You have certainly found a wonderful forum here at SR...good for you.
Your story sounds so much like mine, so much like so many of ours here.
It has been almost a year since I left my Exabf. And I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone before. But I have learned, for the first time in my life, and I am older than your 47 years, that love is not enough. Where there is active alcoholism, there can be no true intimacy. The alcoholic cannot let anyone get that close; it is too risky to their addiction.
And I love him still...but I love myself more.
Take care of you
