New here, have Functioning Alcoholic Husband

I have been married for nearly 17 years - and my husband has been a functioning alcoholic for the duration, although I certainly wasn't really aware that that was the case when we married. I didn't sign up for this knowingly! It would be easy if he was violent, abusive, actively dysfunctional, but of course its not so simple is it? Unless you have lived with a functioning alcoholic or have been one yourself, its hard to understand I think that there is a major problem. My marriage is pretty much sexless, I can't connect emotionally, and he is simply not present. He doesn't prioritise his family or me, and when he is drinking, he lectures and repeats himself in long protracted monotonous diatribes of negativity. He is bullying and this seems to be increasing. Our teenage daughter has anorexia and self harms, and somehow, my husband directs his bullying behaviour at her. I am having counselling. My daughter is having treatment and psychotherapy. I can't seem to find the way to get though to him that this is for real. This is it honey, I can't do it anymore. I feel like we have this cycle that just wobbles around and the same pattern repeats and repeats despite my efforts to change my part o f the pattern. I am the mother trying to keep it all together, rowing this one oared boat of a family around and around in a circle. My husband is intelligent. He is capable of loving. He understands there is a problem with the pattern of behaviour, yet when it gets down to brass tacks, can't sustain real change. He makes a promise to me, to himself, and yet two weeks later its back to same old same old hell. And the time isn't enough for me to start to feel. loving towards him. I am very angry and hurt, and this has been going on for a long long time. There have been enough big life events ( births of two children, my own cancer diagnosis, move to the country, owner building a home and now anorexic self harming ocd suffering daughter) that it has been so hard to tackle the real issues for me. Now is the time, but the way sure isn't clear. Of course I met someone else. This someone coincidentally had an alcoholic spouse. We connected through our work at a conference 4 years ago, but live 500 kms away from eachother, and had a professional friendship of like minds. We re met last September, and both acknowledged our attraction, but also our pain in our marriages. We began a friendship and mutual support that has helped both of us. I did have a very brief physical affair, and strangely, that act actually strengthened my desire to really look at the issues in my marriage and to really give it my very best shot. I knew that this friend wasn't an answer, but he helped me to remember and rediscover I am a creative and passionate woman capable of loving and being loved. My marriage hasn't had that for me for a long long time, if ever really. I didn't know how much I needed to feel loved until now. Logistically, leaving my husband would be enormous. We have been building a house for the past 5 years that is probably unsaleable and I love it. And he has built it. We have built it. How do I ask him to leave if it comes to that? And how do I walk away with nothing, when we owe my parents for the lone to build the house? It may come to that if we can't connect and start parenting our children together. I can't spend the rest of my life feeling so hurt and unloved and unsupported. I am naturally optimistic and probably too nice in some ways ( don't get me wrong, I am not angelic, I just try to own my own behaviour) and I think that may have been the things that have enabled the situation to continue as it has and to have done the damage to our family that it has. And of course its 2 am and I can't sleep so I am here, on a forum for the very first time ever, trying to make a change. All insight is gratefully received. I am exhausted and worn out, so lonely and distressed.

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