BeAtPeace,

The others' suggestions are valid ones. But your focus needs to be on you, not him.

"Will he ever realize what is happening or will I have to leave him in order for him to see what he is losing?" There may be nothing you can do for him to see what he is losing. You must act according to your and your children's best interests...not according to what you feel it might evoke from him.

Let go and let God?! That may be eventuality. Let go, meaning to tell him, whether he hears or understands that you love him, but you can't live this way and you will support him only if he takes positive steps for himself. But until he does . . . this is the course you will take . . . then let him fall as far as he must to be tired enough of where he is to do something positive about it. That's where you let God take care of him. . . not you.

I lived this scenario . . . not with someone who had a mental illness but with a spouse who, suddenly after 15 years of marital bliss (I and everyone who knew us thought it was indeed marital bliss), just said "I'm gone" and left for a wilder life, another woman and a new child.

I spent several years losing my mind trying to do something to "make him see what he was losing". And finally I realized that in all that time, I should have been doing what was best for me, cause that's what he was doing (at least in his mind).

I wish you well. Please do take care of you first. Put yourself and your children in your mind first . . . because it sounds as though he is already doing that, and it isn't including his family at all.

MsNiteOwl