115: Will Your Relationship Survive You Drinking Less?

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Changing your drinking habits doesn't just affect you – it impacts your partner too.

Today, I'm exploring why your other half might be struggling with your decision to drink less, even when they have the best intentions.

From fears about losing shared rituals to worries about their own drinking habits being challenged, I break down nine key concerns partners face and, crucially, how to navigate these conversations with honesty and compassion.

Whether you're worried your relationship can't survive your mindful drinking journey or you're facing resistance from your partner, this episode offers practical strategies for getting on the same page and building a stronger relationship together.

0:00 Why drinking changes can rock relationships
1:56 No blame allowed
3:49 Relationship fears: Will our dynamic change?
6:23 Losing shared drinking rituals
8:26 Uncertainty about what’s next
9:52 Emotional vulnerability
11:07 The impact on shared spending
12:19 Fears about themself: Holding up a mirror
13:17 Judgement & Pressure to change
14:19 Genuine concern for your well-being
14:59 Why you need their support
16:26 Managing your partner's fears with compassion
20:42 More support

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why drinking changes can rock relationships
• 1:56 No blame allowed
• 3:49 Relationship fears: Will our dynamic change?
• 6:23 Losing shared drinking rituals
• 8:26 Uncertainty about what’s next
• 9:52 Emotional vulnerability
• 11:07 The impact on shared spending
• 12:19 Fears about themself: Holding up a mirror
• 13:17 Judgement & Pressure to change
• 14:19 Genuine concern for your well-being
• 14:59 Why you need their support
• 16:26 Managing your partner's fears with compassion
• 20:42 More support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

As a midlifer, it's likely that you've been in your relationship with your other half for quite some time. But even if you haven't, even if things are still relatively new, it's highly likely that your relationship started when you were drinking in a way that today might not be serving you the same as it was. And when you decide to make those choices, you should feel supported and empowered to do everything that you can to build a better life for yourself. But our choices don't happen in isolation. And our choice to drink less or to drink differently does impact the people that we are closest to and in a relationship with. So today I want to tackle some of the reasons why your other half, with all the best will in the world, might be finding it difficult to accept or adapt to your choice to change the way that you drink and how that could impact your relationship. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast with me, Denise Hamilton Mace. I am your mindful drinking mentor, and I'm here to help you to design and build a life less intoxicated on your own terms. So there are a couple of different types of reasons why partners can find it challenging and maybe even confronting when you decide that you're ready to make some changes to the way you allow alcohol to show up in your life. I think it's really important going into this conversation that we put blame aside. This isn't about having a go at one another. This isn't about pointing the finger and saying, you're not helping me or you're changing too much. This is about trying to understand how the choices that we make in life impact other people around us. And the fact that when we receive somebody's response to our actions and our choices, we don't have all the information. We are notoriously bad, some of us, at communicating with each other about how we're feeling and why we're feeling that way. So remember that when your other half is perhaps seeming to be less supportive than you would like, there is likely far more going on than the surface-level comments that they make. My hope with this episode is that it gives you some food for thought as to why your partner might be responding the way they are to your choice to drink less, and also gives you some insight into how you can tackle these conversations in a way that can get you both on the same page. Because the point of this episode is to explore whether you drinking less will ruin your relationship or whether your relationship can survive your choice to drink differently. And I want to do everything I can to make sure that it can. Because even though alcohol might have been what brought you together, the fact that you're still together means there's so much more to who you are as a couple than what happens to be in your glass. So let's start with some of the fears that your other half might be facing around your choices to drink less. And the first one on our list, we've got nine things that we're going to look at today. And the first one on our list is a fear that the relationship that you've built together is going to change. Now, this might seem like the most obvious one, but sometimes we have a habit of um overlooking things that seem obvious. I recall when I first started changing the way that I drink, I was just as worried as my husband about the impact that it would have on our relationship because it was such a big departure from everything that had brought us together. We met when we were both working in hospitality for the same company, but in different venues. So we would sneak back and forth to each other's bars, give each other free drinks, you know, all of our date nights were around exploring cocktails and having late-night illicit drinks in the basement of the bars. You know, it was a fun and exciting dynamic between us. And alcohol was very much the third person or the third character in our relationship. And when I made the choice to reduce that down to such a minute level, to give it such a tiny role in comparison, I knew that it would impact our relationship and the way that we interacted. And if I was concerned about that, and I was a person who was making the choice to make the change, then I can only imagine at the time how concerning that would have been for him. So there's the worry from your partner that the dynamic that you've built together, which is, as I said, often around drinking, is going to change. It's not going to work anymore. Perhaps you don't have that many deeper meaningfuls when you're sober, but when you two have had a couple of drinks, you know, you get right down to the crux of the issues that have been playing a part in your relationship. So the fear that your relationship will change is quite an intense fear for some people. Um a lot of us have attachment issues or concerns or worries, uh, and alcohol can seem very much like um a salve for those. And taking that away from just one of you means that the other is left a little bit out in the open and perhaps feeling quite vulnerable for that. The other fear that they might have, the second fear is that that is perhaps slightly more selfish, but that's okay because you're being selfish in a way too, but in a positive way, um, would be their their fear of the loss of their drinking companion and your shared rituals. A bit similar to how the relationship will change, but this is more specifically about the fact that the two of you have likely built some uh bonds around the way that you allow alcohol to be the third character in your relationship, as I described before. Um, perhaps when you were drinking together, you became uh a bit of a duo, you know, you felt like you were uh they were your partner in crime, or or your partner feels like you were their partner in crime. Maybe you were seen as the fun couple, uh, maybe things like your evening glass of wine, your weekends uh at the pub, your holiday traditions that were were all built around alcohol. If those shared rituals are going away, if their drinking companion is going away, they can end up feeling quite lonely in that now they still want to participate in those rituals for themselves, but they don't have somebody to do it with them. And it can be a terrible feeling to feel like you are alone when you are with someone. Now, when these feelings strike, quite often they can leave us feeling somewhat irrational. Feelings like fear and loneliness are not based always in logical reasoning, they are based in emotion and perhaps irrational worries that we carry with us. And so your other half may well act out directly in response to these emotions that they are feeling inside. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't support you making better choices for them for yourself. It just means that they don't understand where their role and your relationship now fits into the way that you're changing. This leads to the third fear that they might be feeling, which is uncertainty about what comes next. When you've decided that you are giving up alcohol, reducing alcohol, moderating alcohol, whatever it is that you're doing, if you enter into this without having a conversation with your other half, they have no idea what your goals are for how you intend for things to play out. So they are left feeling uncertain, and human beings do not like uncertainty. Even those of us who live wild and exhilarating lives and don't like to follow a schedule, we all crave an amount of certainty. It is part of basic human nature to feel that we know what is going on around us and what is coming next. So for your partner not knowing how socializing is going to look, maybe they're concerned about what date nights are going to look like. Are they allowed to order a bottle of wine if you're not going to be having any? Are you going to have some sometimes? Will they have to ask you first? You know, these are questions that are going to be spinning around in their head, which they may find uh hard to articulate. So they're going to be looking to you to give them those answers, but they might not ask for them in the uh best possible way when they're first facing these uncertainties. The fourth fear that your partner might be feeling is emotional vulnerability and exposure. If alcohol was a big part of how you coped with things or how you connected with things, if you're taking that buffer away from them, they might feel very raw and exposed and uncertain about how they're going to handle their vulnerabilities going forward. Perhaps when your partner was feeling insecure about things or they'd had a stressful day at work, perhaps before they came to speak to you about it, you would both pour a glass of wine and you'd sit down and have a few sips, and that would give them the old Dutch courage to head into this conversation and be raw and open and honest with you. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that alcohol is the only way you can do that, of course not. And of course, you can have more deep, more meaningful, more connected conversations when you are not altered by another chemical. But until your partner has come to recognize that that is a way for you guys to move forward, they're going to be feeling fear that their tether to you is being changed in some significant way. A fifth fear that they might have about your relationship, and this is one that people don't often consider, is the financial implications. How does this affect your shared spending? When you're out, if you're both doing the same thing, it doesn't really matter how much one or the other of you is drinking if you're both spending money on alcohol. But your partner might be concerned if you go out for a meal and they decide that they want to order several cocktails or they want to order a bottle of the expensive wine. Does this impact the way that you manage your finances? Do they have to ask your permission first? Are they going to feel self-conscious that they're spending more money? Are they going to be thinking that you're worried about how much money is being spent on alcohol? So I think that the financial implications, although we never talk about them enough, and we should do, we are terrible at talking about sex and about money. We need to converse about these things. Now, on top of the fears that they might have about how your changing relationship with alcohol will affect your relationship together, they may also be feeling some fears about themselves. So the sixth thing on our list is that they might be feeling that your choice to say, I don't think that the way I'm drinking is healthy now, is also holding up a mirror to their own relationship with alcohol. And perhaps they may be feeling challenged that your comments are a comment on their choices as well. And they might not be ready to look into things the way that you are. And as we all know from personal experience, being faced and being challenged like that when you're not ready to it is quite affronting and it can make people feel very defensive. This is why the language that you choose when you're communicating with your partner is so important. This might also lead to them feeling that there is a pressure for them to change to. Just because you don't say it, it doesn't mean that they won't interpret. The fact that you think that the way you're drinking is no longer healthy or serving you or right, might mean to their mind that you think that they should be making that change too. And if someone is not ready to make that change, that can be quite an unpleasant feeling. They may be left wondering: does my partner still find me attractive? Do they still think that I'm the same person? Are they judging me for my drinking habits because I'm not changing the way that they are? Which leads to feeling judged. Even if you are not judging them, they may feel that your choice is an implied criticism on the way that they are living their life. And nobody wants to feel judged by the person that they are supposed to feel supported by and lean on more than anyone else in the world. And lastly, the final fear that your partner may have about you choosing to change the way that you drink is one that comes from a place of nothing but love and care. And that is that they may genuinely be concerned about you. It might be that your partner hadn't realized that you felt that alcohol was having such a negative impact on your life, or on the flip side, it might be that they had already recognized that they felt that you might need to make some changes, and they are really concerned one way or another about the situation that you currently find yourself in, and they want to support you, but they perhaps just don't know how. So, how do we deal with all of these fears? It's all about opening up the lines of communication so that you can openly, honestly, and explicitly explain to your partner why you're making your choices that you are and how those choices impact your relationship together, your opinion of your partner, and the life that you've built together. It's crucial that when you go into a life less intoxicated, you don't do it with blinkers on. Now, you don't need anybody's permission. You don't need your partner or your mom or Aunt Sally or your colleagues at work to tell you that it's okay for you to make these changes. But what you do need is for the people who are important to you to feel included and considered in this choice. Sitting your partner down and having an open and honest conversation about why you've decided to make this change is a crucial step in making sure that it sticks. Because if your partner doesn't understand why you're making changes, what you're trying to achieve, and how that's going to look, then you can't expect them to support you along the way. For almost everybody else, you don't need to explain yourself, you don't need to answer questions, you don't need to justify yourself. But with your partner, you need to have these conversations and you need to make sure that they feel included. Find out what your partner might be worried about. Is it fear that the relationship will change? Well, reassure them that you still love them dearly and you don't want to be move away from them in any way. And that your theory is that by changing the way you drink, you might actually get closer together, not further apart. Perhaps their fear is of their loss of their drinking companion and the shared rituals that you have. Tell them that you still want to be their companion, that you still want to build rituals and traditions together, but they're going to look a little bit different now. Invite them to join you on some new traditions that you can build together. If they're uncertain about what comes next, not knowing how to socialize or what date nights look like, make a plan. Sit down together and decide. Our next date night, we're going to go to a really special venue, and I will or I won't be drinking alcohol. Instead, I will have this, and I'm quite happy for you to do X, Y, and Z. Obviously, you have to decide your own parameters and your own boundaries, but if you do that together, your partner feels included and therefore feels safe in your decisions. If after speaking together you realize that their fears are around their emotional vulnerability and them feeling exposed because alcohol was how you were connecting, explain to them that you're finding that with less alcohol in your life, you're able to connect deeper. Invite them to have an alcohol-free evening with you where you play a game of 20 questions and you dive deeper into each other in a way that you haven't done since perhaps you started dating. Perhaps their fears are around the financial implications and worried about how the evenings out are split, about how who pays for what and how much they can still spend on alcohol. Well, sit down and talk about your finances together. Understand how your budgeting preferences work as a couple and explain where you feel comfortable for them to spend money on alcohol. And also point out that just because you're not drinking alcohol-full drinks, it doesn't mean that your drinks are necessarily going to be any cheaper. Decent alcohol-free drinks still cost the same amount as decent full strength drinks. When you speak to your partner about their concerns, if it turns out that their fears are more about how they are being perceived in your eyes and perhaps they feel that their own drinking habits are being challenged, you can explain to them that this isn't about them. This is 100% about you, that you're taking a selfish choice for a selfless reason, and that is to improve yourself so that you can improve your relationship together. If they're worried that there might be pressure for them to change, then explain that you're with them because of who they are, not because of what they do, and that you respect their choices to make the best decisions for their lives, just as you hope that they will respect your choices too. We all know that you can't ask somebody to change their drinking habits to suit you. But what you may find is that as you journey through mindful drinking and moderation and exploring a life less intoxicated, when your partner sees the benefits that you're getting from it, they might actually decide to join you on this journey too. I know that from personal experience with my own husband and from a lot of the stories I've heard from a lot of people I speak to. And finally, if your partner is worried about feeling judged, then this is the time when you put your arms around them, give them the biggest squeeze, and let them know that this is in no way a critique on what they are doing. This is all about making a better life, a better life for you and for your family. And lastly, if their fears are born of genuine concern about you, then explain to them why you're making these choices, how you expect this to manifest in your life together, and what they can do to help and support you so that this becomes a successful journey to a life less intoxicated together. And then go on a really lovely date night. I hope this has helped for you to see that your choices around drinking uh alcohol or not drinking alcohol impact far more than your own life. This is a holistic decision that pulls in people from different parts of your life who love you and who care about you and who want the best for you. And for that to happen, you need to communicate with them. You also need to set your boundaries with them and let them know what feels right for you, what's most comfortable for you, and how they can best help you. I have a whole section about boundary setting and speaking to your family and speaking to your children about your choices to drink less in the four-week mindful drinking reset. So if you want to dive deeper, that's a really good place to get some more information and some more support. In the meantime, if you have found this episode to be uh helpful, then I would like to ask you one favor, and that is simply to make sure that wherever you are listening to my voice now, if you could please go to the episode and make sure that you've hit follow or subscribe. That tells those pesky algorithms that people are actually taking value from this show and therefore helps me reach more people who want to live a life less intoxicated. Cheers, and I'll catch you next time.