A little help, please?
My husband is an alcoholic. He has a lot of issues to work through. I think his drinking was a way of coping with life around him. His dad's a hypochondriac; his mom's very needy and depressed. My husband has always been very close with his parents--maybe even too close. I have a stressful, full-time job, my husband works two small part-time? jobs. Money is tight. We both love our 2 1/2 year old daughter very much.
My husband has always drank. But it didn't become a problem until after our daughter was born, when I felt like I was raising two children. He went to a few AA meetings, and was, I think, sober for three months. After that, I knew he would drink some, but it didn't become a problem again until last April. Then things changed drastically. Our marriage began to fall apart. He would pick on me, and wouldn't stop--a lot like my sister when we were growing up. He would never treat our daughter badly, but he didn't have as much patience with her as he used to. He got so bad toward me that I had to leave the house, simply so I wouldn't lose my mind. I kept asking him if he was drinking, and he would always deny it. I couldn't find any proof. I hate myself in that I left him alone with our daughter when he was drunk, but I didn't know it. I know there were several occasions that I had to work late unexpectedly and asked him to pick her up from daycare and he'd been drinking.
Finally, in November, my parents got to see this mean drunk side of him. Thank god, someone got to see what I've been seeing! He lied to my parents, but finally admitted to me that night that he'd been drinking. I gave him an ultimatum--AA or divorce. I told him I refused to live like this anymore. Thankfully, he chose AA.
He's been going to AA almost every night since. At least I think he has. How do I trust him? He's so good at lying to me. I made him buy a breathilizer from Wal-Greens, and I've had him use it on several occasions. He's been nice to me, hasn't picked on me like he did when he was drinking. But the hurt is still there. I want to trust him. I want to love him. I want our marriage to work. I want to support him. But I'm not sure how.