Derringer

Tip from the other side.

Find out what you are up against. Read the AA big book as well as the AL Anon book.

Find out why your leaving hasn't shocked him into sobriety. Find out that it's not because he loves booze more than you and the kids.

Knowledge is power

Ariesagain

You remind me so much of myself...I just want to know what to DO so I can FIX things and GET ON with it...I want to know what it will look like when it’s done and then drive myself toward it, full speed!

Take it from someone who has spent sixty years doing that...it works for things we have control over...it really backfires when we try to apply it to things we don’t , like other people.

Two thoughts...it helps me to remember that things will unfold in the background if I let them...”more will be revealed” really is a thing.

Second, I’ve been doing an online guided meditation course on “acceptance” and it really helps me not get so caught up in DOING SOMETHING NOW. You might want to try that?

trailmix

I think most of us know that it isn't a true love of alcohol that drives alcoholism (it just looks like it a lot of the time), it is addiction and it is a beast.

"the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration" would be accurate though.

I also think most of us know that many alcoholics don't love themselves or alcohol.

Regardless. FWN has 4 children, including a new baby. It is really difficult to live with an alcoholic and 4 children.

Above all, the welfare of the children and the non-addict and the long term damage from alcoholism in the house needs to be taken in to consideration.

Compassion and support for the alcoholic is not a solution to the non-addicts issues or the addicts issues.

NYCDoglvr

What I've found is I can have no relationship with someone I don't trust and respect. It took Alanon to diminish denial and rationalization that kept me in a bad relationship.

Derringer

Ok, maybe it would help if I put it another way.

If FWN wants to know if the marriage can be saved or if it is worth it or not, my suggestion is to look closely at what alcoholism really looks like and then, make a more informed decision.

Or simply assume the blanket "it's a beast" thing and make a decision.

I've followed FWN's threads because the situation is very like my own. 4 kids, looking like we were living the dream in our new house, but we weren't.

We separated and have since worked it out and I'm 5.5 years sober in AA and sponsored through the steps.

It's not all fairies and rainbows, but we managed it.

It's a lot of hard work.

FWN

Derringer

Realising it was all going to hell in a hand basket and I along with it.

I took on alcoholism and it kicked me half to death.

I also couldn't bare the thought of someone else raising my daughter's and that's what was going to happen if I didn't sort it out.

OpheliaKatz

My experience: I stuck by my ExAH for 10 years. For most of that time, I chose to trust him, which was a mistake. I was always cleaning up after him, helping him pay for things, organizing his life -- in short, I was enabling him and I didn't realize it. I thought that this was the only way we could manage our lives together: if I was the one doing the managing. I was basically in a relationship that had become more like a parent and child relationship than a marriage.

So I started to work on my recovery and I attempted to separate myself from his addiction -- I stopped enabling him. But that's when he become abusive (you could argue that he was abusive before, because of the gas-lighting, but it wasn't really obvious -- it wasn't violent -- until I attempted to enter recovery for codependency). He wanted to drug... but he also wanted me to enable him. He was not okay with me having any sort of life of my own. I could not get a part-time job, I could not go out to the gym, not without making him resent me. I guess the thought of being alone in his addiction made him panic.

I am not okay with people who hurt others when they panic. So that's when I knew I had to leave. Perhaps some one else (not me) would have forgiven him for the exact same behavior.

I think everyone is different, every relationship is different. If you can work things out after you have entered recovery yourself (not for addiction to substances, but for the attachment you have to the addict and their problems), assuming that your spouse is also in recovery, and assuming you are willing to spend months or years getting the trust back... it can work. I could not possibly see any way to trust my ExAH again.

I was far too old to waste my time... and I am older now. I think for some people... because they have put x amount of time into something, they try to stick things out. When I left, I was thinking not of the time I had lost, but of the time I would lose if I stayed. I am divorced, and while I never intended to marry only to divorce, I can now imagine a life with possibilities that I could not when I was with an addict.

If I think of what I was like back then... I remember that I felt myself diminishing. I came out of the marriage not knowing who I was. I was merely an extension of him -- I was his coping mechanism. I had no identity, I wasn't really a person on my own with interests or desires. I was interested in his health, I desired him to be healthy... and that was all. I think that my recovery has been 100% about trying to create myself. Leaving the addict changed me on a cellular level -- I am not the same person I was when I had an ambulance on speed dial. I am new. I am also tougher, more aggressive, less tolerant, more private, maybe lonely sometimes, but also... I feel like I know things I have never known before. I have integrity now because my life aligns more with my values. I feel like a better person.

If you are thinking about leaving... you probably already have a foot out the door. It's not necessarily terrible.

The percentages of marriages that end because of abuse, addiction or affairs is very high -- my marriage had all three of those things. Having said that, some people are able to grow in the same direction together when they embrace recovery (if they both choose to embrace recovery).