u/CapableEvening2712

I’ve been married to my husband for almost a decade, known him since I was 15. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.

We have a special needs child together and a lot of fun shared memories, but a lot of bad ones too.

We always had a great connection — spent time together, very affectionate physically and verbally. But he was a dopamine junkie. Mainly alcohol, but also weed, women, video games, basically anything that he could get his hands on.

Not only that, but he’s always been very silently emotionally volatile. If I didn’t make him coffee in the morning, he would have an attitude. If I made something for myself and not him, I was inconsiderate and got the cold shoulder. If I didn’t consider him in something (despite his chaos), he felt emasculated. If we went more than 3 days without sex, he would complain that he needed it for stress relief.

He struggled to hold down jobs, control his spending, and be a present husband / father for many years as a result. As time went on things did get better, but after years of being the breadwinner, the primary caretaker of our little one, and generally being the emotional stability in the relationship, my tolerance for the bullshit just got smaller and smaller.

When life really hit and I realized just how much of my life and health and wellbeing I had sacrificed in the name of “being there for him at his lowest” and loving him through his “worst”, my resentment just boiled over.

Still, I never considered leaving him. He had been with me while I looked after my parents (both physically and financially) for years and I felt like we had never had the chance to be “just us”. I figured I owed it to him to give our marriage a real shot without the pressure.

Then, I developed chronic health issues after an upper respiratory virus. Between that and working 3 jobs to get out of a mountain of debt and caretaking for our little one, I couldn’t put out every 2 days like I had before. Well, this frustrated him to no end and he was constantly in bad moods or making comments as a result. Meanwhile he worked a single part time job.

I just started to feel like an object. Like I didn’t actually matter to him. How could he see me working so hard and struggling so much yet complain about not getting sex?

This plus the lingering monthly binges (plus drinking and driving) just drove me to the brink. I completely shut down emotionally. We had plenty of conversations but he was so committed to continuing to drink and so frustrated about the lack of sex that it just all became too much for him.

Eventually I gave him an ultimatum: get sober or I’m
done. After weeks of back and forth, he realized I was actually serious and agreed to 30 days of sobriety. I set boundaries around sex while we worked on our relationship and he begrudgingly agreed.

As far as I know, he was sober, but drank again after the 30 days were up. But despite the fact that he was sober, things just got worse. He told me I wasn’t weaponizing sex, punishing him, dangling it over his head like a carrot to get him to do what I wanted. He was constantly trying to push boundaries I had set, even if he wasn’t explicitly crossing them.

This is when I completely withdrew emotionally. I started taking on more work, investing in our kid, and didn’t have any time for him. I felt justified, like he had pushed me to this point and I was right to be focused on getting back my stability by taking every opportunity available to me.

He was very clear that he felt like I had completely rejected him.

He told me he knew I was moving on and he just had to grieve our relationship, that I’d be better off without him. And so he broke up with me, left, and I asked for a separation.

And he was right.

I am better off without him. I’m happier, I’m not walking on egg shells all the time, not wondering what mood I’m going to come home to, not worried about what will happen if I just need to sleep. All of these amazing opportunities are coming my way and I’m finally a calm, regulated human being for the first time in years.

But now he’s done a complete 180. After getting a DUI, he hit rock bottom and is now 2 months sober. He’s happier, more positive, has taken full accountability for everything he’s done. He says he’ll do anything to get back with me, he just wants to be someone I’d be proud to be with.

Part of me feels like I’m being manipulated all over again and that I deserve to keep my peace and joy. I’m scared that even if he’s better, I’m going to lose that peace waiting for the next shoe to drop and I just don’t want to live in that hypervigilance anymore.

The other part of me thinks of all the memories we have together. We get along so well. He’s a sweet and thoughtful person 50% of the time. He was always doting on me and we were always attached at the hip, despite the chaos.

I wonder if it was all really that bad. Given the dating market is so atrocious, will I find anyone better? What if underneath the alcoholism, he’s the perfect person for me?

But when I really think about it, all of those memories were more friendship memories rather than marriage memories. And they were all tainted by the fact that I’ve never been able to depend on him emotionally, financially, or mentally.

What makes it worse is he’s literally losing everything. All of his stability, being around his child, physical affection, everything. I can see how broken he is and my heart breaks for him. He’s a broken person, not a bad person, and I hate that me choosing peace is causing him so much pain. So much so that I question whether I’m doing the right thing.

But I’m just so happy without his chaos. And when I think about being with him romantically I just can’t handle that. I just feel stuck and I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been married to my husband for almost a decade, known him since I was 15. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.

We have a special needs child together and a lot of fun shared memories, but a lot of bad ones too.

We always had a great connection — spent time together, very affectionate physically and verbally. But he was a dopamine junkie. Mainly alcohol, but also weed, women, video games, basically anything that he could get his hands on.

Not only that, but he’s always been very silently emotionally volatile. If I didn’t make him coffee in the morning, he would have an attitude. If I made something for myself and not him, I was inconsiderate and got the cold shoulder. If I didn’t consider him in something (despite his chaos), he felt emasculated. If we went more than 3 days without sex, he would complain that he needed it for stress relief.

He struggled to hold down jobs, control his spending, and be a present husband / father for many years as a result. As time went on things did get better, but after years of being the breadwinner, the primary caretaker of our little one, and generally being the emotional stability in the relationship, my tolerance for the bullshit just got smaller and smaller.

When life really hit and I realized just how much of my life and health and wellbeing I had sacrificed in the name of “being there for him at his lowest” and loving him through his “worst”, my resentment just boiled over.

Still, I never considered leaving him. He had been with me while I looked after my parents (both physically and financially) for years and I felt like we had never had the chance to be “just us”. I figured I owed it to him to give our marriage a real shot without the pressure.

Then, I developed chronic health issues after an upper respiratory virus. Between that and working 3 jobs to get out of a mountain of debt and caretaking for our little one, I couldn’t put out every 2 days like I had before. Well, this frustrated him to no end and he was constantly in bad moods or making comments as a result. Meanwhile he worked a single part time job.

I just started to feel like an object. Like I didn’t actually matter to him. How could he see me working so hard and struggling so much yet complain about not getting sex?

This plus the lingering monthly binges (plus drinking and driving) just drove me to the brink. I completely shut down emotionally. We had plenty of conversations but he was so committed to continuing to drink and so frustrated about the lack of sex that it just all became too much for him.

Eventually I gave him an ultimatum: get sober or I’m
done. After weeks of back and forth, he realized I was actually serious and agreed to 30 days of sobriety. I set boundaries around sex while we worked on our relationship and he begrudgingly agreed.

As far as I know, he was sober, but drank again after the 30 days were up. But despite the fact that he was sober, things just got worse. He told me I wasn’t weaponizing sex, punishing him, dangling it over his head like a carrot to get him to do what I wanted. He was constantly trying to push boundaries I had set, even if he wasn’t explicitly crossing them.

This is when I completely withdrew emotionally. I started taking on more work, investing in our kid, and didn’t have any time for him. I felt justified, like he had pushed me to this point and I was right to be focused on getting back my stability by taking every opportunity available to me.

He was very clear that he felt like I had completely rejected him.

He told me he knew I was moving on and he just had to grieve our relationship, that I’d be better off without him. And so he broke up with me, left, and I asked for a separation.

And he was right.

I am better off without him. I’m happier, I’m not walking on egg shells all the time, not wondering what mood I’m going to come home to, not worried about what will happen if I just need to sleep. All of these amazing opportunities are coming my way and I’m finally a calm, regulated human being for the first time in years.

But now he’s done a complete 180. After getting a DUI, he hit rock bottom and is now 2 months sober. He’s happier, more positive, has taken full accountability for everything he’s done. He says he’ll do anything to get back with me, he just wants to be someone I’d be proud to be with.

Part of me feels like I’m being manipulated all over again and that I deserve to keep my peace and joy. I’m scared that even if he’s better, I’m going to lose that peace waiting for the next shoe to drop and I just don’t want to live in that hypervigilance anymore.

The other part of me thinks of all the memories we have together. We get along so well. He’s a sweet and thoughtful person 50% of the time. He was always doting on me and we were always attached at the hip, despite the chaos.

I wonder if it was all really that bad. Given the dating market is so atrocious, will I find anyone better? What if underneath the alcoholism, he’s the perfect person for me?

But when I really think about it, all of those memories were more friendship memories rather than marriage memories. And they were all tainted by the fact that I’ve never been able to depend on him emotionally, financially, or mentally.

What makes it worse is he’s literally losing everything. All of his stability, being around his child, physical affection, everything. I can see how broken he is and my heart breaks for him. He’s a broken person, not a bad person, and I hate that me choosing peace is causing him so much pain. So much so that I question whether I’m doing the right thing.

But I’m just so happy without his chaos. And when I think about being with him romantically I just can’t handle that. I just feel stuck and I don’t know what to do.

Last year I gave my husband an ultimatum: get sober or I was done.

At this point in our marriage (of 10 years) his drinking was far less frequent than it had been at his worst. Right after our child was born, he went from drinking maybe more than the average person once or twice a week to blacking out almost every night.

I was so shocked by it all and deep in postpartum that I don’t think I even registered how drastic the change was. Looking back on it now I realize he really did become a different person overnight. I’ve read a few stories on here of women who experienced the same with their partner around the same time (late pregnancy, early postpartum).

After a lot of trauma, a car crash (thankfully not with us in the car), and an affair (to what extent, I didn’t ask, just swept it under the rug), he eventually somewhat improved.

He was still drinking every day, but only getting drunk once or twice a week, usually on the weekend. He was spending money recklessly,

At this point, I was running my own business, which he was helping me with, the breadwinner, and the primary caretaker for our child who was eventually diagnosed with a disability. I was so in the trenches that I didn’t have time to stop and think about how bad our situation was. I had no choice but to keep my head down and keep going, otherwise we wouldn’t have an income.

I couldn’t even begin to think about the emotional upheaval, let alone the physical upheaval of kicking him out. All I knew was I just wanted him to change.

Fast forward a few years later, finances got tight and things improved because I took away his access to the money. He knew he had been irresponsible, so he understood. It was the only was I could keep my peace of mind and make sure we could continue to afford our groceries.

At this point his drinking really decreased, obviously because he didn’t have access to money to do it.

Then when he ended up getting a job, the drinking slowly but surely returned. Binge drinking went from once a month to twice a month, slowly but surely.

He was working part time at this point while I was working 60+ hours a week, dealing with new onset chronic health issues, and dealing with the aftermath of having been in a financial crisis months before.

So even though he was really only drinking heavily once a month (which I guess is kind of the in the realm of normality in the United States), I was just completely done.

Even when agreed to get sober for 30 days, I couldn’t handle it anymore. Especially when he started to sulk over the lack of physical intimacy and my emotional distance.

We separated earlier this year and I’ve been so happy. He got a DUI while we were separated and has been sober since then. I’m happy for him that he’s sober, and he wants to get back together, claims that he’s a different person now, etc. But I’m just done.

I have all of this resentment that feels like it’s come out of nowhere, that I just can’t get over. Even if I knew he had been sober for months, I don’t know if I could handle the amount of hypervigilance I would feel if he came back. I don’t want to ever have to have that fear in the back of my mind about my partner ever again.

He’s in over 10k of debt because of his DUI now, too. I feel awful that he’s in such a mess of a situation, and I have a lot of compassion for him because he’s not a bad person. It’s sad to watch, especially for someone I loved so much.

I can’t help but feel guilty that my awakening was sort of out of sync with the severity of the situation, but I just couldn’t take any of it any more. AITAH for being done when he was getting better?

Last year I gave my Q an ultimatum: get sober or I was done.

At this point in our marriage (of 10 years) his drinking was far less frequent than it had been at his worst. Right after our child was born, he went from drinking maybe more than the average person once or twice a week to blacking out almost every night.

I was so shocked by it all and deep in postpartum that I don’t think I even registered how drastic the change was. Looking back on it now I realize he really did become a different person overnight. I’ve read a few stories on here of women who experienced the same with their partner around the same time (late pregnancy, early postpartum).

After a lot of trauma, a car crash (thankfully not with us in the car), and an affair (to what extent, I didn’t ask, just swept it under the rug), he eventually somewhat improved.

He was still drinking every day, but only getting drunk once or twice a week, usually on the weekend. He was spending money recklessly,

At this point, I was running my own business, which he was helping me with, the breadwinner, and the primary caretaker for our child who was eventually diagnosed with a disability. I was so in the trenches that I didn’t have time to stop and think about how bad our situation was. I had no choice but to keep my head down and keep going, otherwise we wouldn’t have an income.

I couldn’t even begin to think about the emotional upheaval, let alone the physical upheaval of kicking him out. All I knew was I just wanted him to change.

Fast forward a few years later, finances got tight and things improved because I took away his access to the money. He knew he had been irresponsible, so he understood. It was the only was I could keep my peace of mind and make sure we could continue to afford our groceries.

At this point his drinking really decreased, obviously because he didn’t have access to money to do it.

Then when he ended up getting a job, the drinking slowly but surely returned. Binge drinking went from once a month to twice a month, slowly but surely.

He was working part time at this point while I was working 60+ hours a week, dealing with new onset chronic health issues, and dealing with the aftermath of having been in a financial crisis months before.

So even though he was really only drinking heavily once a month (which I guess is kind of the in the realm of normality in the United States), I was just completely done.

Even when agreed to get sober for 30 days, I couldn’t handle it anymore. Especially when he started to sulk over the lack of physical intimacy and my emotional distance.

We separated earlier this year and I’ve been so happy. He got a DUI while we were separated and has been sober since then. I’m happy for him that he’s sober, and he wants to get back together, claims that he’s a different person now, etc. But I’m just done.

I have all of this resentment that feels like it’s come out of nowhere, that I just can’t get over. Even if I knew he had been sober for months, I don’t know if I could handle the amount of hypervigilance I would feel if he came back. I don’t want to ever have to have that fear in the back of my mind about my partner ever again.

He’s in over 10k of debt because of his DUI now, too. I feel awful that he’s in such a mess of a situation, and I have a lot of compassion for him because he’s not a bad person. It’s sad to watch, especially for someone I loved so much.

I can’t help but feel guilty that my awakening was sort of out of sync with the severity of the situation, but I just couldn’t take any of it any more.

I’ve been married to my husband for almost a decade, known him since I was 15. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.

We have a special needs child together and a lot of fun shared memories, but a lot of bad ones too.

We always had a great connection but he was a dopamine junkie. Mainly alcohol, but also weed, women, video games, basically anything that he could get his hands on.

He struggled to hold down jobs, control his spending, and be a present husband / father for many years as a result. As time went on things did get better, but after years of being the breadwinner, the primary caretaker of our little one, and generally being the emotional stability in the relationship, my tolerance for the bullshit just smaller and smaller.

When life really hit and I realized just how much of my life and health and wellbeing I had sacrificed in the name of “being there for him at his lowest”, my resentment just boiled over.

Then, I developed weird post viral symptoms after an upper respiratory virus. Between that and working 3 jobs and caretaking for our little one, I couldn’t put out every 2 days like I had before. Well, this frustrated him to no end and he was constantly in bad moods or making comments as a result. Meanwhile he worked a single part time job.

I just started to feel like an object. Like I didn’t actually matter to him. How could he see me working so hard and struggling so much yet complain about not getting sex?

This plus the lingering monthly binges (plus drinking and driving) just drove me to the brink. I completely shut down emotionally. We had plenty of conversations but he was so committed to continuing to drink and so frustrated about the lack of sex that it just all became too much for him.

He told me I was moving on and he just had to grieve our relationship, that I’d be better off without him. And so he broke up with me, left, and I asked for a separation.

And he was right.

I am better off without him. I’m happier, I’m not walking on egg shells all the time, not wondering what mood I’m going to come home to, not worried about what will happen if I just need to sleep. All of these amazing opportunities are coming my way and I’m finally a calm, regulated human being for the first time in years.

But now he’s done a complete 180. After getting a DUI, he hit rock bottom and is now 2 months sober. He’s happier, more positive, has taken full accountability for everything he’s done. He says he’ll do anything to get back with me, he just wants to be someone I’d be proud to be with.

Part of me feels like I’m being manipulated all over again and that I deserve to keep my peace and joy. I’m scared that even if he’s better, I’m going to lose that peace waiting for the next shoe to drop (if we were to get back together). I wonder if there’s a better love story out there for me.

The other part of me thinks of all the memories we have together. We get along so well. He’s a sweet and thoughtful person 50% of the time. He was always doting on me and we were always attached at the hip, despite the chaos.

But when I really think about it, all of those memories were more friendship memories rather than marriage memories. And they were all tainted by the fact that I’ve never been able to depend on him emotionally, financially, or mentally.

What makes it worse is he’s literally losing everything. All of his stability, being around his daughter, physical affection, everything. I can see how broken he is and my heart breaks for him. He’s a broken person, not a bad person, and I hate that me choosing peace is causing him so much pain. So much so that I question whether I’m doing the right thing.

But I’m just so happy without his chaos. And when I think about being with him romantically I just can’t handle that. I just feel stuck and I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been married to my husband for almost a decade, known him since I was 15. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.

We have a special needs child together and a lot of fun shared memories, but a lot of bad ones too.

We always had a great connection but he was a dopamine junkie. Mainly alcohol, but also weed, women, video games, basically anything that he could get his hands on.

He struggled to hold down jobs, control his spending, and be a present husband / father for many years as a result. As time went on things did get better, but after years of being the breadwinner, the primary caretaker of our little one, and generally being the emotional stability in the relationship, my tolerance for the bullshit just smaller and smaller.

When life really hit and I realized just how much of my life and health and wellbeing I had sacrificed in the name of “being there for him at his lowest”, my resentment just boiled over.

Then, I developed weird post viral symptoms after an upper respiratory virus. Between that and working 3 jobs and caretaking for our little one, I couldn’t put out every 2 days like I had before. Well, this frustrated him to no end and he was constantly in bad moods or making comments as a result. Meanwhile he worked a single part time job.

I just started to feel like an object. Like I didn’t actually matter to him. How could he see me working so hard and struggling so much yet complain about not getting sex?

This plus the lingering monthly binges (plus drinking and driving) just drove me to the brink. I completely shut down emotionally. We had plenty of conversations but he was so committed to continuing to drink and so frustrated about the lack of sex that it just all became too much for him.

He told me I was moving on and he just had to grieve our relationship, that I’d be better off without him. And so he broke up with me, left, and I asked for a separation.

And he was right.

I am better off without him. I’m happier, I’m not walking on egg shells all the time, not wondering what mood I’m going to come home to, not worried about what will happen if I just need to sleep. All of these amazing opportunities are coming my way and I’m finally a calm, regulated human being for the first time in years.

But now he’s done a complete 180. After getting a DUI, he hit rock bottom and is now 2 months sober. He’s happier, more positive, has taken full accountability for everything he’s done. He says he’ll do anything to get back with me, he just wants to be someone I’d be proud to be with.

Part of me feels like I’m being manipulated all over again and that I deserve to keep my peace and joy. I’m scared that even if he’s better, I’m going to lose that peace waiting for the next shoe to drop (if we were to get back together). I wonder if there’s a better love story out there for me.

The other part of me thinks of all the memories we have together. We get along so well. He’s a sweet and thoughtful person 50% of the time. He was always doting on me and we were always attached at the hip, despite the chaos.

But when I really think about it, all of those memories were more friendship memories rather than marriage memories. And they were all tainted by the fact that I’ve never been able to depend on him emotionally, financially, or mentally.

What makes it worse is he’s literally losing everything. All of his stability, being around his daughter, physical affection, everything. I can see how broken he is and my heart breaks for him. He’s a broken person, not a bad person, and I hate that me choosing peace is causing him so much pain. So much so that I question whether I’m doing the right thing.

But I’m just so happy without his chaos. And when I think about being with him romantically I just can’t handle that. I just feel stuck and I don’t know what to do.

Let me preface this by saying I don’t know if my husband is a narc. He does have traits of a covert or vulnerable narc but it has been complicated by alcoholism, so I don’t know if he is a true narc or not.

That being said, while I relate to so much to what is posted in this sub I also sometimes read these things and think “geez, I did that”. Mostly, towards the end of our relationship.

For background, we had a very tumultuous first 5 years of marriage. His drinking took such an emotional and financial toll, and I had become so isolated as a new mom to a special needs child, working remotely, and in a new state. We were together from such a young age that I didn’t really recognize how abnormal the state of our relationship was.

Fast forward to last year, we hit a pretty bad rough patch financially. It was somewhat his fault and somewhat mine, but I now realize I was actually depressed and apathetic because of how much stress I was under. That kind of shocked me back into reality and I ended up working 3 jobs and being the primary caretaker of our child, especially handling the emotional load of parenting. In the middle of all of it, I developed a chronic illness. I thankfully had family step in and help which was huge.

All of the sudden, I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to tolerate everything and I realized just how dysfunctional our relationship actually was (and how much my life had been organized around placating his moods). All the built up resentment that came to surface kind of in one fell swoop and I had a sudden realization of everything I had been tolerating for years. The moods, the sulking if we didn’t have sex for more than 2 days, constantly being the devils advocate, the excessive spending (and lying about it), the constant victimhood, being gaslit and criticized if I brought up any concerns, constantly looking for the next get rich quick scheme, etc etc.

When I finally had the courage to consider leaving, he changed quite a bit, and it did help, but I was so checked out at that point. When he inevitably fell back into some patterns, each time something happened I was just circling the drain. Especially with the pity parties around sex.

Eventually, I became pretty apathetic towards him. I had just started to create some great community in anticipation of our relationship falling apart and I was so vibrant and happy with them, but the moment I was with him everything would change.

He felt that and it shook him, that I had become so distant and emotionally withdrawn. I would forget things he would tell me, I was absorbed in my work. I put everything else before him. I stopped asking questions about him or his day, I would often forget because I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated but also detached from him. I made conversations about me and my feelings, I dismissed his feelings, kept things from him, stonewalled him at times, was critical of him (and not others), etc.

I read some of things here and feel guilty and wonder if I’m the narcissist. But I feel like I was pushed to it. I just can’t handle the thought that maybe I hurt an innocent person if I’m getting all this wrong.

My spouse (30M) and I (27F) are currently separated because of my husband’s long-standing issue with alcohol. We’ve been together almost 10 years.

One of the biggest issues we’ve had (among others — job stability, reckless spending, lying about money and alcohol, etc) is his drinking and driving. I’ve communicated to him many times that I have an issue with it. He’s done it so many times (it’s literally been years of this) and Ive been terrible about holding the boundary. He has always been so good at gaslighting me about it that I honestly think I just felt completely disempowered around the subject.

His argument was frequently that “he felt totally fine”. I told him many times that doesn’t matter, it’s about your BAC and while he agreed with me I just think he didn’t care.

When we finally separated, it was him choosing to leave. I got fed up with the alcohol use and feeling objectified and said I wanted a break from sex to focus on rebuilding trust while he got sober. Long story short, he couldn’t handle the boundaries around sex and continued to push on them. When I started to close off emotionally, he said I was moving on and he needed to break up with me. That he felt invisible.

He took all of that back pretty soon after moving out and made it clear he wanted to work on our relationship, but he didn’t stay sober. Then, as of last month he started counting his sober days and was going to AA meetings, which was really encouraging.

Well, today I found out that just prior to him getting sober he got a DUI. It’s been over a month and he just told me. It’s clear he’s trying to get better now. He has a lawyer and is still attending meetings, but it took him a month to tell me. He said he didn’t want to start another cycle of dishonesty in our marriage.

I know many marriages have turnaround points after a DUI, but not many after they’ve been begging their partner not to drink and drive for years.

AITAH for considering divorce since he’s now sober and made it clear he wants to get better?

TL;DR My partner and I are separated due to his alcohol abuse for over 10 years. He’s been sober as of last month but I only found out today that he got sober right after he got a DUI. He didn’t tell me for a whole month and now is saying he wants to prioritize honesty and trust. But he is now sober and made it clear he wants to work toward rebuilding trust and our relationship. AITA for considering divorce even though this has been a turning point for him?

My spouse (30M) and I (27F) are currently separated because of my husband’s long-standing issue with alcohol. We’ve been together almost 10 years.

One of the biggest issues we’ve had (among others — job stability, reckless spending, lying about money and alcohol, etc) is his drinking and driving. I’ve communicated to him many times that I have an issue with it. He’s done it so many times (it’s literally been years of this) and Ive been terrible about holding the boundary. He has always been so good at gaslighting me about it that I honestly think I just felt completely disempowered around the subject.

His argument was frequently that “he felt totally fine”. I told him many times that doesn’t matter, it’s about your BAC and while he agreed with me I just think he didn’t care.

When we finally separated, it was him choosing to leave. I got fed up with the alcohol use and feeling objectified and said I wanted a break from sex to focus on rebuilding trust while he got sober. Long story short, he couldn’t handle the boundaries around sex and continued to push on them. When I started to close off emotionally, he said I was moving on and he needed to break up with me. That he felt invisible.

He took all of that back pretty soon after moving out and made it clear he wanted to work on our relationship, but he didn’t stay sober. Then, as of last month he started counting his sober days and was going to AA meetings, which was really encouraging.

Well, today I found out that just prior to him getting sober he got a DUI. It’s been over a month and he just told me. It’s clear he’s trying to get better now. He has a lawyer and is still attending meetings, but it took him a month to tell me. He said he didn’t want to start another cycle of dishonesty in our marriage.

I know many marriages have turnaround points after a DUI, but not many after they’ve been begging their partner not to drink and drive for years.

Am I overreacting for considering divorce since he’s now sober and made it clear he wants to get better?

TL;DR My partner and I are separated due to his alcohol abuse for over 10 years. He’s been sober as of last month but I only found out today that he got sober right after he got a DUI. He didn’t tell me for a whole month and now is saying he wants to prioritize honesty and trust.

My spouse (30M) and I (27F) are currently separated because of my husband’s long-standing issue with alcohol. We’ve been together almost 10 years.

One of the biggest issues we’ve had (among others — job stability, reckless spending, lying about money and alcohol, etc) is his drinking and driving. I’ve communicated to him many times that I have an issue with it. He’s done it so many times (it’s literally been years of this) and Ive been terrible about holding the boundary. He has always been so good at gaslighting me about it that I honestly think I just felt completely disempowered around the subject.

His argument was frequently that “he felt totally fine”. I told him many times that doesn’t matter, it’s about your BAC and while he agreed with me I just think he didn’t care.

When we finally separated, it was him choosing to leave. I got fed up with the alcohol use and feeling objectified and said I wanted a break from sex to focus on rebuilding trust while he got sober. Long story short, he couldn’t handle the boundaries around sex and continued to push on them. When I started to close off emotionally, he said I was moving on and he needed to break up with me. That he felt invisible.

He took all of that back pretty soon after moving out and made it clear he wanted to work on our relationship, but he didn’t stay sober. Then, as of last month he started counting his sober days and was going to AA meetings, which was really encouraging.

Well, today I found out that just prior to him getting sober he got a DUI. It’s been over a month and he just told me. It’s clear he’s trying to get better now. He has a lawyer and is still attending meetings, but it took him a month to tell me. He said he didn’t want to start another cycle of dishonesty in our marriage.

I know many marriages have turnaround points after a DUI, but not many after they’ve been begging their partner not to drink and drive for years.

TL;DR My partner and I are separated due to his alcohol abuse for over 10 years. He’s been sober as of last month but I only found out today that he got sober right after he got a DUI. He didn’t tell me for a whole month and now is saying he wants to prioritize honesty and trust. Would you divorce over a DUI?