The start of something new or the beginning of the end

My husband of almost 20 years just told me he is giving up alcohol, cold-turkey, and that if he fails he will leave me.

While I am proud of him for making the decision to change his life for the better, he has some how made his 30 year addiction my fault. I've tried before to convince him to quit. I hoped he would see how his drinking affected our children and he would make the decision to stop. But whatever finally pushed him to make the change doesn't matter; it is the right thing to do for him and for the children.

What concerns me is that he is going into this on his own. No support system except for me and the kids. We aren't trained professionals; we are flawed humans just like him. So how can he pin the possibility of failure on me? I put up with the all the crap that comes from living with an alcoholic. I put out all the fires with the children. I was a single parent a lot of the time because he just wasn't there to help with the kids or the bills.

Was I a perfect mother, housewife, financial planner? No, I never claimed to be. I did the best I could on my own. Now he tells me we should have never gotten married because neither one of us is good with money. He tells me how much all of his friends have. He tells me how some of them turned their lives around because of strong supportive wives. I get no credit for sticking through all the shit of the last 20 years without complaining. Anytime I did try to bring something up about money or minor household issues I had to deal with whatever state of inebriation he was in. Then there would be the inevitable argument later on when he didn't remember anything we had previously discussed.

I am not blameless, but I don't know if I can handle being solely responsible for the success or failure of his sobriety.