To withdraw from someone you care about is awfully hard. You may feel compelled to check on him, but it would be good to set some limitations. I would suggest that work might be a place and time to detach. Let your priority at work be . . . work. Sometimes it's good to compartmentalize. Personally, I never liked phone conversations with anyone, while I was at my job. Any contact you have with him has the potential to be upsetting. Don't set yourself up for such upset, while your focus is needed to be on your job.

If he is still hospitalized, that is curbing his tendency to get in trouble. Perhaps he's still recovering. He may seem to be in a better frame of mind. That won't last.

You also don't want to be guilty of using him to obtain some transient emotional solace for yourself. That would be unfair to him, if you have decided to move on.

If your resolve weakens, ask yourself this: Is there a way to get away from his bad behavior without getting away from him? In my case, I told my guy that I absolutely would not be around him when he drank. I stuck to that. I told him I would not be on the phone with him, if he called while drinking. He tested that. I stuck to my decision. He was a spree drinker, so he had sober intervals. We spent time together when he was sober. Like I related above, he got into recovery, and our relationship survived. He didn't recover for my sake. He did it for himself because his health was deteriorating. He also had a track record of having lived successfully for years before he got into heavy alcohol abuse. You have to look at your husband's track record. Has he ever demonstrated the capacity to handle responsibility? That might give you a reality check on what his potential is.

I don't doubt he has some virtues. You wouldn't have fallen so hard for him, if he didn't have his good side. But you have to look at the totality of what being with him involves. Picture your life, as you want to live it. Then consider whether you can live that life, while accommodating his substance abuse and all that goes with that. The younger you are, the more essential it is that you choose wisely. I say that because, when you are young, life offers so many options. When you choose a poor option, you could be turning away from some way better possibilities. Sometimes you have to rule out what you don't want, in order to eventually discover what you do want.