DH randomly stops eating but manages booze ok

In bed wide awake (it’s 2:40am) listening to my husband’s stomach gurgling next to me.
Just after 1am he woke me up gagging and coughing, asking for water and saying he was going to be sick. I got up to help him and as I got round to his side of the bed he got annoyed that I had apparently sighed. Told me not to bother, sighing didn’t make him feel valued.
So I get back into bed. DH then complains the bed is far too high off the floor. It’s a mattress on the floor. We don’t have a actual bed. He clearly has no idea what’s going on and spends the next 10 minutes coughing and gagging. Obviously I’m wide awake then so sit up in bed to do a puzzle on my phone. He looks over and asks me what I’m watching and how come I’m awake. When I remind him he woke me ten minutes earlier he knows nothing about it. Fast forward another few minutes he tells me he’s just woken and has had awful dreams. I reassure him he’s awake now and safe and get snapped at that duh he knows that. A moment later he’s fast asleep and snoring.

So I’ve been awake for an hour and a half thanks to his 20 minute episode of weirdness. I have to get up at 7 to take our son to school and do a days work myself.

He didn’t eat dinner on Friday because he was too busy on his computer. He managed to drink booze though then was of course hungover on Saturday. Today he skipped breakfast, we had lunch at the pub with my parents which was apparently too late for him so he could only manage to swallow a few spoons of rice. Then he refused any more food all day as lunch had been late so the day was written off. He’s managed 6 pints and a bottle of wine though. Hence the middle of the night weirdness.

When he doesn’t eat, it all goes to shit. It flares up his ibs so then he wants booze because he feels miserable but booze makes the ibs worse not to mention being a depressant. It also makes him forget to take his antidepressant. And anyway not eating is a terrible idea if you’re drinking alcohol!

I really just feel he needs to give himself a shake and help himself more but I also understand that he gets upset that he can’t eat, or sometimes he’s low and isn’t bothered to eat. Right now I want to hit him. Bloody snoring peacefully. He won’t remember any of it tomorrow and it will be glossed over because he “can’t be expected to discuss what he doesn’t remember”.

Ugh.

So today, predictably, it’s a non-conversation because he doesn’t remember and is completely non-understanding of why I’m exhausted.
DS is off sick today. I’m working at home and watching my son at the same time.
DH is hungover and “tapering” today to stop drinking tomorrow. He has been to the shop for 4 pints of cider and a bottle of wine. He got cat food for the cats and some cheese for his lunch.
Now he says he’s going to bed because he’s hungry. I feel like if I don’t make him some lunch he will just sink deeper. But I also feel like if he can walk to the shop for drink he can make a cheese toastie? He’s grumpy now that I ate the ready meal he didn’t want because now that’s the only thing he can eat, he says he can’t be bothered to make a toastie he feels too bad … am I being an uncaring bitch? It’s starting to feel that way.

Hi Joanna
If it feels safe, I’d suggest videoing these episodes, not so much to show him, but to have to show doctors. A picture speaks a thousand words.

Also the more you say about him the more it reminds me of the mental degeneration I saw a friend with alcoholism exhibit. Long term alcohol misuse can cause changes in the brain similar to dementia.

Have a look at some of the alcohol related sites and for you, al-anon https://www.al-anonuk.org.uk may be of help.

I had a bad experience trying to support my alcoholic friend and am very wary of it since. It wrecked her (she died from smoking in bed while drunk) and nearly wrecked me too.

Be sure you are safe and are not being dragged in too much
Xx
MrsA

The middle of the night weirdness or the daytime refusal to eat and confusion?

Both! But only if safe to do so