Well, I wouldn't say life is "unmanageable", as much as it looks like it here, where my problems are front and center under a huge microscope. But yes, I am fed up, newly "aware", and with an acute state of needing to act. And yes, I am learning every day from people here and my own experiences and personal "research" and doing all I can to keep things as right as they can be under the circumstances until a half-decent path to improvement of those circumstances becomes clear.
LexieCat saidI need to decide/define "what I am trying to achieve and why"......
Yup.
Trying here to fully construct in my mind what a best-case outcome to this mess will actually look like. Without that picture, that vision, I have no solid, rational plan of action and would just be lashing out randomly - - something I've learned only ever works out for the very lucky. So I march on day by day, doing my best for myself, my son, and yeah, even my wife (admittedly to a lesser degree than ever), who I have become eternally angry with (love? that's for me to work out).
I still haven't gotten past the anger yet. Don't know if/when I will. I am angry with my wife and her alcoholism.
Wouldn't it be great if life could work like the movies? The minute you "fall out of love" with someone, you just ride off into the sunset, leaving all your troubles behind? That's great for a novel read in a few hours or days, or a two hour movie with popcorn and a soda - but it ends there.
Real life is messy. You know, the things some folks here forget one has to do after exiting this forum and walking away from the keyboard: Eat, sleep, work, maintain home, vehicles, try to manage a family life no matter how dysfunctional it may be, work on their fitness or physical issues, maybe care for a pet or a loved one who is ill or ailing, work in some recreation for "metal health" if nothing else, spend some care-free time with a child or children, maybe do some self-improvement or learn something new, go to a meeting here and there, see a lawyer or other professional about business and personal affairs, take kids places, and spend too much time talking about the underlying issues on a forum ;-)
So as I build my knowledge and understanding and deal with life day to day (only a relatively small part of which can be "disease-focused"), I will work toward a solution that works for me and my life. I know it will come and I am moving toward it, but things didn't get all f'd up overnight (frog-in-pot) and they won't get fixed overnight either.
(believe me, things aren't happening fast enough for me either)