I Want To Reconcile But She’s Still Drinking

Dear S.Q, For a year, we've lived apart to work on our sobriety separately. I’ve been totally sober and she says she is too. My friends say she binge drinks except when she has the kids, or during our date nights and daily text/talk check-ins. I love her and don’t want to confront her.

Dear Hubby, Congrats on your one year sobriety. Step back and evaluate from an unbiased point of view. If your friends are right, she's not only drinking, but binging -way out of control. She lies to you that she's sober, and deceives you to your face as a dry drunk. 

You trust her and your friends. Now verify who’s telling the truth. If she’s "closet drinking," that should be enough of a deal-breaker to leave the marriage unless you plan to be her nurse, her inexcusably-bad sponsor, and co-dependent enabler. And if she's lying to you, you may be endangering your children by not protecting them from her. 

Confront her and hold no punches. Her life and your children’s is in jeopardy when with their single, alcoholic mother. Take another year’s separation if she commits to serious rehabilitation, or call it quits. Put parenting your children first; stabilize their world from chaos their mother brings. If you fail, they truly have NO parent. -SQ