Thank you all for your replies. I really feel I am a strong woman, a woman who kept to my boundaries with my AH and especially my daughter (I fought my daughter in court tooth and nail to get her kids from her). My daughter is not in recovery, we don't answer the phone on the rare occasions she calls, sheis not to have contact with me or the kids. I have let her sleep in the streets, didn't care, it was HER problem.
Last year when AH left me, he went to our place upstate for two months before he managed to get three DWI's on his own. During those two months, I managed on my own, went no contact, and was fine with it all. He chose to leave us, I was upset for a bit cause he blew all the retirement money, but oh well, sometimes you gotta lose. After he was in jail, he wrote me and called me. We talked. He was in the special program in jail for alcoholism receividism type thing. Total alcohol counseling every day, AA meetings, etc. Yes, I went against my son's advice and let him come back home while he was on house arrest because he really seemed to have gotten it. I thought that was his bottom. Everyone has a bottom, and I thought maybe that was it. He was doing well for months. That is why this is all getting to me. I was used to the sober, in recovery man I had for over 15 years straight at one point (yes, he managed to stay sober from 1989 to like 2005 without a single relapse and was a great husband and father). He managed to do that once, I thought this was it, he can do it again. I am in counseling once a week individually and once a week group for co-dependents. This is not my "comfort zone" (sorry anvilhead, you know I love ya and so much value your input but this one you are wrong on). I love peace and serenity, I was just foolish enough to give him this chance. Much like you and your boyfriend are in recovery ... you gave him the chance, and you've had him clean and sober for years now. You are happy. What if he was to relapse tomorrow? Wouldn't it kinda take you aback? I liked my life when he was gone, I was happy. But I also do and always will love him, even if we could never live together and I will get passed this. It's just that it all came flooding back to me when the police got involved, from years past, that it would be all my fault somehow someway ... so I guess I am having a codie relapse. But it is not the way I am used to my life being, it is definitely not my "comfort zone", pipe dream maybe, but not "comfort zone". I have had the same therapist for almost 2 years now, and I am going to bring that up with her and my group therapist, who know me better than I know myself. It's a good point to bring up, but I really don't think it's true. I think it was more of me being foolish enough to think that it could have been his bottom, and that I could have had a wonderful, sober husband back and grow old together ... I think at one point we all have those dreams before we have to face reality ... it most times ain't gonna happen.