<br>I have been married for 16yrs, I have
<br>this feeling I am not happy anymore. We
<br>have 3 children. My husband likes to
<br>drink on the weekends, I am getting to
<br>the point where I hate the weekends. He
<br>changes so much over the weekends. He
<br>never used to drink as much as he does
<br>now. He constanlly is picking on our
<br>oldest daughter (13) telling her to get
<br>out if she does not like it. Calls her a
<br>witch. He argues all the time with me. I
<br>feel like I cant please him anymore with
<br>anything I do. He does not like it when
<br>I do something for the kids. I run a
<br>program for my daughters and he yells
<br>every time the phone rings. He says we
<br>are running all the time. He likes to
<br>stay home and do nothing. Whenever I go
<br>out to do something it is usually for the
<br>kids. I cant take it any more. I have
<br>tried going for help but when I go out he
<br>gets mad. I feel hopeless.

Alcohol is a big "love buster". You need to take care of your self and your children. Look into al-anon, you can find it in the phone book. go to www.alcoholismhelp.com. You will find tons of information and support, they have a discussion site just like this one. Your older children may also benefit from al-ateen.
<p>Good luck to you.

It sounds like you are closer to the children than him and he gets upset when you are involved with them, but he's not. Do you think he might have some jealousy to you?
<br>

Maybe he feels he needs more attention, but drinking is not the answer to that problem. When alcohol is in the picture to the extent that he becomes a different person when he drinks, then it becomes difficult to deal with relationship problems in a rational way. An alcoholic is not rational. He is displaying unacceptable behavior by being verbally abusive to his daughter, and being constantly argumentative. And while he is drinking, he will not see that is behavior may be contributing to the problems. He blame everyone and everything else but him and his drinking. There is an article on this site somewhere that states that you can not work on the relationship problems until the drinking problem is taken care of. Lois can learn some tools from al-anon for detaching, and for not "fueling the fire", and for feeling better about herself and eventually not feeling so "hopeless". But attempts at marriage building techniques will be difficult until her husband recognizes the damage that his drinking is doing. Most importantly, get help for the 13 yr old daughter. Being treated like that by her father inflicts deep wounds. She needs to understand that she is not at fault. I urge you to treat this as an alcohol problem, and learn more about that. Alcoholism is a progressive disease, it will get worse.<p>Sorry to be so negative, but if you haven't witnessed and lived with an alcoholic, you can't possibly understand the emotional torment. It's not as simple as his needs not being met.<p>Take care lois... for yourself and your children, please do what you can to learn about alcoholism, and al-anon.