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I've been with my husband for 9 years and we have been married for three and 1/2 years. We have three children together and, he helped me raise my 10 year old daughter since we started our relationship.

We had a rocky relationship from the beginning and, sometimes, I feel like we started in the middle, worked our way to the beginning and our now at the end. I know he always loved me and he is a very affectionate person. However, he loves me in the only way he knows how to love someone and that is to hurt in order to comfort.

I am struggling with the thought that he is and always will be an unhappy person, that he is someone who always looks for the bad, the wrong and something to bitch about. That always leaves me on the chopping block.

Before I go any further, I should tell you that my husband is an alcoholic and has struggled with one dependency after another, but, alcohol has always been a comfort in his life.

Lately, he started to turn into a very mean-spirited person. He picks on anything and everything that crosses his path. He tells me how he is going to divorce me and leave me with nothing and that no one will ever want me after him. He makes really mean comments about my weight in a really mean way. say mean. It doesn't stop there and I am just overwhelmed that "I am damned if I do and damned if I don't".

No matter what I do, once he starts drinking, every little thing from the past surfaces.  He bombards me with one thing after another until I feel like he has broken me down.

Sometimes it takes a little longer before it does get to me. Then, I end up praying that it will just stop, not only for my sake but for our children, as well.

Even though I don't believe the horrible things he tells me, I am I still hurt. I know that if my marriage dissolves I will be forever devastated but I am still an attractive and young woman and no, matter what he tells me, I know I am destined to be loved back by a man. I am just praying that my husband can be strong enough to get the help he needs and hopefully these wounds that he has afflicted on me can heal through time and therapy.

What I need to know is where to start and how to get there with him? Do I start therapy on my own or do I beg him to stop drinking and wait for him to be ready?

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