Originally Posted by
suki44883 
Taking a separation isn't throwing in the towel. It doesn't mean you are ending the marriage at this point. You and the children need some time away from the chaos. Living with it day after day blinds us to how screwed up it really is. Once you get away from it, you can start to see more clearly.
This.
I couldn't even
begin to figure anything out until I had some space away from my XABF. I finally got the chance once he was in rehab (he only stayed there two and a half weeks).
When I went to see him, a week and a half into the program, I tried to talk out quite a few things about the relationship, and about how I felt, and how I wanted to have some space and go backwards in our relationship a bit to rebuild things the right way. He said he understood, and I thought things were going great.
That lasted about five minutes, because that's how long he waited after our discussion to try to propose to me, and I realized that he
never listened to a word I said, drunk
or sober.
Your clarity will come, but you need some distance from the craziness to re-center yourself so you can listen to the
real you. When you need to know what to do, you'll know. Until then, you just have to work on finding your serenity wherever you currently stand, however you can find it, so that you can rediscover the lovely lady called "you".