got mad because I would not stop crying and screaming, and he left the room. I then locked him out, because I was scared of him coming back.

I have only one question for you.

 

Why in the name of all that is holy would you EVER speak to someone who did that, ever again???

 

If someone does that to you, you dump them. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. DUMP and NEVER speak to them again.

 

Then call the police to report the assault (or rape, if it went that far).

[keiji]

The end should have been right after the violent episode. I can drink like a f***** fish when I go out at night, but I've never behaved violently, never mind with a woman. Actually, I become more affectionate and friendly. So no, it's not a normal reaction, with or without alcohol.

 

That said, he's 25. It's completely normal that he likes partying. It would be normal even if he was 35. He doesn't have kids and he can afford to party. Why not do it? The fact that you don't like it doesn't mean he has to go by your rules.

[hippychick3]

OP, the only part of your entire post that is important is the part where he physically attacked you. That should be an absolute deal breaker in and of itself. The relationship should have ENDED at that point.

 

Please don't think that is ever, ever acceptable under any circumstances with any man. Get out now.

[azaleigha]

I hear that you're in a tough situation because you have a history with your boyfriend, and you mentioned how "perfect" you are for each other - with a pretty major exception. It's definitely a huge concern that he got drunk enough that night you described to attack you like that. Regardless of the rest of it, that's a pretty big red flag you should be aware of. Even if that hadn't happened, it sounds like his drinking is a big deal to you, and it's something you need to think about as you consider moving forward with him.

 

You mentioned that you've talked about the future. Do you think you could see the two of you getting married? If so, are you ok with him continuing to drink as he does now? That's not likely something that will change just because you get married, unless he has a change of heart on his own before then. Have you considered taking some time apart to reevaluate your relationship and try to discern if this man is someone you want to spend more time with, or maybe let him go and look for someone whose behaviors are better suited to your personality? None of us can tell you what to do - you know yourself and him better than we do. But please don't dismiss the past examples of what he can be like when he drinks to much, and make sure you consider how important his drinking behaviors are to you and whether they're something you can deal with long-term.

 

Best of luck to you as you consider what to do. Hang in there, friend.

[Purepony]

He sounds like a loser

Leave him now he prefers partying over you

[Conviction]

This is exactly why I won't even entertain a relationship with someone who likes to party. It's not part of my lifestyle.

 

Best to get out, because it doesnt sound like it's going to change.

[OctoberSorrows2113]

I was in the same exact position as you this past September. My (now ex) boyfriend and I had been together 3 and a half years before he dumped me over the choice between me and partying. He had a past with partying a lot in his youth but a DUI caused him to straighten up at 20 years old and get his act together. He was 27 at the time he started partying again, September of last year. We moved to a downtown area riddled with bars on every corner and he got a job at a restaurant where there was a bar. He got involved with his younger coworkers who were all on a number of drugs and partied all the time and in consequence, he got sucked back into that lifestyle. Since for most of our relationship he was a "six pack on a friday night" kind of guy, I had never really experienced THIS version of himself. At first, I was appeasing, I even tried to make friends with his friends--go to the bar with them, have a drink. But, I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father so getting wasted was never my kind of thing because I saw what a dependency to alcohol does to someone. Well, cut to January of this year and my ex's dependency to alcohol and his new friends grew into a behemoth of an issue when he got both drunk and high at his job's bar. His "friend" who he worked with and was the bartender, never cut him off and his kitchen buddies gave him ingestible drugs and stuck a number of drugs in his pockets. When I tried to get him to leave the bar, he couldn't walk or hardly talk and the bartender threatened to call the cops on me for trying to remove him. When he finally did come home (a waitor carried him to our apartment) he became violent because he didn't want to be there and in response punched the wall over and over and banged his head into a door, he had me cowering in the floor crying begging God to make him stop. He even pushed me down the stairs, laughing when I tried to run from him. He finally passed out and the next morning he woke up with zero recollection of anything he did. I had recorded a portion of it on my phone because I was terrified he was going to hit me or hurt himself but when I tried to get him to watch it he refused.

 

Because of that night (and a handful of other--less violent--drunken nights), I stopped trying to be friends with his friends and never trusted them again, or him... Because of that night, I had a huge fear of him going out drinking with those people and in response he started sneaking out to the bars, turning off his phone, and not coming home till the early AM.. if at all. Any time he went to work I was sent into anxiety attacks because I didn't know if he would come home and it began a ritual of me asking him each time I kissed him goodbye for the day, "Are you coming home tonight? You promise? Are you drinking tonight? You promise you're not?" I tried to compromise with him and told him I didn't mind him having a few beers every now and again but I just needed him to let me know out of respect, not sneak off and do it behind my back. Even though I tried to act cool about it... he still continued to lie.

 

Cut to this past May, his dependency to alcohol had went up to getting drunk nearly every single night, if not just drinking every single night and my anxiety got to the point where it was crippling. We were constantly fighting and in turn our fights sent him straight to the bar. It got to the point where he was a full blown alcoholic and I told him he needed to treat alcohol like a reward, not a crutch. It wasn't until he forcibly grabbed me while drunk and tried to rip my promise ring off of my finger in an arguement where I was threatening to leave that the next day he swore off alcohol and promised to get sober. That lasted two weeks (a blissful two weeks, maybe the best our relationship had been in months...) I thought we were going to make it... I thought "Yes! Finally, he's seen the light..." but his coworkers/friends came calling and swept him off to the bars once again and that weekend, he didn't even come home. I found out that his friend got him smashed (funding the drinks) and then loaded him up into a car of a girl he also works with and she took him home with her and he stayed the night there. He swears nothing happened and since she's a virgin, I (for the most part) believe that to be true but that was the last straw for me. When he finally came home and I found out where he had been we got into an explosive fight and it all boiled down to a "me or them" choice, me or your friends and drugs/alcohol.

Guess who lost?

He dumped me and kicked me out of the apartment.

At first he put up a front that he was really angry but when it came time for me to actually move out he completely broke down and sobbed making promises that he was going to get sober, work on himself, and then maybe down the road we could be together. I clung to his every word because i loved this man with every cell of my body--even if he had hurt me.

He admitted he had an addiction to drugs and alcohol and that he was tired of hurting me but planned to quit his job when he can, get away from those people, and get his life together.

It's been a month since we've broken up now and I saw him last week. He's not only still working there but he's partying every single night, doing drugs and smoking weed every single night, and our apartment has become a new party pad where those friends are there every single day. He's also seeing an 18 year old he works with and I found out his coworkers/friends give him drugs and alcohol for free (since he can't afford it with paying all the bills himself now) in celebrating of getting his "stuck up girlfriend" out of his life "once and for all."

 

All I can say to you is, while my situation is extreme, I see a lot of myself in your writing and if your boyfriend is seeing how badly his choices are hurting you yet he continues to do them... you can't force him to care about you and you can't force him to choose you over alcohol because when someone has a dependency to something... that dependency will win out every time. You and I are just collateral damage...

You wrote this earlier this month so I can only hope that since then things have changed but if they haven't, know from my experience that you should be the one to break up with him.

I wish I had left my ex before he dumped me. I wish it had been my choice so that I wouldn't sit here feeling like tossed out trash, worthless because I wasn't meaningful enough for him to want to change.

[Hoosfoos]

His bond is with the booze. You will not be able to break that. Take this from someone who used to live with an alcoholic.

[Els]

This SHOULD be the end, you should leave immediately for your own sake.