This may be just the latest go round in that recurring cycle. So what can feel like progress is sometimes just continuation of a entrenched pattern. I went through similar cycles during the 7 years I lived with a heavy drinker. In my case, there were no children, which did make things a lot less complicated than what you are dealing with.

Since there are kids, it makes more sense to me for you and the kids to stay where you are and for him to be the one to leave. What I came to accept was that it was not up to me to decide my partner's behavior. I had tried so hard to control his drinking. It was a huge weight off my shoulders when I decided that I was done with that. He could go drink himself blind for all I cared, but I would not live with drunken behavior.

In my case, I just packed up and left. Throwing him out had never accomplished much. I would always feel sorry and let him come back. So I left, knowing that where I moved to would truly feel like my own place, and I would not feel I owed him a roof over his head. Having no kids to accommodate made that easier to do. After another year of him drinking, he actually did stop once and for all, due to his health becoming a mess. I had nothing to do with him stopping, and maybe that is why he succeeded.

Since your husband is not contributing financially, it seems to me that you already know you can survive without him. Of course, he'll make all the promises he made in the past to get his foot back in the door. That can put you in the position of monitoring his behavior to see that he keeps promises. That's what really got me out of the arrangement I was in. I decided that I did not want to have to monitor anyone. I had been supervising my boyfriend like he was my teenage son. It got to where I just totally lost any and all interest in doing that. I realized I would never be clever enough to stay a step ahead of him, and it just got to be a game I was completely tired of. You don't realize how much energy this takes out of you, until you stop doing it.