Hi Stung,
Just wanted to chime in with my experience. I gave up on my 20 year marriage recently. I'd been trying to get my AH into recovery for about the past 5 miserable years. This summer while I was able to get away for a few weeks, it became clear to me that I was spending my life knocking my head against the wall, trying to get someone else to make a change that only he can control. To your point, I also met a couple of men who reminded me of how it feels to be respected and valued. But my husband and I have three kids, 9, 14, and 15, so I had similar concerns about staying together for their sake.
I finally decided that it's more important for my daughters to see their mother stand up for herself than for me to stay in a miserable, sometimes abusive, relationship, somehow for their sake.
I moved out two weeks ago. The girls seem just fine, even happy, playing games and laughing together. My husband finally seems committed to his recovery, an attitude which I hope lasts. And me? If there is such a thing as the honeymoon phase of a divorce, I'm feeling it. There have been rough moments, but for the most part I'm breathing and living in a way that I had almost forgotten was possible. I was feeling mildly suicidal before--fantasizing about 'accidentally' careening off the freeway. Now I can't wait to wake up in the morning and see the wide blue ocean stretching before me, metaphorically and literally.
When my husband was talking about how integral alcohol is to his life, his doctor said, "change is hard." I remember that when the going gets tough--that just because it feels hard doesn't mean that it's wrong. I've also realized that at a certain point, not changing may be even harder. . . and it can certainly eat up your life. Making this change has and does feel hard, but I have no desire to go back.