I stayed in a marriage for 39 yrs we were but kids when we married and from the very beginning I knew something was not quite right in our marriage and it wasn't just the drinking. I walked into the fantasy world of romance novels and movies thinking that would be my marriage instead of opening my eyes to see what really was happening around me. Family and friends tried to warn me but I would defend him to the death of me because I felt when they attacked him they were attacking me! I had two children over five years of marriage, became a Christian shortly after they were born so the very thought of divorce I couldn't even go there. There was a time I thought I would just settle for the hand I was dealt until my Xah got to the end stages of alcoholism about 6 yrs ago. For those of you whose husbands are not to that stage yet and you think you can handle whatever comes I too at one time thought that way as well. Fear became my motivator seeing he was drunk 24/7 but by now his brain is so damaged even when he was somewhat sober that man you use to be married to is no longer there. They will go through detox on their own because they don't remember what it was like the last time they went through it so they vomit, fall, bleed, seriously hurt themselves, don't eat for days, walk around like a mummy half dead, don't sleep and I could go on and on it is the most horrifying thing to witness much less live year after year like that until all you can do is think I need to find a place of peace and normalcy which in the end was divorcing him. He had been through rehab twice, detox unit a number of times, emergency room a number of times begging him to choose life but he could not so I decided I would not be around to watch him die. We have been divorced now for 3 months and he moved out of the house 2 months ago and I come home to peace and serenity, not a filthy house, no awful smell of vodka, no snoring drunken man on my sofa but there isn't a time I'm not lifting up a prayer for him that he would hit his bottom and God grab a hold on his life.