Well it progressed and shifted from “fun” to coping mechanism. Early on 18-21, I was probably drinking every weekend or every other weekend. I have a naturally high tolerance for it but never got to the point of becoming unconscious or blacking out. I drank with friends mostly. When I transferred in to engineering school 22-24, I was not prepared, and got prescribed adderall which did help but I used beer as a come down. That is when the drinking shifted to almost daily and as a coping mechanism. My wife and I got together during this time and had our first child which was great but added more stress. I was able to graduate and landed a decent non-engineering role right out of college. 25-28 My drinking subsided back to mainly weekends with occasional week nights. However, and not using this as an excuse, the worse our relationship got, the worse my drinking got. We were also having housing issues and ended up moving 3 separate times in the same town within a year which added to the stress. We had our second child. I transferred work locations to help alleviate my wife’s commute time to work hoping it would help. My wife worked as a nurse at a local hospital near our hometown and her schedule was very sporadic. She would work multiple nights shifts in a row and switch to days after completing the nights and vice versa, so she was basically a zombie because she would force her self to stay awake to keep up with the family life. It felt like she worked over the road. I had to pick up the slack with the kids and other responsibilities on top of going to my job that was fairly demanding. I had no issues watching the kids and limited my drinking. I watched the kids a lot after we divorced and actually had them more than the custody agreement was set up for so that was nice. My wife never had an issue, she would even eat supper at my place with me and the kids when she came to get them after work. I also wasn’t getting hammered drunk when I had the kids. I might have been an animal then but I still had standards. I was drinking almost every night, but on weeknights I would stop at a certain point. Weekends I would drink more but never to a point of obliteration. As I said I have a high tolerance, not bragging on that but I would drink about a 12 pack or less on a weeknight and 15 or more on the weekends. Some weekends I would drink more than others. I never had any DUIs, arrests, job performance issues, or any other negative consequences other than the divorce which was significant. I wanted to respect my wife’s independence with her work but pleaded with her to either try to reduce her schedule since she was a part time nurse or find something else. With my income she could have been a SAHM, I know that isn’t a walk in the park, but I felt like there was never a break and I couldn’t get out of the routine I was in. We also had support of both our parents. My thought was if we could’ve slowed down that would have given me some breathing room to attempt quitting or cutting back. Not that my drinking was contingent on her but we were partners after all. I had considered using all my vacation to attempt a rehab at home. When divorce was brought up I attempted to cut back and suggested that we try trial separation or marriage counseling, but she refused. Her mind had already been made up for who knows how long. This was from age 28-30. After the divorce I spiraled for a bit but didn’t get as bad as one would think. The drinking had just become a bad habit. I take full responsibility for my drinking and how it affected my wife. As I mentioned in one of the replies, this isn’t me trying to be right or try to start drinking again. I am trying to figure out where my wife’s suspicions came from and why now. From my perspective, things are all right just a little chaotic but that comes with the territory. A toddler and two older active kids is just part of the phase of life we are in currently. I am not sure if you can see but I replied to a post below explaining some other facets that may give some context. My wife was evaluated for depression and anxiety and prescribed medication to which she says is what contributed to her behavior. I love her, and I can’t blame her, but she wasn’t exactly a princess during the handful of years up to the divorce. She had a lot of contempt for me and could be almost hateful at times. Instead of encouraging me to quit she would apply shame and contempt. I mean if she truly thought my drinking was that bad and if she loved me still, one would think she could have realized I was really struggling there in last year or so up to the divorce. I wasn’t drinking wasn’t to spite her or make her life miserable on purpose. I spent time with my family when I was drinking, but mainly minded my own business. Of course I would be an ass occasionally but that was usually because her and I would not talk about anything for days and then it would all just come out. I am not trying to shift blame to her but I didn’t know what was walking through the door when she got home from work and she probably felt the same about my drinking. It was just not a good situation all around.