Divorce Support Forums: Feeling down, but don't want to give in

It all started 21 years ago, it was love at first site. I do still love him, just not the same way. What I mean is that I can love him, but I don't have to live with him. He is not a terrible person, but is a substance abuser. Drugs have wrecked our life. I have left him 3 other times only to let him move back in after many promises and tears. He is a master at manipulating, he also was a very good car salesman/manager for 17 years. Go figure. The first time I left him I was working a minimun wage job and had 2 small children at home. I moved in with my mother, went back to school and got my bachelors in nursing. He moved back in after a year clean and sober but then he had 2 affairs on me at this time. I was so overwhelmed with being a parent, working 2 jobs and attending school full time, I slept very little, that I did not have the energy to address his affairs. His excuse was that I wasn't paying attention to him. However, he had begun using again and was not bringing home a paycheck again. So what can a girl do? I survived the best I could.

He does not use at home, he just disappears for days at a time. I used to worry and pray for him to return home safely. Now I just pray that he gets where he is going safely. I enjoy when he is not here. There is no tenseness in the air. He has such mood swings, and manipulates by screaming and yelling, that the kids and I have learned to walk on eggshells. We all just disappear to our own spaces. When he is away the house is happy and involved in activites as a family.

Whenever I get angry at him for being away and for using, he says it was just 1 little mistake and that he will never use again. However, he manges to spend his entire paycheck and then some every week. Then yells about how his son, now 13 has nice new clothes to wear and he doesn't get sh--. Recently our son was diagnosed with diabetes type 2, from being overweight. When I informed my husband, the first thing he said was (we were alone in the car at the time)"I'm not changing my diet just because the fat a-- can't control what he puts in his mouth."

Anyway, I could go on and on, my story reads like so many other enablers, a sick soap opera. I've been to al- anon and this has helped, however I now work 50-60 hours a week and just don't have the energy to attend. Without my husband our food bills would cut in half without him around. I've told him to leave and he states that I have to give him a few months to save money, he makes about 1/4 of my pay. Just another way to manipulate me. I pay for everything, and everything, except his cell phone is in my name. His newest tactic is to threaten suicide, he even said to me, "your a nurse you can tell me what to take so I can go to sleep and never wake up" of course I cried. The constant stress is destroying my health. I have ulcers and a severe gastric reflux. I also have a stomach condition with no other predisposing factors other than stress. The doctor was puzzled, I wasn't.

Thanks for reading. Any advice would be appreciated.
gmimagine