These boards provide a lot of value to me because of what is discussed, but it's useless if I don't put it into action. And I'd be wasting your time.
I've been in a stalemate with my W for nearly half a year. I know 40 is young, but if I spend 5, 7, 10 years making changes and W doesn't budge, and my kids spend those years witnessing an unhealthy marriage, that is bad for them. And it's bad for me.
I know that 5 months is a blink in the DB process. But that is long enough for me.
The thought exercise I go through it this.
Stay w W: My kids are adults and look back on their childhood. What they see is a nice life on the surface: we live in a nice neighborhood on a quiet street, take nice vacations, and spend time with family and friends. But Mom and Dad don't spend a lot of time together. Mom drinks a lot and the kids spend most of the time adventuring with Dad while Mom stays home. She sleeps on the couch a lot and when they come out for morning cartoons on weekends she's there in all her clothes form the night before. Dad tried to shield them from mom's drinking but he also seemed to put up with it to a certain extent. The older they get the more they notice that Mom is drunk a lot. They question why Dad put up with this crap for years.
Divorce: My kids are adults and look back on their childhood. Their parents divorced when they were 8, 6, and 5. It was very traumatic because they didn't see it coming, but looking back the older kids knew mom had an alcohol problem. They had to sell that really cool house with a pool and a diving board and moved to a smaller, less nice neighborhood nearby, though still perfectly safe and respectable. Time was split 50/50 between mom and dad's houses and they began to spend more time with their grandparents. Dad stepped up in a major way and was very involved in sports, school, and all the extracurriculars. They didn't have the budget for ski trips for a while but still went camping and had a good childhood. After a while Dad became involved with a new woman and showed them what a healthy relationship looks like. What would happen with their Mom, I can't say.
