My perspective, having been married to an alcoholic for 18 years:
Being married to an alcoholic is like living life in a constant state of anxiety. You never know what's going to happen. You're always trying to prepare for the next crisis, anticipate the next emergency, prevent the next disaster, or clean up the latest mess. Hypervigilance is what my therapist called it.
While I was spending all my time sticking my fingers in the dike trying to prevent the flood, I was building up a huge amount of anger and resentment. However, I had no time to deal with it because I was on constant alert, not to mention taking care of all the responsibilities of TWO people, because he was taking care of zero of them. So, all that anger got stuffed down and buried in favor of just surviving.
So, I think at some point, it all has to stop. Whether the alcoholic gets sober, leaves, or dies--or the spouse leaves, the crises eventually end. THEN is when I finally had a chance to stop and breathe. And what did I find when I did? All that anger I had been stuffing! Man O' man, there was a lot of it, too. It came rushing right back like a tidal wave. In fact, for some time, it was more like intense, burning rage, than just merely anger.
It took me a good long time to work through all of that, and I have to say, if he had been pushing me to let it go and pretend like things were just fine, it would have only made it worse.
L