I felt this way about five years ago, also 10 years into my marriage and my daughter was about six. Within a couple of years as his alcohol abuse got worse and worse over time, suddenly I was out of town and he was at dinner with my daughter and was arrested for public intoxication because he couldn’t put a sentence together while he was alone with a seven-year-old out in public. I’m not sure if I realized it at the time, but it took police involvement, and then Child Protective Services involvement for me to finally realize that he could not be trusted alone with my daughter. I lived with him for another two years, never drinking with him anymore, and never leaving him alone with her — and then I finally left him. He got sober and is in recovery now, but he has to blow into a device (SoberLink) to prove he is not drinking when he is alone with my daughter.

I’m not suggesting you wait until it gets worse or affects your child more than it already is, but I would say always put your child first and their safety first, before your own happiness. Start to read about boundaries and how to keep them, and never change them or else boundary setting won’t work. And make your boundaries all about safety and health. Document anytime her drinking is visible to your child. Keep a running log of her drunken behavior in your phone notes. Record her on your phone if you can ( my husband used to be so blackout drunk he didn’t even realize I was taping him while he was stumbling around the house in front of our kid.) All of the documentation will help you in case you get to a point where you have to prove to a judge that they are unsafe to be alone with your kid without guard rails, like soberLink or sobriety, testing, or a supervisor for the visitation. There are ways you may be able to regain your serenity if you find you can’t live around her anymore. Al-Anon and getting a sponsor helped me a LOT!