Cyranoak -- that's exactly what everyone else has been asking me too. While I have my reasons, I'm afraid they do sound a bit like excuses after a while. I know I'm struggling with some nasty co-dependency issues, and while it's getting a lot better I don't know if I'm capable of getting completely past it. At the moment one of the big things is that I know I'm not ready to leave, and thus far I'm willing to keep trying. On the same note -- LexieCat, yes, I can imagine it, I have very similar memories from my childhood. I don't yet know where my boundaries are, but I know that for my kids I have to find them.
SoloMio -- yep, I'm a writer...and I confess that while I didn't actually write an outline for my post, I had a very nice article-esque outline in my head (or...more like eBook-esque, but chopped out a lot of the purely frustrated bits). At this juncture I don't see a lot of hope for that happy family life, but I guess maybe there is a part of me that feels like this is just too early to tell. I've seen this so many times before, and for those close to me that have recovered it has never been a fast thing. My mom finally sobered up about four years ago, in her early 40s, and is now some of my support in trying to understand all this -- her husband is still an active alcoholic. My uncle has been sober a little over a year now, and I just can't imagine what it must have been like for my aunt in the last 31 years of marriage and raising three kids. I know that part of my problem with envisioning a healthy, happy family life is that I really don't know what it looks like, but I am trying to work toward it in the ways I know how. Our husbands sound so much alike, except mine is the morning person and I'm not -- I have a very bad habit of being reticent in the mornings because I know I'm not fully awake, and I also know that this may be the only good time I have with him. There are many days that he doesn't start drinking until 5:00, but then there are the times -- like now -- that he stays drunk for days at a time. When he was working he would leave at 6:30 in the morning, swing by the liquor store on the way home at 3:30, and I'd get about a half-hour with him before the alcohol took effect. Mine is 51 (yep,
slight age gap), so at this point I don't hold out too much hope of him deciding to quit before he dies. At least with the age gap I knew from the beginning that unless I get hit by a truck or get pancreatic cancer or something, there will come a time when he's going to die and I will have to live without him.
That said -- thank you everybody for the welcomes, even just the reading I've done in the last few days has been giving me a clearer understanding of what I need to accomplish, as well as a few tips on getting there. I know I've seen advertisements for Al-Anon meetings, but previously was worried about him finding out I was going to them. Now I don't care if he knows, it's about me and not him and he can just butt out
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Being in a house where I feel safer (friends around, etc.) is something I'd do regardless of how he acts after my last bad relationship. My ex-husband was very psychologically abusive and spent five years systematically destroying my entire support system, and I was 150 miles from my friends and family. My sister had an even worse experience that played out overseas where she didn't even speak the same language, and the only counselors she could find couldn't understand why she was so upset about him beating her, they figured she just needed to work harder to make him happy. As soon as my ex and I split I came back to the place where my support is strongest, and I've retained sole lease rights to the house we're currently in...I'm the primary signer on the house we're moving into, but more importantly the owner lives nearby and will back me up if it comes to throwing him out. We're also moving much closer to the VA hospital, which makes me feel much better.