There are times when I am prepared to leave and be done and then I catch a glimpse of the real husband and continue to stick it out.
From the first time I contemplated leaving my ex to the day I left was about 16 years. You've invested so much. It's hard to accept that people can change to the point where the person you married is gone. Someone posted here the other week that she was having a hard time because she was grieving the person she married, but his body was still walking around and talking and living, just not behaving in the slightest like the man she fell in love with.
Here's the thing: You don't have to know this second, today, or even this week what to do. But you've started putting words on what you're experiencing, and what you want, and what you don't. For me, reading other people's stories, and recognizing myself in them, made me feel less alone, less crazy (because man oh man did I feel CRAAAAAZY!), and start taking steps towards detaching from my ex. Deciding that we were separate people. Deciding that he was his own person. That if he chose to continue drinking, he had a right to make that choice. And deciding -- and believing -- that I had every right to choose whether I wanted to stay with him.
Take your time. Learn about alcoholism. Find an Al-Anon meeting. You don't have to talk, you can go just to listen. There's power in those stories. There's something very surprising and empowering in hearing your own thought expressed by someone else in a similar situation.
And above all, take care of yourself. Take care of your kids. Remember who you are. Don't let him define you, or make your choices for you. (((hugs)))