Originally Posted by
lizatola 
So, the question still remains: if I give up my defending myself against his verbal attacks, if I give up my desire to be right, and if I strive for happiness; will I still be able to stay married to someone like this with or without alcohol? He is so threatened by all thebpositive stuff I am doing, too, and he's constantly attacking me about it. Makes recovery even tougher for me because I defend my Al Anon meetings and sponsors, etc.
The answer is Yes, you CAN still stay married to a person like this. My mother has done it for OVER 50 YEARS! But she expects, and gets, NOTHING from my father. NOTHING but grief, dysfunction, un-warranted contempt and anger, and continual harm to her health and well-being. She lives her life completely alone, and has for pretty much all those 50 years. She has her own interests, her own hobbies, her own friends, and her own activities, and stays busy and involved with those things, by herself, as much as she can. She is over 70 years old and has to stay away from her own home most if not all of the day.
Your spouse is going to get WORSE. Just Google stages of alcoholism and you will see. What is tolerable now will change to intolerable in the future. Do you really want to go there? There is so much more to life. Really.