I could really use some advice from people who have been there. I’ve been married 18 years, and we have two kids under 10. My husband has always been a great provider (I currently stay at home), and through I worried about how drinking might affect his health, otherwise, it didn’t seem to affect our life in a big way for the most part. It’s really just been the last two years that his drinking has gotten so out of hand that it has really damaged our relationship, fed by his depression and mood swings. He started passing out before the kids were even in bed, sometimes outside on our porch or patio. I was getting no help with the kids. All he did was work and drink.

That wasn’t the worst of it. He’s always struggled with depression, and four or five times a year, he’d go over the deep end and take all of his frustrations out on me verbally. It was a Jekyll and Hyde situation. I could live with it, as it was infrequent, but in the last two years, these irrational outbursts became almost constant, often triggered by his drinking.

Last Fall, he quit drinking for two months when his mom confronted him because he was having memory problems. (I had confronted him about that and other issues, but I had had no effect.) He decided to start drinking again “in moderation”, but that didn’t work out well.

A few days ago, I’d had enough of the verbal abuse and said he either had to quit drinking or we were done. At first he refused, but then we saw a counselor and he agreed. Now he’s barely talking to me. He said he needs space and needs to be alone, but he also expressed some blame toward me, that I was making him quit. This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to understand how much he’d been hurting me. The fact that I’d leave him after 18 years of marriage was supposed to make that pretty obvious, although I also put it into words for him. Now that he’s being even more withdrawn than usual, I feel frustrated, lonely, and depressed. Our once strong connection feels tenuous at best. I’m afraid I’m going to lose him either because of his addiction or because he blames me for his unhappiness. He’s going to see a therapist to address his problems expressing his emotions in healthy ways, but I’m really worried that he’s not willing to accept help for his addiction. Any advice about any of this would be appreciated. Also, is there a board for the partners of alcoholics? I need support, and I have very little.