Hi DiskJock and welcome to SR
I just found out that he's been drinking again.
I can read the devastation in your post because I have been there.
My AH of 22 yrs managed to stay sober for only 5months and then relapsed. I found the empty bottles down the side of an armchair where he had been sitting after he had gone to bed. He had been drinking whilst we watched TV together in the evening and I didn't even notice
I was devastated and cried myself to sleep. On my way home from work the next day, I imagined getting home to a husband who would be remorseful, sorry and saying that he would try again to get sober. Like you, I walked into a verbal attack and was told that I had blown things way out of proportion because I had cried myself to sleep in the spare room the night before. It made no sense to me either.
I now believe that the blame, the hurt and pain the AH inflicts on you comes from the hurt, pain and more importantly the shame that he is feeling towards himself. Men dont like feeling like failures but the disease projects this onto those closest. I read somewhere that they are feeling so bad about themselves that it helps them to make someone else bad too. It is completely irrational but that is the disease of alcoholism!
Please know that it is not about you and what you did or didn't do, you are not evil. Your husband has had a relapse which may or may not be permanent. I would suggest that you dont 'HAVE TO' make any decisions about your future/marriage until the rawness settles. A lot could change in the meantime and those types of decisions would be better made from a healthy standpoint.
I agree that couples counseling is a waste of time with an active alcoholic but you could look at going to get some counseling for you alone. Al-anon would also be worth trying too and now sounds like a good time to go.
81/2 years is a huge amount of time to stay sober, so deep down your AH has what it takes to stay sober, knows what its like to be sober and may remember quite quickly how bad his life was when he was active in his drinking.
It feels life shattering at the moment but hopefully this is just a blip, a mistake, a balls up - whatever you want to call it. Step back, focus on you for a while and give your AH time for his actions to sink in and decide which way he is going to go from here - Once that becomes clear, you will be in a better place to make the right choice for you. It sounds like he has a lot to lose.