Late mom was an alcoholic, now dad is dating an alcoholic

Recently, my dad and his girlfriend came to stay with me and my husband for a few days. It was the first time I got to know her at length and now that I've spent some time with her, I believe she's an alcoholic.

Particularly on the last night she was here, she continued drinking into the night when everyone else in the house had stopped, and we all got to be subjected to the fun alcoholic dance of her saying a smorgasbord of inappropriate, overly intimate, enraging, unfunny, awkward, and offensive things. I tried to extract myself from the conversation with her multiple times and my dad even came downstairs to try to urge her to go to bed; she snapped at him, of course, and he abandoned me with her, the same way he did countless times with my alcoholic mother.

His girlfriend's behavior reminded me of my mother's alcoholism from about 15 years ago, before she got really bad. I have no idea why my dad would want to subject himself to that again... but I do know codependency is a difficult habit to break. At any rate, I know I need to focus on myself and what boundaries I'm going to put up as a result of this situation.

My husband and I decided that the girlfriend can't stay over at our home again because her behavior made both of us uncomfortable. Other than that, I'll probably excuse myself politely in the future whenever she starts drinking so I don't have to be around it. My mother terrorized me for decades with this kind of behavior and I'm not willing to go through that again, especially for a person who means nothing to me. I mean, I'll be polite as long as she's with my father, but in the scheme of things, she is not someone I need to have a strong familial relationship with.

I'm not sure if/how I should speak to my father about this. He really hurt me by bringing someone like that into my home and part of me wants to tell him that to give him a chance to address it or apologize or something. He's listened in the past about how my mom's drinking and his passivity about it has affected me, but I'm worried he won't give a shit about my feelings in this situation. He seems really devoted to this woman, despite her alcoholism, and he often took my mother's side in situations where she was behaving abusively towards me and my sibling.

Should I say anything to my dad?

Posted Jun 13, 2025, 10:28 PM UTC

63
Loading comments…