This is currently what I am dealing with in my life right now:

My AH has been actively drinking all 8 years of our marriage, got a DUI in 2008, he got better for about 6 months, but that was about it. He went backwards to blaming his mother who abandoned him, me and the kids. He thinks he doesn't have a problem. The drinking is less, but his behavior is not. Still drinks a lot each day and gets angry, irrational. He is 17 yrs younger than me and from a different country. He was very mature when I met him and then lapsed into someone who doesn't take care of himself, expects me to, but calls me controling when I try to allow him to be an individual and take responsibilty for himself. I feel like I am married to a teenager who is a pathological liar. He always seemed accountable with his time, up until a year ago. I suspected an affair, had plenty of evidence, but each time I confronted him, I was basically told I was insecure and crazy. He also told me when we got married that he would never cheat on me, he didn't like cheaters, and if he wanted to cheat, he would tell me way in advance if he wanted to do something like that, and he wasn't that kind of person, why do I bring it up, blah, blah, I'm insecure.

Then after much evidence over the last year that he was having an affair, he finally confessed to it last month. It had been going on for 9 months, but he denied it was that long. I asked him to move out and he has refused, said he will when he starts his job. I've asked him to be a man and take responsibility and quit torturing me and move out. Sometimes when I really am having a bad day with him, I tell him I could make him move out with the cops. He gets angry and says that its his house too and he didn't do anything wrong. He now says that he was originally "friends" with this woman (because the first thing I found out was that he went on a long hike with her), that after I found out about the hike and they were all "innocent", but because I kept accusing him of an affair when he hadn't done anything, he just decided to go and have an affair with her after all. So he managed to put the blame on me once again. The other thing is that I'm quite sure he is still seeing her while he lives in the house, he is still drinking and getting angry with the kids each night, and I would really like him to leave. I'm not leaving because my house that I own, costs as much as a rental, but I may need to temporarily.

The other things I am dealing with in my life are:  I have a DS who is extrememly hyperactive and I do not want him on meds, and I have tried natural remedies, diet, but nothing has worked but I think having AH out of the house and our DS away from his chaos (there has been a lot of verbal abuse by AH and increased spanking, sometimes hitting) and I will not tolerate it any longer. The counselors at school think he is "on the spectrum" but he is now doing better in kindergarten, and now the after school program wants him to "take a break" from it because they have such a structured program after school in a room with no windows and they take the kids out maybe twice a week, they are just too cooped up in there and it is not the right program for him, but there is nothing in this small town that is cheaper right now, and I am going to refuse to take him out. His only fault is that he doesn't always listen or gets up when they are doing structured games at 3 pm int he afternoon, and he would rather free play. I know it is not the right situation for him, but until the school year is out, we have no other options. I have talked to the after school director many times but they make him out to be so horrible and all he wants to do is free play. He doesn't hit, he isn't rude to other kids, he doesn't get into fights, but he does have a hard time listening or joining in when the kids are doing something as a group.

Also my DD has a chromosome issue that so far has not affected her learning ability yet, but it is supposed to make her "younger" emotionally and maturity wise, and she has been home with AH while he is unemployed, getting angrier and angrier from his moods. We can't afford daycare when he is not working. It will be two more years till she is in school. This small town costs about $1400 a month for two kids daycare in the summer. The cheapest is about $30 bucks per kid per day, crazy I know. AH is finally starting a job next week at a huge pay cut from what he made last year, so it will be difficult for him to afford moving out and for us to pay for full time daycare this summer. I am in a panic because I have to find her an affordable place by Monday. AH used to know a nice hispanic couple and the wife watched our kids, but that was when AH was in AA with the husband. They don't want to take care of our kids anymore if AH is still drinking.

I've also started a debt reduction plan through a credit counseling service to pay back over $20K in credit card debt that was at least half if not more that my AH accumulated. So far I have not asked him to help me pay it back because he doesn't have or make any money. I would rather have him spend it on moving out. We also have a roommate (his old drinking buddy) who has become sober) and the extra income helps some, but still not enough. I think most of our problem is not just AH drinking (he spends about $500 a month on alcohol from his unemployment check) and now has a separate bank account that I made him set up, but instead of helping us, he blows all his money and wants to borrow my CC card (the only one that works now) to put car parts, etc on it.

I have an alcoholic employee at my office who is having performance and reliability issues, calling in sick, getting mad at me when I ask him to do assignments timely and saying I've given him too much at once and overwhelmed him, and he is starting to frustrate me. We had to hire him from someone else who had to get rid of him, his former boss went to alanon meetings just to understand him better, I can't fire him just like that because we are in a gov't job. I am working on making him accountable and documenting everything, but it's an added stress on my life.

I have issues now in my own job because the boss has decided to rearrange the office space and is basically not consult our staff on their opinions; some of the changes have been okay and improved the space, it's just an added stress of "change" and there has been talk of putting me into a different office space without windows and smaller, and also changing my job and not letting me do what my main position entails, which is something I love.

I have gone to two counselors over the past several years, at first it was with AH, which was futile and did not work since he was still actively drinking, and now I have to still deal with him in the house, constantly lying to me, trying to have sex with me after I found out about the affair (so far I have managed to successfully fend him off but he is getting angrier), but I think he is finally starting to accept the fact that he needs to move out. Last weekend he went to a "friends house" to spend the night, and said he had to sleep on the floor, etc., and that the guy farted the whole time. I found out later that this was a lie and that he was with the woman he was having an affair with. My DD who is only 4 years old, even said one day (unprompted by me) that daddy was kissing a woman goodbye at the airport. That weekend he mysteriously didn't go anywhere and spent the weekend with us, playing good daddy and husband. I told him about his daughter's admission, and of course he made me out like I was crazy.

So I realize now that I cannot heal while he is still here. I have also decided that he won't get better, and I don't know if this is progress on my part or depression, but I have no hope or care that he will stop drinking. I don't even waste my energy on that anymore. I think in some ways I have fallen out of love; it has just been too hard to continue with an alcoholic who will not accept responsibility, who lies about everything, who now cheats, and who treats his family including his children like door mats. We are not getting love that we deserve from this so what is the point? I know he has a disease, but it is too much for me and too much of an impact on my kids. So I have accepted that we will break up. He wants it to be temporary, but I know in my heart it will be permanent on my part. I want my serenity back. I want to have friends again and be happy. There is still some guilt, that perhaps some of it was my fault, after all, he reminds me all the time that I can't 100% blame him, that I have a part in it, too. Some days I wonder if it is true. I know I am not the cause of his drinking, but did I make the marriage worse by the way I reacted? I've decided to answer that--it is no matter, because at this point I just want to be free and I want peace for my family. The few women friends that I have (as two of them couldn't deal with me anymore and ended our friendship), have said, "why haven't you kicked him out." And I finally had an answer to that the other day...I realized that it was because I was in the "mother" role taking care of him, and he fit perfectly in the "son" role, and it would be like kicking out my own child into the street. I am hoping for a resolution soon.

I have gone to meetings, but need to make a commitment to it. They only meet once a week and I get home late and would have to miss time with my kids and cooking them dinner while AH screams at them. I worry about when we are separated, him having the kids on his time and what will happen. I plan to go to counselors and domestic violence hotline, but I have been waiting because of pressing issues at work and lots of projects, and all these other things I have to deal with, like finding daycare. Any ESH and thoughts would be most welcome. I really am trying to do better for me, but lots of crap going on.

Minaret