Thank you, everyone, for your great support! I wrote another post about the intervention that my in-laws are forcing me to be involved. I told the intervention specialist that I really didn't believe in those reading a letter in a circle thing and i was ready to leave him anyway. He told me to give him a one more chance before I leave. I am sticking around because of my daughter's important events for another month or so, but I am sure my AH will have another relapse and I will be so ready to tell him and his parents a good-bye. It is not a easy thing to do, but it has to be done, and all your encouragement is helping me to move on. So BIG THANK YOU to all of you!

Hello everyone, I'm new here and stumbled upon this site by chance. My story isn't very different from so many I read here and how sad is that!

Married 39 years (want to cry every time I say that number) and ashamed at the same time for letting this go on as long as it has. My AH is a angry, yelling, beat the wall kind of a drunk, lies and calls me names that a harden criminal would wince at. When he's not drunk (rarely) he's acts (hence the word ACTS) like a decent guy. I started to see a lawyer 3 years ago when he tried to strangle me which brought him to detox and rehab and since then he's been in the ER many times with violent detoxing, hospital detox and rehab. My two grown kids won't even talk or see him and I'm still seeing my lawyer swaying back and forth about divorce. Here's my problem he hasn't worked for the majority of our marriage and not at all for the last few years and I on the other hand have been working non-stop since I married him (I was young and stupid). I make a very good salary and my lawyer tells me I will most likely have to pay this man to drink himself to death with alimony for the rest of his life because I live in a no fault state. I'm nearing retirement and will have nothing when we split up everything in common and then to pay him alimony! Here's the really annoying part of me, I don't want to be around when he dies and divorcing him in my mind tells me for sure he will die soon. How sick am I? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome and that is what I've been doing for 39 years. He has no family, next to no friends, he's alone except for me. I feel trapped and confused on which way to go or should I say RUN.
My AH is a Viet Nam Vet who happened to be in special forces (Rangers) and he needs psychiatric help but of course he won't go even though he knows he needs help. My kids keep telling me to divorce him and I know they're right, and I never want to be in a position done the road to be a burden on them.

Thanks for listening to my rambling on and when they say Alcoholism is a family disease how well I understand that!