[hope-floats]

My husband and I have been together for over 20 years, I was 20 and he was 19 when we married.
From the beginning he was a partier but in 1999 he stopped drinking, that is until 2005 when he began again.
From the beginning our relationship was very rocky and I am ashamed to admit he even has had affairs. Yet I stayed with him.
Last August he was in an accident on his bicycle, while drinking that cause him to rupture the ligament between his C1 and C2. He had to have surgery and therapy. Once he was released to work the day he went back he was laid off. Luckily he is back to work now. He has had a drinking problem for years but it is way worse now. He drinks most weekday evenings, a few at least but its the weekends that are hard. He starts drinking Friday night and until he passes out for a few hours then wakes up and starts it all over until his ultimate pass out Sunday evening. I am not a drinker at all.
He now has a female "friend" that he spends way to much time with because she will drink excessively with him. They also text and talk way to much.
We have decided we need to separate and divorce but not until after the holidays and we still live together. We have two children, a 19 year old college student and an 8 year old.
I don't want to sound arrogant here so please forgive me if I do. I am by no means a bad wife. I have always worked full time at a job I love, cook almost every night, the house is always clean and the bills paid. I am a very attentive mother and always put my children first. I am by no means a prude in the bedroom. So why am I questioning my behavior and seeing what I could have done better and not him? He is the one who has ignored his family, not me. All I do is sit and wonder what I could have done. Why I wasn't good enough.
I am just beside myself because all I want is my family to be together and am extremely afraid of what is going to happen once the ball starts rolling.
Thanks in advance for listening to my babble.

[healingme4me]

Originally Posted by hope-floats

So why am I questioning my behavior and seeing what I could have done better and not him? He is the one who has ignored his family, not me.

All I do is sit and wonder what I could have done. Why I wasn't good enough.

I am just beside myself because all I want is my family to be together and am extremely afraid of what is going to happen once the ball starts rolling.
Thanks in advance for listening to my babble.

I, truly believe, it's a normal reaction to a deep hurt. It's also, part of the grieving, of a relationship. Intellectually, one can tell ourselves, that logically, that's not true. You were the one, that was good enough. You were the one, who contributed enough to the relationship. And, perhaps, because, I'm on a limb here, you aren't the type of person, to lay blame on others, first. ((<---which isn't a bad thing, per se; just means, you are more likely to look at your own flaws, or even question things that aren't flaws, first.))

You mentioned, you don't drink. And the person he went running to, sounds like she enables his poor choices, and his dysfunction. So, it's not, so much that you aren't a good person, wife, mother; it's he and you, lost connection, in his mind, at least.

I've heard, it expressed to me, as far as my exh goes; all he had to do, was seek treatment, and not take his anger out on you? Some people, don't know a gift, when they have it. You, being that gift. He squandered you, and all he had/has.

Let him, one day, ask these very questions of himself, where you are concerned, some day. When, all is lost on him, to him.

It's grief, plain and simple. I feel for you,

[healingme4me]

fyi, is that a movie reference?! love that movie, if it is

[hope-floats]

Thank you for your reply.
It is reference to the movie.

[sans]

Hi Hope.
have you looked into Al-anon. I have heard that they have awesome support for those who love an alcoholic.
Sending healing thoughts for you and your children.
Sans

[bataviabard]

I used to drink like a gentleman, until, in 1999 when I turned 40, it almost killed me (and I almost killed myself). I had to hit bottom -- sucking booze out of the carpet to stop convulsing, having the DT's twice in less than a month, looking at a truck coming down the street and thinking the only way to stop my racing mind and the buzzing in my ears was to step in front of the truck... and being forever grateful that the next thought was "it's not fair to the driver" so I didn't take those steps.

My last drink was 7 August 1999.

Alcoholism is progressive and can be fatal. Your husband is a very sick man. In AA's Big Book there is a chapter entitled "To Wives" that you may want to read. And please remember-- you didn't cause it and you cannot fix it. Al-anon is a great suggestion.

[hope-floats]

Thank you Sans I will look into it.
bataviabard- Thank you also. Congrats on your strength to become sober. I will look for the chapter in AA's book that you suggested.

When he has his accident last year the doctor in the ER told him that he had never seen anyone survive such an injury much less walk into the hospital. I thought that would wake him up.

Yesterday I tried to talk to him and ask him if this is what he thought God had in mind after he was given a second chance. I am now getting the silent treatment.

I had a dream last night that I had a bear, as in large grizzly, as a pet and he needed to go outside. When I opened the door to let him in the back yard there was a drunk man dead in the back yard. My greatest fear for him.....for my children......for me.