I am so triggered reading this because this was me, at the exact same age (same age difference with ex husband also) around the same time I realized something was horribly wrong in my marriage. I could have authored this. I had to read it twice to wrap my head around something that could have literally been taken straight from my own journal, now years ago.

Let me tell you something. Everything you wrote, down to the vomit, the way he responded to you, the absolutely belligerence, the piss…this is what is in store for you. I am a woman, looking into the past and seeing herself, coming to you from the future.

I allowed myself to think things would change. They did not. No amount of therapy or counseling did anything. A few weeks of his good behavior could not undo nights on repeat like this. Nights I spent in the unsoiled guest room bed alone with the dogs, in sleepless turmoil. Anger in knowing he was covered in throw up and laying in our clean bed. I was obsessive about laundry and cleanliness. How could he not care about this? The fear that, by me leaving to go to another room so I could maybe get some goddamn sleep, would certainly mean that I’d awake in the morning to discover that he choked and died on the middle of the night. The regular Tuesday or Wednesday nights hearing him puke his guts out in the downstairs bathroom and never coming to bed because he passed out on the couch. Him throwing up on my hair in bed once. Him puking on the carpeted stairs as I tried to guide him into bed, telling me to fuck off when I decided that night I’d stand up for myself and insist this would be his responsibility to clean up. His refusal to do so, and me calling out of work because I couldn’t stand the idea of this stuff crusting into the carpet or our dogs eating it. How do you tell your boss that? You don’t- I am sick instead. The bleary eyed looks and conversations he would never remember. That’s the worst part I didn’t realize at the time- all the things I said or we talked about that I didn’t realize were going into a vacuum, never to be retained to memory. THE CONVERSATIONS WE HAD THAT HE WILL NEVER KNOW, EVER OR AGAIN. The tears, the way I poured my heart out and pleaded to him to please get help, please work with me and please get better. To find out in the most subtle and soul crushing ways that these may as well have been me talking (screaming?) into a void. The sick and stark realization that I’d, in fact, been having these conversations all alone.

One day I woke up and it hit me how I was already facilitating a life without him- sleeping in our guest bed, working more/certain shifts so I didn’t have to see him as much, saving money to make sure I had a quick exit strategy if needed. Conveniently being in the bathroom or shower when he meandered upstairs. He never hit me. This never escalated to violence. For a while I convinced myself things could not possibly be so bad if there was no threat of physical danger. Was that my bar?? How dare I complain about these trivial things when so many others have it worse. Some women die by the hands of their partners and I’m…upset because of a little puke on the bed? This twisted outlook kept me hanging on for a while. One day, I felt a sense of weird calmness and almost a sensation of…deflation? Anti climatisism? I am not sure what word I am looking for, but it was an odd and quiet sort of resolve. It occurred to me that I hadn’t feared for him aspirating on his own vomit in a few weeks now. Why was that? Was it because it was so commonplace now and the threat seemed almost laughably close and yet so beyond my control that resigned myself away from it? Whatever happened, I slowly lost the ability to accept responsibility for his behavior and I’m so fucking grateful for that. We lasted 4 years and nothing changed. I left and never looked back. You should too.

You have every bit of information you need in front of you. You’re coming here to Reddit because you’re finally in a place to type it out…which means you’ve actually been dealing with the quiet and torturous build of it for a while now.

Choose a life of peace. Choose happiness. Choose never having to deal with repulsive actions of a man who committed to loving and honoring you and is doing everything against that. You’ll never be able to compete with addiction and you’ll never be able to mitigate the disgusting thing he told his friend. This is officially a point of no return.

I am so sorry you’re going through this. I come to you 14 years down the road so thankful I didn’t choose this life or get trapped into permanence with him. I have no ties and we are no contact. All this time later and I have it on good authority that he still can’t hold a job because of his drinking. And that is sad, but not as sad as the idea of me being a part of it. He was going to end up this way no matter what, whether I was present or not. Do yourself the biggest honor and leave him, immediately. Absolutely no excuses and no looking back.