I have a hard time with this topic. My STBXAH discussed this at length before we married. I really truely planned on marrying for life. My understanding was he felt the same way. He is from Ireland and they just recently legalized divorce. His mother left his alcoholic husband and moved in with relatives and then with us for a while. Never went back but never divorced. We both had very strong views on the subject.
If I really want to think about it, I think he used my moral belief that I held so strongly too against me. I think that once he saw how much he could get away with and really got drinking and I didn't fight him on it, that he saw it as an opportunity to really push those boundaries. It got uglier and uglier and still I did not leave.
When I read the statement here about "I signed a marriage pact and not a suicide pact" it really resonated with me. I realized I would watch him drink himself to death and I would end up dying emotionally along side him. I believe in my GOD, I don't attend church but I have strong beliefs. I believe in a kind loving GOD and I don't think he would want me stay in a marriage where I was being abused mentally and some physically anymore than he would want me to bash myself over the head with a baseball bat. I am supposed to be made in his image, would you treat GOD that way? I married my husband. I created a family with him. He created his own problems and brought on the divorce when he kept feeding his addiction and to this day still will not admit he has a problem.