I am new to MB and not sure how this works. Basically, I'm looking for some advice. I will try to make this brief. My husband and I have been married for 7 years. We have 3 children ranging in age from 17 yrs to 10 months. Yes, all our biological kids. Had 17 yr old at 20 and didn't get married until 7 yrs ago. With that being said, you can already tell there is ALOT of history there. What I should say first and foremost is I love my husband with all my heart and want desperately for things to work out, however I don't know how to do this. For the past 7 yrs our marriage has definitely had its ups and downs. My husband is most definitely an alcoholic. He knows this on a good day, but has done nothing about it. Also his work ethic, well, not so strong. He's a realtor. Times have been extremely hard lately. We have lost our house and not because of the economy. My husband just simply stopped working which he does ALL the time. What he does is this: he will work his butt off for months at a time. Stockpile money and then just stop working for a while. He always goes back to work right before we are about to lose everything. This time the economy crashed and we did lose everything. So now I am staying at his sisters house with the kids and he is staying at a friends. His sister would not let him move in here because she didn't want to enable him. She wanted him to hit rock bottom so this would never happen again. So there's the backstory...at least most of it. To say that this has been hard on our family is an understatement. While I'm taking care of kids, schoolwork, laundry etc my husband spends his nights at the local bar drinking which has been a sore subject for years with us, but even more so now. Enter the home wrecking wh***! Supposedly, it started out innocently enough. Her offering advice on our rocky marriage. Then advice turned to her being the solution. And eventually as I continued to complain and name call to my husband I guess she started looking even better. During one of our fights I told my husband that was it that I wanted a divorce. Mind you we've had these fights before, but this time I guess I was extra convincing says he for he sealed the deal. YUCK! 3 days later- he confesses all kinds of sorry, begging to make it right. Here is the problem. He's still drinking and out all the time. Just not with the SL**. He thinks we should just put it behind us and move on. I'm having a hard time with this. I don't know how to. What do I do? Help!

Read the book Surviving an Affair. He needs to read it also. You have a relationship that lacks appropriate boundaries. It is in no way whatsoever appropriate for a married man to be out drinking in a bar without his wife on a regular basis.

As far as the alcoholic thing- that throws a curveball. I'm not sure how to handle that, but others here will have more advice. i would tend to think that until he gets his problem with alcohol under control you cannot even begin to fix your marriage.

distraught, it isn't the OW who is the problem, it is your H's alcoholism. Marriage Builders concepts can't work when there is an addiction. My suggestion to you would be to go into Plan B, which is an air tight separation and don't come out unless he ends his addiction and enters a program of recovery. File for a legal separation or divorce in order to protect yourself financially and force him to pay support.

Your marriage is hopeless unless he sobers up because booze will always be his first love. I would also start going to Alanon.

Sorry you are here.

I second MelodyLane's opinion. Alcoholism is a cunning, baffling, powerful and, if not treated, fatal condition. Before any other kind of recovery can begin, the alcoholism must be addressed.

The biggest problem with addiction is that recovery isn't possible if the addict doesn't want it. And try as you might, you can't make the other person want it.

Al-Anon is critical for people with an alcoholic in their life. It's said that people come to Al-Anon because of the alcoholic and learn that they need to come for themselves.

Several months (??) ago, my "recovered" WW went into relapse (ML knows my story, which is still new and raw). When I realized this, I also came to realize that I cannot hope to save the M unless and until WW gets sober again.

So I'm in Plan B. I'm so dark to WW now that a thousand suns couldn't shine a light on me.

Thanks, Fred.

distraught, another thing that stands out to me is that your H is probably a low bottom drunk. He has already lost his home and his family over his drinking and that was not the bottom for him. He has to go even farther down to wake up. You don't even want to be around while he goes lower and lower. You and your kids may end up hurt. I would get the hell out of his way while you still can.

Distraught,

If you're in N. Virginia, I know of a good marriage counselor who relied on Harley concepts & was very helpful for my wife & me after my affair.

However, the alcohol thing adds a whole different dimension... if I were you, I'd follow MelodyLane's advice first, she knows what she's talking about. Doesn't sound like any counseling could do you good until that gets straightened out.

Just another voice in the chorus saying that ML's advice is spot on.

You're in a good position to go Plan B, since you and the kids are not living with WH at the moment.