This is the hardest question to answer and there are people blogging who are caught up in this question. For most people, marriage means sticking it out through both the good and the bad, through health and through sickness. But the disease of alcoholism is not the same as cancer or heart disease. A person chooses to drink (or at least chooses that first drink). Yes, alcoholism does affect the brain so that the person continues to drink without having a choice. It becomes a disease that destroys the body too. But alcoholism can destroy the people around the alcoholic as well. I think the answer to the question is whether you and your kids are being destroyed by alcoholism, or whether there is hope that it will get better.
I have a friend whose husband is an alcoholic. I never knew until I told her I was leaving mine. It was something she never felt she could share with me. She finally decided to give me an ultimatum – she would stay only if he quit. She told me she was firmly committed to leaving and really thought that would be his choice. But surprisingly, he stopped drinking and started attending Alcoholics Anonymous. He has been sober ever since. There are people in my Alanon group that have similar stories. Their spouse quit drinking and they are rebuilding their lives. So I know it can happen.
I chose to leave. I didn’t give him a choice, because he had said enough while drunk that I couldn’t stay in the marriage even if he had stopped drinking. Sometimes there is too much between you to ever go back to what it used to be. I did have hope that leaving would shock him into stopping. I do care that he is killing himself.
He still drinks two years after telling him I was leaving.
