Hi Everyone. I am new and this is my first post. But I came across this site found some good information but wanted to hear some ideas/advice from anyone here. I'll give the short version; My wife and I have been best friends for about 4 years. She became pregnant when she was 19 not from me and we were only friends at the time. She had her daughter (now our daughter) and we started growing our love and affection for one another. We had only been dating for about 6 months before we got married. I don't know why but after we got married I had developed an alcohol problem which inclinated over the course of our marriage. Alocholism is in my family history by the way. My problem was usually binge drinking on the weekends. I would drink too much and say awful things to her. It finally turned for the worst when she was out of town in June 05 and I went to hang out at the neighbors house. I was drinking and I become so inhebriated that I was blacking out and the nieghbor started making sexual advances and I succombed to them. I had been unfaithful to my wife. I would have never done that if I was clean and sober. I was awful and decieved my wife and I had not told her about it. We had made love after that. She found out because a relative of the neighbor told her. I admited to it and I thought it was over. We separated for about a month and during that time she had slept with another man. So we are both guilty of infidelity. We tried to reconcile things and we came back together but that only lasted about 2 months. But during that 2 months I had not drink a drop of alcohol and never had the desire to. Things between us were not becoming any better during this time. What split us up again was a incident that occured at a Halloween party. We both attended a Halloween party with our friends. I had thought I might be able to drink and fit back in with our friends. I thought I could control it now. I was completely wrong. Alcohol brings out a horrible person in me which only hurts those around me. I can resist the urge to drink. But once I have that one drink I want another and another and another... So I know now to never even have that one drink. I have sworn to my kids whom are my life right now that I would not touch alcohol again because I have seen what it does to me and what it does to families. It rips them apart. But at this party, while I was completely drunk where I was blacking out I again was in a position where I was having sexual advance put upon me. But the shocker is that it was a man doing it. I felt disgusted by the things that happened to me by this man and in a way felt completely taken advantage of and almost to the point of feeling raped. My wife has since moved out and is living with a friends mother. We are still young. She is 22. I am 24. I know alot of the problems we have were mostly caused by me and my alcohol problem. But as I said I have vowed to never touch it again. My wife has told me she doesn't know where we will end up and that she doesn't know if she has any hope that we will be able to work out. We have agreed to separate for now and not rush into divorce. Thats a good sign but I am not having much confidence that we will be able to recover as our 2 years of marriage has had more bad memories than good. I am trying to think of all of the good memories and only learn from the bad. I am trying to remember the beautiful moments we spent together when we were dating and wanting to build a family. I feel like I have screwed everything up. I just know in my heart I can be the same man she fell in love with and married. I became sidetracked by alcohol but if I can keep that out of my life than I can be regain focus and concentrate on our love and family growth. We have two young children and they are my lifeforce. I just don't know if it is now to late and she is unable to feel or have any hope for us as a married couple anymore. For now we are focusing on being great parents and bettering ourselves. Does anyone have any good advice or any words of wisedom for a young married couple who are currently separated and might be on the virge of divorce. PLEASE HELP ME. I am deeply in love with my wife and I would love for nothing more than to be able to take care of her and become a loving, caring, positive family unit. Thank you all very much for you time.

Hey Thizzo,

I would suggest you seek out AA. By surrounding yourself with others who struggle with the same thing that you do, you can find more strength. You need to find people to be accountable for as well.

Maybe if your wife sees that you are seeking professional help, you may have a chance to salvage your marriage.

It takes more than saying "I'm sorry" sometimes to make ammends. I would suggest you learn all that you can on relationships from this website as well. I would start here.

Is your wife willing to go to marriage counseling?

In the presence of addiction, there are few options. You need to get the addiction addressed in a way that leaves no room for doubt for your W, and then perhaps you can pick up the pieces of your marriage.

But you can just about bet the farm on the fact that if you don't address it, it'll never recover.

Up to you.

My advise to seek AA and/or counselor.