Live

We do all have to negotiate our own things. I am not going to give up my living room to someone who should be in bed.

It does sound like a basically good life...but at the same time, I am no longer willing to live with a part time partner. No matter how grand he is in the mornings..I still want him cognizant, available and responsible all day.

That is me. I no longer have little ones at home and I am not on my first marriage. At this time in my life: if it doesn't enhance and isn't a whole lot better than living alone, I do not need it.

However, having said that..my partner and I often do have different sleep patterns. I have bipolar and mine can be very erratic. Lately he is staying up quite a bit later than I am and sleeping later. hmmmm. That doesn't bother me. So, for me..I guess it does come down to whether it is due to alcohol or not.

just throwing out some food for thought from someone else out here in cyber land.

cafleen

"It does sound like a basically good life...but at the same time, I am no longer willing to live with a part time partner. No matter how grand he is in the mornings..I still want him cognizant, available and responsible all day"

I agree with this. I do want that all the time. But for now, that would be a fantasy that would cause frustration. Besides, do we just leave when people disappoint us? How many people in marriages find all they would want in their partner? I think there are no easy answers...we take people where they are, make the best of what they are. It would not be a better outcome to break up my family. I don't think my kids living in two homes would be healthy for them. There are lots of situations that call for it. I don't feel like mine is necessarily one of them. My kids really love their dad. I think you understand the pragmatic perspective here. I love him too...or a lot about him. When things are calm...they're great. I'm questioning how much I contribute to making them "not calm." How much of that is driven by my setting of expectations and finding myself disappointed, then reacting to that?

Live

I am on my 3d and I am almost 52 years old and that does make a heap of difference. No shared children so that is not even a concern in my life. My daugher is grown, has 2 boys of her own and lives in another state.

So this relationship is all about whether it works for the two of us and nothing more. That is a very different scenario.

We also both have a very detached live and let live style. I can't explain why but neither of us react to each other very much in the ways I always have in the past. I think age, having lived singly, several relationships and etc etc all play into this. The shared meal time is no big deal, for example. It always used to be. The way it is now..either one of us can cook and will fix a plate for the other, or maybe one of us will just grab a bowl of cereal or a sandwich and the other will feed themself.

That did not characterize my previous relationships and this way of being and attitude seems to go much easier on me.

I always did alot of reacting to the other person and they to me. Being freed of that has de-stressed my life and made all the good that much better for me. I think a very big part of what I like and what makes this work is that when either of us make a statement to the other, it is heard the FIRST time so that we can adapt, adjust, resolve the issue so things do not build up.
There is something about going over the same old ground multiple times that eats away at partners and relationships in my opinion.

I always had this vision of how marriages should be and how they operate. For some reason in this relationship I feel it to be like two single, independent people in a relationship. I am surprised that I don't feel cheated by this, but I have found that I prefer it. I am not trying to make us into "one".

I think that you are on the right track that the one thing you can examine and change is your expectations and reactions to them. Accepting your decision to continue in this relationship as your choice made upon what you have determined to be best and integrating that wholly. I think you will be fine. Marriages do grow and change over time. Some of the things that bothered me early in the other long term marriage with children resolved themselves rather naturally. Over time I couldn't remember why they had frustrated me so much, different things matter at different stages of life.

In my current relationship, if I found it to become disappointing I would consider leaving it. I deserve not to live that way and he deserves not to live with someone who is disappointed much of the time..we really can't hide how we feel even when we think that we are. It shows and is felt. So, he would deserve better also. In my view it would be the dignified thing to do to re-evaluate.

I have to laugh remembering a conversation with an old friend. He told me..yeah back in the early days when he and his wife were married they would fight about the best right way to make mashed potatoes. These days the very fact that someone would make him some makes him feel like a lucky man. LOL

The only constant in life is change.

cafleen

"The only constant in life is change."

A motto for us all to live by. Adaptation to change is very hard for some people. It frightens them.

When I was in my 20's...and really trying to grow myself, personally and professionally, I read a lot, did a lot of self work, broke myself down...shed a lot of tears in self realization. But I did come out of that time with a new set of priorities, particularly as they applied to people I worked with. My philosophy became "**** always happens and people come first." I adopted a behavior most of the time of settiing aside my paperwork when staff showed up. They were mostly out in the field and I think they needed to relax and connect when they showed up at the office. I also learned to handle what felt like crises with much greater grace and self control. I learned that all situations will resolve themselves, whether I act or not. I may get a better outcome by doing nothing. The balancing act is knowing when to act...and if I should be the person acting. I still have to remind myself of that when it feels like the world is caving in.

Babyblue

The elephant (literally and figuratively) in the living room is his drinking.

It bothers you. I glossed over the the snoring on the sofa issue, the kids not being fed etc because bottom line is you know that his inability to be a full-time partner is due to his drinking and whatever other psychiatric issues he has. It is a full deck of cards you and your kids are dealing with.

That is where you have to really ask yourself what it is you need and want. Reality is that drinking is progressive (as someone pointed out). My impression is you want a sober partner, which you do not have. Normalizing what he is doing doesn't get him to recovery sadly.

Al-anon would really help you and understanding alcoholism may also give you a 'bigger picture' of his disease. (Under the Influence, by Milam and Ketcham, is very helpful and informative).

I guess for me, I could treat the alcoholic like a lamp in the corner but it still doesn't change the fact that he is slowly poisoning himself. Would be hard for me personally to witness so remember that your kids are also experiencing this and being affected in long term ways.

Just some things that came to me while reading your post