Alida's Story: Living With My Husband's Alcoholism

by Alida
(Algeria)

I have been married for 17 years and we have 5 children. My husband has been drinking for years but its only during the past year that his drinking has seriously started to impact on our every day lives.

I have come to realise that it has affected our lives for a long time before that but that I was trying too hard to make things all right as he was often very demanding and critical and would blame me criticise or manipulate me into doing what he wanted.

We moved 8 times in the last 7 years including drastic moves like emigrating to the UK, France, Algeria and he's planning his next move already.

Whenever life gets too difficult - he wants to move on and manipulates me (mainly through false promises and guilt)into doing just that.

He now drinks openly in front of the kids, has become very abusive verbally, and at times physically because a lot gets thrown around or broken and there have been many near misses towards me or the kids.

I have made the decision to leave and put my kids first. It is affecting them big time. Our home life is non existent and they feel stressed as soon as their dad is around.

We live our lives by his moods ... a kiss and a hug during a good moment ... insults and criticism during a bad - and the moods change rapidly and unpredictably. I can't afford to sit and wait for things to get better any more as our children are suffering big time