Hello. I’m 28 years old and have been with my husband for 9 years, almost 3 years married. We have an 11 month old daughter and own a home. This is a very difficult situation and all my family can say is I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I can hear it in their voices they don’t want me to leave.

My husband is a good person, very loving and generous. He has a good job and makes a healthy living. However, the job is very stressful with debilitating hours. He deals with trauma every shift when he himself has been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression as well as alcohol (and weed) addiction. Through the years we have had many many episodes of drunken fights. Sometimes they have gotten violent. Now that we have a baby I have zero tolerance for drunken behavior. He becomes mean, emotional, and irrational. Everyday I’m afraid of what I’m going to come home too. He’s been to inpatient rehab and is currently in an outpatient program, but he drank to get drunk twice this week. He sees a therapist twice a week (since November) along with his rehab counselors. He has definitely been going through the steps to recover but yet he drinks.

And we can not get along. Even when he’s sober we argue. He’s always irritable. We cant hold a conversation without one of us jabbing the other. It’s been like this for many years. We’ve tried couples counseling twice. I, too, see a therapist and have been attending al-anon. I’ve wanted to leave many many times but always had hope things would get better. They’re not. He’s terrible with money and time management. He’s making himself sick with the amount he’s smoking. We no longer hang out with friends because there’s drinking but he drinks at home. I am unbelievably unhappy and I know he is too. I don’t want that energy around my very happy baby. We’ve tried and tried. I want to leave. I’m scared. I have a place to stay with my parents. I can support myself financially. I’m just lost. Please help with any insight.

Dear Sharon. That sounds like a horrible situation. What concerns me most, reading your post, are the drunken fights that sometimes get violent. This is a red flag. There are services for domestic violence that support women in your situation: https://www.thehotline.org

I believe you have made your decision to leave already when you write "And we can not get along. Even when he’s sober we argue. He’s always irritable. We cant hold a conversation without one of us jabbing the other. It’s been like this for many years." and "I am unbelievably unhappy and I know he is too. I don’t want that energy around my very happy baby." When you are unhappy it affects your baby and you have every right to say that you don't accept being unhappy, but want to change your life.

One last word of advice: Don't let your perceptions of your family guide you in this decision. You write "all my family can say is I’m sorry you’re going through this, but I can hear it in their voices they don’t want me to leave." Your family has no say in this. You are the only person who knows the situation you live in and how it affects you and your baby. You know what to do. Do it.

Sharon: Move in with your family ASAP and get your child support. Neither you nor your child deserves this.

I can totally relate to your subject because I’m only 31 and divorcing. My husband of two years emailed me on Father's Day and asked me for a divorce in the email and also told me that I would hear from either him or his divorce lawyer and I should just sign the divorce papers so we can go our separate ways. Less than a week after I got the email I saw my family in Austin for a family reunion celebrating the 50th anniversary of my parents. Everyone in my family were in shock and they were confused why this was happening to me. The wife of one of my cousin’s was like telling me that I should’ve been more understanding to him since he was living in a new country for the first time and he was homesick. Others were saying that we shouldn’t get divorced. I'm in shock because the only reason that he's even in America is because he married me. I'm an American born citizen. I was the one that spent a year patiently waiting for all the paperwork to be looked over by USCIS. I sponsored him and he came to America in February of 2018. He seemed nice like he was after our wedding but slowly he started changing. He wanted my parents to buy him a car, give him a credit card, and give him and his family the rights to the property in India that my parents have. He was so disrespectful to them and he would yell at them on the phone and he would call my parents by their names instead of calling them by the respectful terms for mother-in-law and father-in-law. I was a perfect wife and always respected my in-law's and my husband. On my last visit to India which was also my first visit to India after our wedding in 2016, he ended up kicking me and he denied that he kicked me but he ended up taking me to my cousins house and showing them how he kicked me. I always tried to make my marriage work and went to two different marriage therapists. He never tried to work our marriage out. He was influenced by his friends because it seems that one of his friends divorced his wife just now and he keeps saying that I was easily influenced by others. I finally got the papers last Thursday when I checked the mail last Thursday afternoon. Boy was I shocked by what I read. He said that we mutually decided to separate on January 30; he seems to have decided already on January 30, 2019 that we were separating but he never told me that and he acted like we were going to be happy together and visit each other and I was shocked that he would put my car into the paperwork because he had no rights to the car at all. He just drove it maybe a couple times without me. I’m so hurt by everything because I still have all the engagement and wedding photo albums at my house. I still have the engagement ring and wedding band. I took them off the day I got the email because it just hurt me wearing the rings and the necklace and toe rings that he gave me the day we were married which happened to be my birthday. My birthday and wedding day is Christmas Eve. For 28 years it was my birthday and then on my 29th birthday it was my wedding day. I really don’t know how I’m going to survive my birthday this year. Another thing that happened is on June 29, my mom’s best friend who is my second mom passed away suddenly and we’re grieving her loss but a lot of my friends in the community don’t know that I’m also grieving the loss of my marriage.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’m in the same boat. My husband is an extremely high anxiety alcoholic. He’s supposed to take antidepressants but takes the weekends off so he can drink! I’m miserable and angry all the time because of it. We haven’t had a violent argument but we definitely fight when he drinks. We have a 6 year old daughter and i don’t want her to grow up in this situation anymore. Like you, I’m lucky enough to have a place to stay with my parents. But also like you, I’m scared. I’m just terrified of finally talking the big step of filing for divorce. I wish you all the luck in the world. Hopefully we can both get out of these terrible situations.