Alcoholic Wife. The breaking point.

This is insanely good advice. I ran into that with my custody battle with my ex, where I went to several lawyers who could not represent me for similar reasons. Fortunately, one of them recommended the lawyer I eventually hired, who was damn good.

And as Dixie said, alcoholism is an emergency. She can't protect your children right now.

 

One of the things I struggled with when deciding to leave my ex was feeling like I was letting her down, letting down her daughter and letting down my family. I had proposed to this girl and, in many ways, I felt I had already accepted "for better or worse." You can't leave an alcoholic in their moment of need right? I mean, this is the "worse" part, right?

Ultimately, I decided leaving was the only way to protect myself from her violence and lies, which likely would have landed me in jail at some point (she more than once threatened to hurt herself and call the police to tell them I did it). Knowing her current situation, I see that I absolutely made the correct decision.

That may not be the decision you ultimately make, Ex, and I'm genuinely hoping you can somehow talk some sense into your wife so she can get clean. But I think the biggest thing I needed when I made the decision was to hear from my family that it was OK that I did it. I feared they would think I was weak, that I had abandoned someone who needed my help (after all, I could save her, I thought). What I don't think I realized at the time was that she needed to help herself and my family was just relieved that I had gotten out of an abusive situation.

 

This was Tony Soprano's strategy, too:

 

Worst part of all is the children, who have been watching their mom melt down for months now. At that age they can't explain it, or understand it, or comprehend it, and thus so much gets internalized.

Best of luck to you, Ex, and look out for your children above all. Talk to them often, if you can, and get them to open up. Otherwise, a lot of the damage stays buried for later, and it's a lot worse after they've carried it around for years.

 

You had a custody battle with your ex fiancee? You had custody of her daughter?

 

I've seen this unfortunately happen with my mother-in-law, on and off, for years.

I actually thought for a while that my father-in-law was abusive because she'd always get injured in weird ways. As I got deeper in with the family (I was still dating my wife at the time), it became overwhelmingly apparent that she constantly injured herself because of alcohol-related incidents.

We have a kid now, and we've had to put our foot down. She can't be around him when she's drunk, so that really forced her to at least stop on occasion, which is good, I guess, although it really isn't addressing the problem.

The biggest hurdle seems to be the family being so worn down by it that they just accept and deal with it.

For a long time, I just bit my tongue, but that shit ended with our son being born. It's no longer just about tolerating her shit anymore. It's about him, and she can fuck off if she's going to be like that around him.

 

Alcoholism - or alcohol misuse disorder - is often a slow grip. It's tricky to know when it's got ahold of people - tricky for the person himself and tricky for friends/family.

I have a brother, for example. We'd be watching a SEC game and it'd be, whoa, the whiskey's gone and it's halftime. And I'd say: What number you on there? And he'd say "2nd or 3rd." More like his 5th. And then Saturdays became once or twice during the week too.

 

If there are any underlying psychiatric things going on as well, yikes.

Worst thing I had to deal with was my bipolar ex. I can't imagine what it would have been like with alcohol on top of all that.

 

I wish I could offer some advice, but I have nothing. But I'm praying for you and I hope everything works out for the best. Sorry you're having to go through this. Alcoholism is a terrible, terrible thing.

 

Functional alcoholism is absolutely a thing. That's what I was.

Never missed work. Never got arrested. Never got violent. But could down a case of beer in one sitting, and did so practically daily.

That's not what's happening here, though. Ex's wife is pretty far gone, far as I can tell.

 

Would be the perfect description of Bryan Fogarty, a defenceman who ripped up junior hockey and had people thinking he was the next Bobby Orr. Died at 32 after his career was ended by drug and alcohol abuse. Mats Sundin, a teammate in Quebec, said he was a better player drunk than any of them were sober.

 

Man, ex. I feel for you.

As for me, I think this is where I have to make the decision draw the line.