I'm taking the middle road here--get solid in your sobriety first,
take some therapy to really get at the core issues driving the drinking.
It most likely is a combination of things--career has become job,
pressure to provide money for lifestyle you no longer want but she does,
lack of trust, communication and dare I say intimacy in the marriage?
Guilt about affair, midlife crisis, big metaphysical question of
what does this all mean anyway. . .
You get the picture. Your wife isn't the single cause, but it may
be you have gone different ways in life and down the road,
it may be you need to accept that and divorce.
But making that call in early sobriety, without some careful deep internal work
may be the biggest mistake of your life, one you won't be able to undo once it happens.
I thought a divorce might be best for me and my spouse at one point,
but it turned out he and I actually wanted to both make some big changes,
but hadn't been able to honestly communicate about it, and we were able to reconnect.
I think the drinking was a big part of the problem as it kept denial and
strife alive in our relationship.
Now we are happier than I think we have ever been, and I never would have
thought we could get to this place from where we were.