Tumpty, my heart aches for you as so much of your story echoes mine, with different 'bits'. We split last year after 14 yrs.
Actually lots of different bits. But despite the fact that he has many issues that started to drive us apart, and I found myself in a similar position, looking at someone else and slowly falling into a place I would never have envisaged myself being, I threw my heart and soul into trying to get things back on track, the more so the more I realised the 'OM' (never actually the 'OM' in any way other than in my head) mattered.
I understand why you are writing in the third person at the start..... because it all just hurts so much.
Because to him, a drink, despite all he has done and said under the influence of it, seems to matter more than fighting to get his family back. And for a long time, despite my feelings for someone else, or partly because of them, I would have done anything to get back on track. He had the phone numbers for counselling, anger management, family liason.......
It is a year since we split.
I wasn't worth it. Because he joined me and the kids to watch football today and had a pint, I guess the choice for him to drink, and prove he can be amicable with it defines him, to himself..'look at me, I am not a threat when I drink'.
But the smell of it on him reminds me of him snarling in my face in one of his rages. And I have never been the kind of person to issue ultimatums, it had to be his choice.
In your position, if you have the strength however, I would draw a thick black line, define how you would like things to be and give a fair time for it to happen. Instant changes simply revert back to how things were but if they are laid on good foundations, they might just last.
Be clear that this is the last opportunity to redress things.
Because I am sorry, but unless you do something, then in 5, 10, 15 yrs, nothing will change.
And that is a lot of life to be unhappy tumpty.
There is something achingly lonely about lying next to your life partner and being lonely. I had all the words and gestures sometimes and then a drink falling asleep half way through after initiating something intimate and me lying there crying, feeling ugly and worthless.
And the longer these feelings build up, the harder it is to erase them. Still working on it TBH.
I don't know what and how I feel. Single I would have long since moved on but the DC's makes it painful, you don't just lose the time you were together, but the future you had dreamt of together.
I am not sure if you will get anything from my post, except that I empathise. I am not capable of hating and anger, so in many ways I still care deeply. He protests his love and that he would move heaven and earth to be with me/us. But now I am scarred by the memories of what passed, in counselling, on AD's, torn by my feelings for another man and healing very slowly.
But at least it is on my own terms.