Hi Noam
I'm a family man too. I have 4 kids, 8,10,12 & 15.
My wife stayed too, we made it through and I'm 5.5 years sober 😃.
It's often said that we have to want it for ourselves and this is undoubtedly true, but for me, that came later. My initial motivation came from the following.
I knew if I didn't sort it out, my wife wasn't going to stay forever, they just don't anymore. There is no stigma around divorce anymore, there is a lot of help out there for people like us and they know it.
No one counsel's them to stay either, like they used to years ago, predominately the advice will be along the lines of "he's an alcoholic, he loves booze more than you, think of the children, go now before it gets worse".
That might be hard to hear, but just like you have been lurking and toying with the idea that something has to be done ... She will be too and is probably already receiving advice from her girlfriends, possibly your in laws, her work colleagues etc. Women don't hold all their stuff in, they talk it out. Not much of the advice will be empathetic towards you and your struggles with the booze.
I found a lot out after I got sober as to just how close I came to losing it all on the back of that type of advice.
I'm currently watching a friend of mine go through it with his wife being the drinker, he is close to leaving and she will be completely blindsided by it. It's so often the way it goes.
I also couldn't bare the thought of someone else raising my kids, again, this is just a fact we have to face up to. It happens A LOT. Blended families are everywhere, some kids get lucky and get a step dad they really like and grow to love, but a lot don't too.
Wanna roll those dice ?
I didn't, I knew that under the pile of alcoholic rubble was a decent father, husband, son and friend, I just had to get out from under it.
What ever path you choose, make it stick.