I'm at a point in my marriage where I am pretty certain I'm done - I want a divorce. It's on the tip of my tongue every time I look at him, but I can't seem to bring myself to actually bring it up! I'm not sure if I just need someone to validate my actions and tell me I'm doing the right thing, or if it's that deep down I'm scared about the repercussions (for my children) and the changes my life will take? I'm a very strong person and I know I will be just fine on my own with my kids despite the difficulties that will come with the fact that I am self-employed and work from home, but I think I'm mostly mourning the loss of the life I planned for, the one I expected to have. Here's a brief breakdown of my situation, if for nothing else except that I don't have many people to talk to about it and I really want to get it all off my chest.

We have been married 9 years (together 10), and have two young children. We were married young - I was just out of high school - and had children shortly afterward. He always had a history of being a very charismatic "ladies' man" type, and I knew there had been infidelity in some of his relationships before. He promised of course that this was different, this was marriage and it was serious and he would never do that. Almost a decade later, and there have been instances of emotional or physical infidelity at least 1-3 times or more per year consistently throughout our marriage, right from the very beginning and even when I was pregnant. These have ranged from co-workers, to people he met online, etc. He's also an addict, not an overly self destructive one but enough that it's a problem (alcohol and pills, nothing hard). One of the hardest things is that he hides it so well, the pathological lying, the addiction, etc., that nobody else would ever even suspect that he has these kinds of issues. I've given him a million chances to change, he hasn't, given him opportunities and ultimatums to go to counseling, he goes once or twice and eventually makes excuses and stops, never really puts any effort into it despite his seemingly sincere wish to fix our marriage (the trouble is, he doesn't want to fix himself and that's the root of the problem). I've become increasingly numb, detached, and cold over time and I honestly don't even have any desire to be intimate with him anymore. Flash forward to the most recent event, less than a month ago he lied and said he was going to go out with a friend and instead, spent the night at a female co-worker's house. I caught him in his lies while he was still there, this was the night before Valentine's Day by the way, and we had a big fight over it. After a lot of discussion afterward in which we discussed possibly separating/divorce, he said he really wanted to give it one last chance where he really gave it 100% effort this time like he never had before. I told him I needed time to think about what I wanted, and I decided to give him one last chance and see what he did with it. I told him very clearly that he would need to go seek outpatient treatment for his addiction/sexual addiction/other issues ASAP, see a counselor, etc. It's a month later now, and he hasn't even attempted to contact anyone, see anyone, change anything. I accidentally found out that he still continued calling this girl after we had these discussions despite his insistence that he "really wants to make this work" when the phone bill came in and he was way over his minutes, so I took a look at the itemized bill.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I think I'm just done, I want out. It's clear that nothing will ever change, this vicious cycle will just keep repeating itself, and I deserve better (and so do my kids, though in their eyes he's a good father as they aren't really aware of any of this). I really want to tell him tomorrow but I'm nervous and not sure I can bring myself to. But how much longer can I keep going, keeping this inside?

I think I'm scared about the future too, as shallow as some of the things may seem. The security and stability I once thought I'd have, the retirement plans (of which I don't have any, since I'm self-employed), the trips I wanted to take with the kids (we're military stationed overseas), trying to decide where to move back to when I've never lived as an adult in my hometown and am pretty sure I don't want to, the consequences that the divorce will have on our kids and the loss of the type of daily relationship they have with their father... just so many things. I resent the fact that I left the workforce to stay home with my kids while they were young because I thought I would be able to, that we would be stable and financially be fine, and now I'm in a position where I have been self-employed for 3 years and will have a difficult time finding a good job.. while he's still going to maintain a steady, well-paying job he has. On the other hand, I feel like it would be such a relief to be done with it, and rid of the back and forth, the constant betrayals, and the damage this is doing to who I am as a person.