My A was never violent. He was/is well educated, well spoken, well employed, kind. He and I had a thousand conversations over the years about his alcoholism, which he totally acknowledged. He was in therapy the whole time and was honest with his therapist about his drinking. I realize now that the therapy and acknowledgement were actually tools he used to keep drinking. "Look, I'm working on it but it's a DISEASE! Did I mention this thing that happened to me when I was an infant? If that happened to you, you'd drink too!"
After lots of heartbreaking relapses, usually during some expensive and long awaited vacation, I realized that I lived in terror. No, I was not afraid of violence, I was afraid of his drunk driving, of his potential health problems, of the things he said and did when his judgement was bad.
I was sick and tired of coming home to find him drunk having called in to work, of finding the beer cans hidden everywhere, of hearing him snore, of hearing him crapping his brains out every morning with alchohol induced diarrhea. He was also getting hugely fat from all the calories and I was no longer attracted to him.
One day he "lost" the car keys and I had to go to work. After a frantic search they were found in the iginition of the car. He was so drunk the night before that he forgot to remove them and it's a miracle that no one stole the car. By that day I had had enough of his BS to last me a lifetime.