1st) you are choosing to fight the bottle, for yourself, your marriage, and your children so please know i admire that and i'm on your side

"feeling worthless" can be comforting because we then don't have to measure up

things of worth require care, care equates with work & discipline, care equates with responsibility

you have made choices to be responsible, keep making more, not just the big choices, make the 1,000 daily little ones, every day

Thank you for that. I am trying so hard but I feel like every time I open my mouth I say something I shouldn’t. I struggle with standing up for myself and feeling like I should just stay in my lane. I don’t seem to have the ability to find a balance. He has a lot of resentment towards me that he is currently unable to get over. And I get that but now i feel like I have no right to say anything things he says or does. It’s just such a mess. The pain is overwhelming as is having to act like everything is fine. I’m going crazy.

I don't know how long you have been sober but I wanted to say congratulations. If it hasn't been that long, I suspect that your brain may have a little bit of trouble right now due to the binge drinking. Alcohol has a way of clouding everything and sometimes we make poor decisions when we are under the influence or even the next day or next week depending on how often and how much we imbibe. So maybe give yourself a break from all these big decisions and focus on day to day. I am wondering if there is anger on both sides, his from your drinking, and yours from something he has done to anger or disrespect you. This anger hasn't been dealt with and so comes out when things get tough between you two. If you are still binge drinking, this is often a huge source of conflict in relationships and nothing changes that until the people involved changed. When we change our reactions and thinking patterns, we change the dynamics in a relationship but we can't change the behavior of other people. What you said is true for everyone, there is brokenness inside of us all. We have a choice to focus on our bad or work towards our own good. Its a human condition to have issues, failings, bad parts, good parts. If the broken includes the binge drinking, consider going to AA meetings and getting sober. Things will look very different to you when six months or, a year, sober than they do today. I'd like to suggest counseling but I guess I'd first say absolutely stop drinking if you haven't stopped. Allow your brain to become healed before you make any kinds of decisions. My former spouse was binge drinker, drug user, and it made him crazy, unstable, and wacked out. It destroyed our marriage because I gave up out of anger and resentment. If you are newly sober, I suspect husband may have difficulty trusting you and a lot of pain left over from when you did binge drink. Perhaps even fear that you'll start up drinking agin. That is what I know and felt, and I offer it here just to maybe give you perspective on how husband might be thinking and why the fireworks so easily go off. Best to you. Stay strong, stay sober, there's a beautiful life waiting for you to seize it.

Well said Urbangardner

My two cents ( from experience). Definitely give yourself a break. Or two. Stay sober for you first. Exercise as much as you can. Change distractions in your life. I stopped watching tv and we read at night now. It’s much easier to put a book down and talk with eachother Just work on you. The rest will come along in time. Just a note: we smoked for a few years. She quit two years ago. I should have done it with her but I didn’t. I resisted for some reason and finally followed her example a year later. I’m a bit ashamed now that I kept on tempting her with my unhealthy choice. Now it seems crazy to us that we even started. Some folks don’t like change because it brings up irrational fear. Both partners need to allow eachother to grow. If not there’s resentment. Just saying: maybe you don’t deserve ALL the blame here.

Dear death rattle you are not alone I was in a similar situation with my husband and yes we were apart for a while but we are back together and things are going better than ever Sallie

Maybe you should let your actions speak louder than your words.

I'm sure your husband has heard countless apologies and excuses about your drinking, thus your words are meaningless.

Show him - don't tell him - you are serious about getting (and staying) sober and fixing the relationship.

Are you in any kind of a program DR or in some type of therapy??…… I think stopping can be hard without help and there are often underlying problems to address

AA is such a positive program of peer support and there are meetings all over the place

A group like Al anon might be really good for your husband.... to both understand the illness of addiction as well as gain support for himself

Good for you for stopping.... It's a way of life so it takes time to find a new way of life.....

The AA board on here is good...… Big hug and a blessing.....xo