@TheByzantine: that is good advice, and actually its kind of the direction that i'm heading in with her. you're right, an ultimatum is too restricting. both for her and for me. at this early stage in the game, where though a problem certainly is present but its not a full-scale catastrophe, those sorts of dire measures (aka you drink, i leave) are probably not necessary. at this point, i'm simply letting her know what my feelings are on the matter and i'm leaving it up to her to make her choice on how to handle it. so far, it seems like she's more than willing to take a proactive step in nipping this thing in the bud. in fact, i'm quite impressed with the way that she's dealing with it. albeit, at this point its all talk. but i will stay quite aware, as i mentioned in my response to darylb41, to how things progress. I think that if it gets to a point where it becomes unbearable, perhaps then i will lay down an ultimatum.

in the meantime, i just don't know how to deal with the suspicion on my part. should i be out to "bust" her, or should i follow more of an ignorance is bliss sort of model? while admittedly, in both scenarios suspicion will inevitably be present, in the latter i'm at least not entertaining it and its not adding extra stress to the relationship. i think that really, i need things to be as stable as possible right now, but i don't want that to mean that i conduct things in an unhealthy manner...