I don't know, I guess I'm just wondering if there is even any point in trying. Because even if he eventually does get serious about his recovery, (he currently is in denial and makes half-assed efforts) there is firstly no guarantee that it would work (he'd likely relapse), and secondly, we have so much history/bad blood that I wonder whether we'd really ever be able to get to a normal place again.
I guess I'm trying to make peace with the fact that this relationship seems to have run its course. On the one hand, you feel bad for "throwing away" a seven year relationship, which had many good times especially during the first five years, but on the other hand you don't want to keep flogging a dead horse.
I showed up here looking for numbers - hard data.
I'm a math kid and I wanted odds. First, I wanted to know how I could make him get better. Then I learned some stuff about alcoholism.
Then I wanted the odds of him getting better. Then upon some more learning around here....
I wanted the odds of him staying better if he got better...then some more learning...
And then I wanted the odds of us both getting better together...more learning..
And then I realized I'd spent 5 years wondering if we were going to be good one day, when the whole time, we weren't good. Not good enough anyway.
We have one shot at making our short lives the best it can be. Relationships will all have hills and valleys....but real love...my relationships with my friends and family...are nothing like the crazy peaks, and the depths of the abyss I had with an alcoholic. That's just Newton's law - love is a force of nature.
If your partner doesn't want to get better, then how things are TODAY is the best they are going to be, and you have every right to decide you deserve better for your life. It sounds like this is the way he wants his life to be, and he is allowed that too.
Something someone here said still sticks with me - 'spending a lot of time making a mistake is not a good excuse to keep making it.' Whether your 'investment' is 5 years or 50 years, you are allowed to cut your losses to save YOUR life at any time. Hugs to you - i remember the internal struggle too well.