fiveyearzen

I've been sober four and half years. I've been married almost two, my first, her second. She has one son who lives with us, and we have two boys of our own, 14 months and 2 months. Not sure if that's relevant, but there it is. We dated for about nine months before getting married. At the end of that nine months I was in the process of breaking up with her because she wouldn't stop drinking. She knew this was the reason as I had talked about it with her. Then she got pregnant with our first son. I love her immensely, and I didn't ask her to marry me just because she was pregnant, but it was admittedly the catalyst. When I asked her to marry me and she said "yes," I immediately followed that with asking her if she knew that also meant she had to stop drinking, and if she accepted that. She said "yes" to that, as well.

Almost two years later, she's still drinking, and I'm nearing my wit's end. I read another thread on here by Blondie about her fiance's drinking bothering her, and the general consensus seemed to be that the problem was hers and not his. But is it? In addition to being an alcoholic, I'm also a Christian. As such, I believe that when a man and woman are married, they become as one flesh. That's not to say that we don't have lives outside of each other, but it is to say that what affects me affects you. It does mean that we share each other's burdens, joys, fears, griefs, and, yes, even problems.

I've tried explaining this to my wife, but she either doesn't agree, or she doesn't care. She says that she does both, but her actions prove otherwise. When she drinks, it's not so much that it makes me want to drink (although I do dream that I can drink in moderation when she does), but it's much more of an insult. It's as if she's saying that my struggles don't matter to her, and that both hurts and offends me. Aside from that, I simply don't want to be around her when she's been drinking. I can smell it a mile away, and it disgusts me. Her personality changes completely, and I don't like the person she becomes. I've proposed the idea that she might be an alcoholic, at which she laughs. I've told her that her drinking WILL, sooner or later, end our marriage. Still, she drinks. It's not every day. She doesn't get plastered, well, not regularly. Because she isn't drunk from the moment she wakes up until the moment she passes out (like I used to be), she thinks she's not an alcoholic. But if a person who places alcohol above their own family isn't an alcoholic, then I don't know what is.

Personally, I'm not terribly concerned with whether she's an alcoholic or not. I JUST WANT HER TO STOP. I've tried everything I know to get the severity of this through to her, but nothing works. She just doesn't seem to get it. I'm occasionally around other people who drink (I can't live in a bubble), and she throws that at me. She knows people who used to be alcoholics, but now drink in moderation. Her telling me this seems an insinuation that I should be able to do the same, which is ridiculous on multiple levels.

Sorry I'm rambling a bit, but I'm pretty pissed about it right now as she is out on the front porch drinking while I type this on the back porch. Has anybody had similar problems? Is there some good way I can make this real to her?