Our situation was quite complicated. We had decided to move back to my home city right at the time that things came to an end for me. We were trying to sell our house, while he was in my home city, living with my parents as she started his new job. We were back in our place over the holidays when a final incident put me over the edge and I said I wanted to separate. But because we were financially stuck between 2 cities, I told him that when I moved there to my parents where we'd temporarily setup, he could go to the basement. I told him that as soon as the house was sold he needs to move out. He told me he'd change things before then, and stopped drinking and went to AA. 5 months later after house was sold and we went back to pack up the rest of our things, I decided to let him back into my bedroom and my life. The test was to be home in his old haunts and with his old friends and not drink, and he didn't.
A few months later, when I started a course the same night as his usual AA meeting, he stopped going (didn't change nights - there are tons of meetings, and when my course was up he also didn't return to that meeting). Was still sober but talked a lot about how AA wasn't really for him and that he still can't imagine that sobriety is forever. Had issues with walking by patios in the summertime without being depressed. We'd go occasionally to an AA/ Al Anon couples meeting which he didn't close the door on, but went no further in his own recovery.
This summer, he joined a softball league. Team members usually have a few beers after the game. It became too difficult for him not to, seeing as how he wanted so badly to be like everyone else. So a few turned into coming home and having a few more, then smoking up which always put him over the edge into a mess. You can read on my other thread (I think you can look up by my name) about how it's going right now, but we're ships in the night.
My parents ended up moving to another city to a retirement home and we bought their house. So now owning the house, I'm a bit more tied in than where I was if I'd stayed separated after we sold our house and was living with my folks. So now it would be more complicated to leave - breaking mortgage and such (we already just did that and paid hefty penalties). Not that it would stop me, but if I took a first step now, it would be to ask him to move back to the basement or leave, then figure out from there.
He's returned to AA and got a sponsor, but since we're not really speaking I can't gauge how serious this attempt will be. What weighs most heavily is that I don't know how many times we will go through this cycle if I stay. Last night my daughter woke in the night with a croupy cough, crying. I was up for about an hour. Not a peep from his end, not sure if he was sleeping that heavily or just didn't want to bother. When I got back to bed, I imagined this fantasy of having a man next to me that rolled over and put an arm around me and asked if the baby was ok, and we'd fall asleep spooning. Instead I just had a lot of grunting. This is what I'm asking myself these days - do I want to always imagine scenarios of a present, loving, communicative, mature partner, or do I want what I currently have which is a man I did love, but a boy in many ways that is still selfish, immature, emotionally void. It's agonizing because he may never be that, even when sober.