The one crazy thing for me is that if I never walked in on her drinking I never would have known! Most people (the very limited I've been able to connect with to date) seem to have had significant others that get wasted at home and be openly drunk. This has not been the case for me. Our life has been relative bliss to date. Just another layer of complexity I'm having a hard time rationalizing.
It is a blessing you do not have children with her. The husband of the mother who drove the wrong way wasted on the Taconic Parkway last year and killed 3 innocent small children (one had a cell phone and had been calling her parents terrified!) and killed the people in the oncoming car - he said his wife never drank - and they always brought the same (magically or was someone up to something sneaky hmmmmm?) unfinished bottle of vodka on their camping trips for him to have a drink AT NIGHT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/nyregion/05crash.html
He lost his wife and his two children and his niece in that crash.
As painful as it is to break free of denial it is always better to know, always better to make decisions based on reality and acceptance of what IS.
That tension you feel....I grew up with that tension (again be grateful you aren't trying to raise healthy children w/ this person). That tension was bread and butter in my house. Along with shame, suspicion, resentment, rage, denial, magical thinking, blah blah blah....It sucked.
Glad you're here - glad you found AlAnon!
Stay in the moment - stay in reality - and remember it is not a measure of whether we love them or whether they love us if they cannot give up the lies and the booze - it is a measure of the strong grip of the addiction - don't take it personally - alcoholism is a formidable foe - the book
Under the Influence helped me realize that. An addict does not, cannot, change on a dime. No matter how much we love them, beg with them, bargain with them, or wait for them. The addiction has its own agenda and timetable that we are not privy to.
Peace-
B