evenkeel

Thanks so much for everyone's support and kind words!!! I really needed that kick in the butt.

She and I are absolutely fully aware of the long-term effects of alcohol. As I said, her uncle died recently from alcohol, her father is on his way out, and one of my uncles also died a few years ago due to alcohol. That's why it's hard for me to understand why she can't recognize the path that she's on. Or maybe she does and doesn't care. Or that she thinks she has it "under control" because she says she's hit her "bottom" before.

And she hit it, literally. She smashed her car into a light pole when she blacked out while driving drunk about six years ago. She doesn't remember anything that happened for forty minutes from the time she left the bar until she woke up behind the wheel with an airbag in her face and someone standing outside the car after the electricity went off in his house. She was very lucky in that she suffered no legal repercussions from that accident-the police never charged her with anything, something about not trying too hard to try to prove who was behind the wheel-and she knows it. She and the friend who was with her tried to stop drinking after that but within two weeks they were back at it again.

So...I guess I need to accept that alcohol is something that she has decided will have a presence in her life no matter what the consequences. I got some perspective yesterday that will help me to do what I need to do. I found out that there is a chance that she may be able to adopt my kids within a year. She's been dying to adopt them since we got married. Of course, there is no way I'm going to allow her to adopt them under the current circumstances, but then it occurred to me that if I don't want her tied to me as the other legal parent for the rest of my life it doesn't make sense that I'm willing to let her continue to be the other parent (even without the legal ties) for the long-term.

Unless I know that she's committed to at least trying to figure things out and at least reduce the alcohol there's no way I'm even going to entertain the thought. I think we will be seeking some counseling to try to get all of our issues addressed overall, and it may help to do it in the context of making sure our relationship is stable enough to pursue adoption. She asked for it, so we're going to go even if I think it's going to be useless. If she's as unwilling to listen to a counselor as she is to me then I won't be staying with her, much less allowing her to adopt the boys.

I know, I'm probably setting myself up for failure and heartbreak. The alcohol issue isn't going to go away completely and I run the risk of, one or five or ten years down the line, her being worse than she is now despite any agreement or how eager she is to work on things so I can feel comfortable with the adoption. Is this, on its face, a bad idea? Telling her that if she wants to adopt the kids we need to go to counseling and whatever comes out of it needs to be fixed before we could consider moving forward with it? It feels like dangling a carrot in front of her, but at least this particular carrot is something she claims she wants very badly and just maybe "for the sake of the kids" will be enough for her to at least try to straighten out. Isn't it at least worth a try? I really don't want to give up without making sure there is nothing else we/I could have done.

Oh, and I talked to her about the wedding today. She told me that if the boys aren't allowed to stay there very late then she wants to stay after we go home "to make it worth the drive". That's not really the answer I was expecting and don't know what I'm going to do if she can't find out how late the boys can stay before we go out there. We might just be staying home and see what time she comes home when she goes by herself.