frustratedhubby

Hey Folks,

I'm new to this site but already happy it exists. A little background on my situation:

I've been married to my wife now for a little over a year. We are both in our 30s. No kids. We've kept our finances separate so no major items jointly owned. I barely drink. At most, I'll nurse a beer if out with friends. I was raised in a pretty sheltered environment and have never had a close relative or friend who was an addict (as for as I know).

When I started dating my wife, she seemed great. She had a bubbly personality, lots of friends, very sweet, excellent with family, great job, attractive. I knew that she enjoyed drinking and seemed to get anxious when we didn't have alcohol in social situations. But she convinced me that I was just unusually prude. She also got a DUI early on but managed to convince me that it was just bad luck and that it was a wake up call for her to be more responsible. In retrospect, there were plenty of signs that there was a problem.

After getting engaged, we moved in together. To my surprise, things went rapidly downhill. Her hair started falling out and so she was diagnosed with a thyroid issue. I could barely get her to leave the apartment and she was always getting sick (stomach pain, sore throats, colds). Figuring she was sick due to the thyroid issue, I was at her beckon call, always helping and serving her. It never really made sense that this was all from thyroid and I was getting frantic. Two months before the very large wedding, she announced to my shock that she was bulimic. Got her to a therapist who gave her anti depressants. To be honest, there was some relief in finding out she was bulimic because I thought it explained all the mysterious health issues

Since we got married, things just continued to get worse. We moved into a new house which was exciting but she seemed bizarrely disengaged during the process. She would always seem to be coming home from work before me or going into work late. And she was still always tired and sick. She proceeded to lose her job within weeks of the wedding but got a new job a few months later. I ended up losing my job 5 months ago and have been working from home as a consultant since then. My wife then lost her new job 4 months ago.

These past 4 months while we have both been at home have been shocking. She often would sleep by day and wake up at odd hours. She made little effort to get a new job and could barely accomplish even the smallest of tasks. I figured she was depressed and still trying to get the right combination with her prescription medications. I also started finding alcohol bottles hidden in various locations which I confronted her about. She always had some excuse and insisted that there was no problem.

A few months ago, I was out of town and she called me and admitted that she in fact did have a problem with drinking and felt like she need to go to rehab. I went with her to her doctor who felt like an outpatient program would be sufficient. After going through a goliath process to get her health insurance, she attempted to start the outpatient program. After an initial assessment, the program refused to take her in unless she went through a detox program. She proceeded to do a 3-day detox and then called the outpatient program to get started a few days later. Within 24 hours of detox, she got completely drunk out of her mind and couldn’t even get out of bed to go to the screening appointment at the outpatient program.

So eventually with the help of her parents and an alcohol counselor it became clear that she needs to be in a residential rehab. She very much wants to have a child and realized that she can’t do that unless she can get control of her drinking. We found a great inpatient rehab nearby but unfortunately there was a 4 day wait for a bed. My wife went out to buy alcohol every day and was drunk most of the last 4 days before the program. She admitted that in fact she had been drinking privately pretty much every day for the past 7 years (well before I was in the picture).

So now she is in rehab, which is great for her. But I’m waking up to the realization that I barely know the person I’m married to and it will be years before I can imagine trusting her again. I went to an Al-Anon meeting last night and visited a therapist this morning. The therapist told me straight out that he recommends I file for divorce ASAP and cut my losses. He also suggests that I tell her now while she is in a safe place and her therapists and customize a program to her new reality. At this point, I think I want to divorce her as well.

Any thoughts?