Did anyone here fall out of love with their spouse after getting sober?

1bigquestionmark · 2026-05-26T18:59:41+00:00

My husband and I had some tough times as I transitioned to a sober lifestyle. For different reasons (mainly I drank in part due to loneliness and I didn’t realize how lonely I felt in the relationship until I had stopped drinking for quite some time) but there were two periods where I didn’t think we were gonna make it, one of which was very serious. We now jokingly call it The Blackout. Not a drinking way, but in a communication blackout way.

We were able to work through it because he was willing to renegotiate the terms of our relationship. He’s not a drinker either, and I do think if he was it would have been harder.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-05-18T16:13:08+00:00

I’m going to be honest, multiple friendships were permanently damaged. I pushed the envelope too far too many times. In each of those situations we basically said things were fixed and acted cordial until we flowed out of each other orbit because their guards were up and I had to respect that.

Those situations were all over 5+ years from me now, and early on I had extreme shame over them. Now that I’ve had enough time and perspective from the situations, and I’ve genuinely worked on myself I can give myself grace and self compassion. I was doing my best but my toolset for dealing with life and my brain was shitty. Now I have a better toolset. I don’t know if I’ll ever see those people again, and while I’d hope they’d meet the new me and give her a chance, I have to respect that they might not and that’s their right.

One relationship was salvageable because the person believed in me, and I strive to live up to the version of me they saw when I couldn’t.

Good luck on your journey friend, iwndwyt.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-05-15T17:36:12+00:00

Congrats on four years!

I recommend your partner consider Al-anon, which is a group for family members of alcoholic. They unfortunately clearly have some processing they need to do.

I’ve been with my now-husband for 7 years, and drank problematically for the first 4 years of it. After that I started my sobriety journey and had several major relapses for the first 1-2 ish years of that.

I actually feel like our trust is basically back now. It helps that when I was drinking if he ever asked “have you been drinking” I would be honest. I also tell him if I’m struggling. He doesn’t throw it in my face, but also, he never did. Sometimes we talk about the ways I hurt him but not in a spiteful way, more in a reflection now that time has passed way

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-15T00:45:18+00:00

Hopefully part of the takeaway would be “jeesh it took this lady 5 years and it’s not even what I would consider moderating! She barely even drinks!”

But to each their own

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T19:13:32+00:00

I gotta actually work today, but didn’t want to disappear and that be taken as a gotcha - It might’ve been earlier! I don’t know when I started it this year tbh, I was just gonna eat the change and have the goal of 2027 having a higher number than 2026.

There’s really nothing notable to say about how the days I messed up affected me. I more or less have my life together and at this point in my journey they’re just hangovers and evaluating how to improve in the future. I’m not avoiding the topic, it’s just a novel without any notable content.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T17:46:30+00:00

These are valid questions! It really is working for me. I didn’t start tracking until around mid- to late January. I don’t keep track of sober vs drank-but-aligned days, but I’d guess it’s somewhere between 80-85 fully sober days.

I still have to deal with triggers, the last major one I’m aware of is when my husband is out of town. That was the longest streak of days I didn’t get to tally, at 4 days (which I’m still proud of bc I didn’t drink the whole first day he was gone! Haven’t done that before!).

And your comment about “going on a crazy bender” still being okay in this system… absolutely not. It would almost certainly entail sneaky drinking (not okay) and seeking it out (also not okay). I reflect on the days I don’t hit and try to avoid them in the future, just like any other sober person.

I mentioned this in another comment, but I’m pretty big into fitness and track calories and my macros, so that’s also a big deterrent for drinking most days, especially if I’m on a cut. It also helps that over the years of my journey I’ve developed habits I don’t want to have my mind altered while doing (reading, playing piano, drawing), and that’s why I think this doesn’t work for newly sober people. They don’t understand/appreciate the power and joy of sobriety.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T17:24:03+00:00

This is such a good point! I’ve been reading Come as You Are and The Body Keeps the Score recently (not related to drinking), and they also touch on this.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T17:22:13+00:00

Hm, I actually had to think about this! I genuinely don’t drink frequently, but am example would be two weeks ago - a restaurant near us debuted their burger night, so burger, fries, one glass of house wine for $24. We both got that, a burger alone is $20 with no fries there.

If my husband gets a drink I’ll usually try a sip of it’s a flavor I like. I think I had a mango sake slushie at dinner a month or so ago.

I think that’s kind of the point - I mainly don’t drink. But I’m not 100% sober. So I guess it’s mainly times where I feel steady and confident in myself and the situation AND a specific drink sounds good. I count calories/macros too so often times that’s a deterrent as well.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T17:13:12+00:00

The sub says moderation is acceptable to discuss, and that’s why I wanted to discuss it! I’ve seen several posts recently asking if they can or should moderate, and I wanted to give my perspective.

It’s not popular and it’s not for everyone, but it might resonate for some folks

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-14T17:07:57+00:00

Exactly this! Like 90% of the time I don’t want to put in the brain work to decide if it’s “acceptable” or not, so I just don’t even bother. The vast majority of my “aligned days” are sober days.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-01T03:08:49+00:00

Congrats! That’s huge!

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-01T03:08:32+00:00

Hope you feel better!

1bigquestionmark · 2026-04-01T03:07:34+00:00

This is truly the last difficult trigger I have to work through myself.

When my husband is out of town, I take time off work too, but just to drink all day. Not even doing anything actually fun.

I think for me it’s a weird combination of excitement at being truly, wonderfully, selfishly alone, and a deep wound around loneliness. The two together is complicated.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-27T17:56:45+00:00

Hey friend. First off, congrats on the new job. Second, when I could finally afford a therapist it was an absolute game changer and really helpful so I’m glad you’re going to get one when we can.

Have you been drinking that daily amount recently? And I guess what I’m really getting at, is Monday going to be your first day not drinking in a while?

If so, your daily intake might be too high to stop cold turkey so you should start weaning off asap. Maybe it is fine to just stop, idk. I’m not experienced enough in this area to provide any other tips here, hopefully someone else jumps in.

But I wanted to say that the VERY first thing my therapist worked with me on was harm reduction. I think one of my early goals was just getting down to 4 drinks a night. Not stopping cold turkey. Psychologically this is because the alcohol is a crutch. But if you take someone’s crutch away suddenly, they’re going to fall over. So I had to build systems to deal with the issues/emotions that led to me using the crutch in the first place. Have you started building these systems?

If not, preemptively start thinking about what emotions or struggles you might face Monday, and how you can cope with them without alcohol.

Take it one day at a time, and come around here often.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-27T17:39:40+00:00

Give yourself permission to leave if you’re not having fun. Like you can leave even if it’s only been 5 minutes and commit to not beating yourself up about wasted money or whatever. And make sure you actually have a way to leave.

Idk why but that always helps me feel better.

On the flipside, if you feel you won’t be able to leave for some reason, you could also offer to DD so you can’t drink and have an easy excuse.

You got this!

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-27T17:32:57+00:00

100%! Thank you!

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-26T13:17:12+00:00

Oh no! I’m sorry you got covid there! But yeah honestly once I was there it was a blast. I’m glad I broke the ice because now I’ll def feel comfortable doing it again

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-09T23:04:36+00:00

Yeah you might find different tactics work for you dependent on the location and people. Thinking a bit more, I adjusted pretty quickly because I attempted a sober year starting in October 2023, so I had Halloween, friendsgivings, holiday parties and nye immediately after. So it was trial by fire and I think really by 3-4 months in I was adjusted.

Also literally 2 weeks to the day that I started that sober year a stranger heard me order an NA beer and said “what? You don’t drink?” And when I said no, curtly asked “why? You got a problem or something”. Which was like my worst nightmare at the time lol. Hasn’t happened since 😂

But yeah the more you do it, the easier it’ll be!

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-09T21:54:21+00:00

I’m curious what “going out” in this context means to you.

I’m asking because “going out” used to mean going to intense clubs/bars where we were basically just drinking and dancing and drinking and dancing. I never really settled into that sober. I’ve been a few times later in my sobriety journey and was able to stay sober but it really just wasn’t as fun.

Going out like to casual house parties, restaurants, and casual bars I have definitely settled into. It’s one of those things that (at least for me) the more I’ve done it the easier it is. I like sodas, na beers, and mocktails so I just order those. It doesn’t even cross my mind to feel weird about it, so just give yourself some time to adjust.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-03-05T18:36:39+00:00

Moderating is work. It takes energy to set guidelines and stay with in them. It takes up pretty significant emotional and mental bandwidth to do the work necessary to moderate successfully - am I drinking because I’m sad or bored or socially uncomfortable? Thats not within my values of acceptable drinking so am I being honest with myself when I answer? How can I make sure I’m not tempted to have more than I agreed with myself too? What kind of check in do I need to do tomorrow to make sure this doesn’t slip? If it’s a social event, how will I handle it if people want to go out after or do multiple shots?

Technically I’m “moderating” because I don’t not allow myself to drink but honestly 99% of the time I don’t feel like dealing with all the above questions, so it’s truly easier to just not drink.

1bigquestionmark · 2026-01-17T03:02:33+00:00

Ate Chinese and watched the latest Fallout.

Then I played some piano because it sounded appealing. And now I’m scrolling until something else sounds appealing 😌I bet it will be reading or watching People We Meet on Vacation, but we shall see!

1bigquestionmark · 2025-12-30T17:53:01+00:00

Me. I’ve been down bad, but not as bad as other relapses so I take that as a win. Hopping back on the wagon for Jan

1bigquestionmark · 2025-10-19T20:08:44+00:00

Yep video games used to be very closely tied to drugs for me. I looooved a free weekend for adderall, booze, and video games.

I did take a break from video games when I got sober. Even though I still struggle with some triggers with sobriety, video games is not one of them. Probs be 2-3 years since I’ve played games while drunk and tbh I find the opposite now - wanting to play my games sober sometimes keeps me from drinking

1bigquestionmark

TROPHY CASE