I really struggle with thinking of her as an alcoholic. She was never falling down drunk. She got into the practice of sipping wine throughout the day about 8.5 years ago. She said it helped with pain. She has chronic pain including nerve injuries. It reached a point of 1-2 bottles a day.

Things really, really began to change during Covid, because that's when I first realized how much she was in bed, how much I was doing, and how she was more focused on her stress, anxiety, and mental health than the kids'.

I confronted her on it and she went to the winning argument - you watched p0rn. I said, yes, I did, and we've covered that for years. But this is something big that you have to change.

Once I quit letting her win arguments because of my past, we began growing further apart.

By late 2020 we began to see personality changes. By late 2021 there were big memory gaps that were filled in with made-up things.

Arguments became moving targets.

Recently she found fault with me for not cleaning. I pointed out I spent 2 full days in the garage with an injured arm, fixing a car we needed for Monday. That became, you spend more time cleaning the garage than the house. I wasn't cleaning the garage. That became, I don't care about your hobbies. I'm not a hobbyist. We commute with that car. That became, your only contributions can't be in the garage. I had done 2 loads laundry the night before, and had gotten groceries and made suppers for the next 4 days that day. That became, why are you always coming at me, tearing me apart and pointing out my shortcomings. I literally never said a WORD of comparison or anything negative toward her. That became, it must be wonderful to be perfect. Then she locked herself in the bedroom.

These exchanges happen in front of the kids.

The irritability, the irrationality, she wasn't like this before.