jarp

Ive woken up this morning and realised...I'm finally at that point...I just cant do this anymore.

I want to put this out there to make myself accountable.

Ah always had some sort of bizarre line in the sand...he'd be able to moderate in front of the kids, didn't come home drunk etc etc and this enabled me to continue to deceive myself that 'the kids aren't really affected'.

But over the last few months that has changed. As things do in a progressive disease I guess. Last night, watching him slam down 3 bottles of wine in the space of an hour between 6-7pm in front of his son, watching my 5 yo get antsy and uncomfortable, watching AH roar at him "BEDTIME" (an hour before he usually goes), yelling out random words, saying meaningless stuff, or just plain mean stuff, telling him "Mummy hates Daddy" etc I realised enough is enough.

What others have said finally sunk in. I have a choice. The kids do not. That and people repeatedly saying how peaceful life is without the constant anxiety over their A's...

So....with a pounding heart, a churning stomach and bile in my mouth I say....I have to tell him to leave.

This is going to be a process... I have to get some ducks in a row first. I need a plan. Comments or additions (or deletions) to my plan would be much appreciated as I have received such wisdom here and I get the feeling that leaving an alcoholic might be different to leaving a normal spouse. My therapist has told me that my need to focus on the practical is a way of avoiding my emotions and an effort to control....am still working through that and the need to not make mistakes I made last time I left a marriage.

- keep seeing my therapist, reading and contributing here, al-anon
- consult lawyer about how to best protect my son (my first 2 kids are from my 1st marriage)
- consult lawyer about proposing an asset/ debt split to ah
- finish the process of having my name added to the title of our house to protect my claim to assets.
- continue to put aside some of my income so I have a financial safety net.
- see my countries version of SS to see if I get any benefits as a single parent
- get a new job (AH and I work very, very closely together)
- consult child psych to see if kids could benefit from counselling and also work out how to tell kids and what to say
- get copies of all paperwork and take to Mums
- work out back up plan is ah resists me keeping the house...
- get paperwork to put holiday house on market (it will take a very long time to sell...things on market for average of a year)
- keep log of ah activities (for custody)

What have I missed - what else should I be doing?