Hi Stressedwife and welcome to SR,
I too can tell a very similar story to you but with a slightly different ending. This is my ES&H (experience, strength and hope)
My AH and I met at 15yrs old, 31 years ago, married for 24yrs. We have two daughters aged 24yrs and 21yrs. We come from the UK originally where the pub (bar) entertainment is big and my husband has been a beer drinker for all his adult life.
Right from when we first got married, my AH was verbally abusive to me on occasions, following a night out on the beer. I excused it on the drinking and would tell myself he didn't mean what he said, it was the beer talking. I cried myself to sleep many a time, following an episode of tongue lashing.
We had a relatively happy marriage for the most part, with lots of nice memories but with the occasional turbulence along the way, caused by his unreasonable behaviors and my reaction to them. He would blame it on our lack of communication skills even though we had been to marriage counseling on two occasions.
We left the UK about 7.5 yrs ago. Drinking is big in Australia and the beer fridge is a 'normal' household item here. My AH left behind his regular pub and regular drinking buddies and so started to drink at home. I started to notice his drinking more and would ask him to cut back, cut down. Any suggestions I made about reducing his drinking would always end up becoming a verbal assault about me. I was boring, I didn't have friends, I didn't wash enough, all I did was watch TV. I was lazy, spent money on my hair etc.
One day I got so upset during a row, I gave him an ultimatum, me or the beer. He chose beer! over a 22yr marriage! I was devastated, shocked and sickened. Thats when someone suggested that I try Al-anon. I hadn't put two and two together and come up with describing my husband as an 'alcoholic' before but all of our 'clashes' started to make sense.
My youngest daughter wasn't having a nice time with her dad either. He was bullying her about paying rent, how much she paid, how often and tried to control her use of the tumble drier, what time she ate, what she ate. He seemed to have a problem with her and money. She was getting more upset about being left alone with her dad particularly when he was drinking, she didnt feel safe in her own home and started talking about moving out at 18yrs old.
I went to my first Al-anon meeting with my youngest daughter and listened to others in the room share their own ES&H. I could relate to most of it, and that was a great comfort to me. I finally had a cause of all the madness, I had been experiencing for years and years.
My daughter ended up having some therapy sessions as she found Al-anon a bit awkward, they helped her a lot. She left home at 19yrs old and not in a way that I would have wanted for her. We had discussed moving out together but I just wasn't strong enough, and worried about how I would manage financially. I feel as though I let her down, but I am so proud of her for putting herself first.
I had felt so lonely in my marriage, the controlling was getting worse, the drinking was getting worse and the unreasonable behaviors and verbal abuse had 'ramped' up as I sought help for coping with his drinking and started to build myself a life outside of our marriage. The verbal abuse stopped after I got taught how to say 'stop, I do not have to listen to that' by my therapist and because I refused to discuss anything important, whenever he had been drinking.
After a year of therapy, Al-anon and visiting SR almost daily, I finally got the strength to leave my AH, which was about 10 months ago. It was the hardest decision of my life but also the best. When I left and moved into my own place, I was living on my own for the first time in my life. I did manage financially. I was so angry with him for letting me down, that it helped me move forward. It was sad and hard sometimes but I was living in peace and flourishing. I no longer cried on my way home from work wondering what mood he would be in that day. Checking the quantity of beer bottles in the fridge or seeing him with a bottle in hand, and my stress, anxiety and panic attacks reduced significantly and have now ceased altogether with no medication.
My AH has been sober now for about 9 months, and is trying to repair all the damage caused by his lifetime of drinking, but that's a whole other story.
I was a complete mess when I found Al-anon, SR and went into therapy. My life, my marriage, was out of control and unmanageable. It took lots of time to repair and heal some of the damage done from years of living in a verbal abusive relationship with an active alcoholic.
Today I am very happy, and content. I try and love myself first because I know that I am important and worthy and deserve a better life than the one I had been accepting for many, many years. I will never live with an active alcoholic or even a heavy drinker again. I never want to live in such pain again, I deserve better.
Please do not underestimate the damage your husbands drinking and verbal abuse has had on you and your entire family, especially your daughters. Please do look into Al-anon and even therapy for yourself and your daughters and keep visiting SR, keep reading, keep soaking up information.
One day soon, you too could be sharing your own ES&H of what it took for you to get to your peaceful, happy, fulfilling life where you are an important person and are worthy of love and happiness - everyday!