This is not the happy ending you were looking for

I have my answer.  I have told the Spousal Unit that I will be leaving.

There are not words to describe how much this hurts.  I didn't know I could cry this much.  I cry everywhere - except at work where I will myself to stop tearing up long enough to make it through eight hours.  Sometimes there are a lot of bathroom breaks.

Although the SU has always said "deal with it or don't - I don't care" when we have talked about this before, now that I have told him what my response is, the ugliness has been ramped up.  I took his keys the other night when he was drunk and wanting to go out and get another bottle.  That was probably the closest he has come to hitting me.  (He ended up walking to the liquor store after cursing me out).

His suggestion after I told him was that we split the apartment down the middle and live like roommates until April since it is "disadvantageous" for us to split right now.  I told him no because (a) nobody wants to live with an abusive alcoholic as a roommate and (b) it is too painful to watch him slowly kill himself.  I just can't do it anymore.  Since then, it's been a lot of "you're a f****** b****" and how I am responsible for this.  He has done nothing to push me towards this decision.

Even with all the crap going on, I still love him and he is still my husband.  My fervent prayer is that something or someone will reach him.  I've asked our kids to keep praying and I'm asking anyone who might be reading this blog on any semi-regular basis to please pray for him also.  The depth of his self-hate, his anger, and his desire to just...be no more are staggering.  He says that if I leave next month, that is it.  I get "one chance" to leave him and we will never get back together.  I've told him that my God is bigger than him and that I will be his wife as much as he will allow while we are still living together and even after we separate.  That I believe and hope he will want to get help and turn towards recovery and we can reconcile.

I got a big fat f*** you for that and the same response every time I repeat it.  I also get to hear how he wants nothing from the apartment that is us and I am to take it all with me.

Tomorrow is my 22nd wedding anniversary *waves to irony*.  I am torn apart at the idea that soon I will no longer be with my husband and that he seems not to particularly care.  I know that is the disease talking as well as the altered brain chemistry but it just makes the moments (fewer and fewer) where *my* SU shows up all the more bittersweet.

I am fortunate to have friends for support and I know the SU would as well if he would just unbend enough, if he could recognize that they are there and have been willing to help him all along.  But no.  When I asked if he would go to church with me any more, he said no.  Said he likes the people but doesn't care to make the effort.

Yeah.

I wish I could write a post that eloquently expressed my emotions and my longing and wound up with some pithy saying...but I can't.  I am equal parts assured of God's provision and so very much afraid of what is coming.  I am afraid for the life and well-being of my husband.  I know those things aren't my responsibility and he will make his own choices but even the thought of not only losing him but losing him is beyond anything I think I can bear.

I have begged and pleaded with God.  I don't know why this is his answer and I don't particularly want to walk this path.  I miss my husband.  I want my husband.  I love my husband.  And my prayer is still that God will somehow give him back to me.

Hope is very hard right now.  I've lost my best friend.