Seperated - Alcohol - Hope

At the beginning of the year one night my wife came home drunk. She told me that for the past five years she had been binge drinking on the weekends and that she was sorry, she didn't want to be that kind of wife or mother any longer. So, we started going to marriage counseling. Then four months later we went to a session that turned out to be the best session ever. I brought her home and then I went to work. Two hours later my kids called me saying mom wasn't home...for some reason it didn't feel right so I immediately went home. I found a note saying she was done with our marriage. She left the family while I was at work and our three kids were at school. A week later when she finally called she was on the other side of the country staying with a childhood friend. She was determined that divorce is what she wanted. She gave me her address and said file the paperwork. She said she didn't love me, that she never really loved me these past 13 years we've been married. She said the kids had become a ball-and-chain, and that she was living the life getting drunk daily by 2pm. This continued for probably a month and a half. During this time I sent her a letter, plus the kids and I even sent her a Mother's day package. Then about a month and a half ago her tune began to change she was beginning to see she had an alcohol problem and so she started attending AA four times a week and has remained sober. Since her tune has changed I've sent her flowers, and a birthday package. When this all began she told me I needed to move on, and I needed to file for custody of the kids. I filed for custody and was awarded sole legal and physical custody...this deeply saddened her. I got to a place where I accepted the reality that things look like they're finished. I shared these things with her and she said it was for the best. This week she called me and we had a three hour plus conversation in which she told me since getting sober she has done lots of thinking and has come to realize that she does love me, and always will love me. That she loves the kids, and always will. That she wants to be my wife. She realizes it was the addiction her her justification of her addiction that made her think she didn't love me and the kids after all she justified it by saying if she did she wouldn't have been doing it. However, she knows she's not at a place in her sobriety to come home yet and be wife and mom. She said she needs to get healthy and find herself before she can invest emotionally into us...otherwise she's scared she will run off again. She's scared I will not love her once she discovers herself, she's scared I will not truly trust her again. I keep telling her we're walking this together and trust can and will be rebuilt and the things that drew me to her continue to draw me to her so she doesn't h ave to worry about whether I will love her or not. I told her she has nothing to fear in me moving on. Knowing that she still loves me and the kids and that she wants to make this work is all that I need to hear to give me the strength to endure. But my god is it hard...it's hard not seeing her when I wake up, it's hard not being able to hug her after work, it's hard not to be able to just look over at her. We talk pretty regularly either via text, facebook, or actual phone conversations. The uncertainty of when she will return is one of the biggest things that makes this hard. I will hold on, but man why can't it be easier. I'm prepared to not see her until after the New Year if that's what it takes for her to be confident in her sobriety...I just hope and pray it doesn't take that long. It has already been 103 days. Her alcoholism goes back to her early teenager years and it was never dealt with just suppressed for the first seven years of our marriage. Apparently it came back once our youngest started school and she wasn't able to get a job so she was at home...alone. I'm just glad that she now realizes it needs to be addressed, and she has even said that once she gets some sobriety under her belt and the income to pay she knows she needs to get professional help to wade through some emotional things from her childhood that play into her alcoholism. She also acknowledges just what her addiction has robbed her of, or potentially robbed her of, her husband, her kids, her friends, her life. I'm truly glad for the positive things that have emerged but I realize that the road to reconciliation is going to be long and fragile and that honestly anything could still happen. I know it's still a roller coaster as well. But I'm hoping that as long as the love between us remains true and we put the time and effort into this that we can come out better and stronger than before...as a couple, and as a family.

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