New here, need some help or feedback.

A few years ago, I began to suspect that my wifes drinking had escalated to the point of alcoholism. I thought of myself at the time as a moderate drinker, but now recognize that I was a problem drinker also, though my drinking was kept somewhat in check by the fact that I get up extremely early in the morning and so go to bed by 9:30 or 10. My wife, however, would stay up after I went to bed and keep drinking. I started to become alarmed when I would come down in the morning and notice how much shed consumed after Id gone to bed (loads and loads of wine, whatever else was handy when the wine ran out). I made comments about this, but she would get angry, say I drank as much as or more than she did, etc. On a few occasions, Id wake up at midnight or later to the sound of music blasting downstairs, right outside our daughters bedroom. Id come down and find her plastered. On one of these occasions, I filmed her with my phone and showed her the video the next day. She was furious. With a mutual  friend present, I confronted her about my belief that her drinking was getting to the point of alcoholism and that she needed to get it under control or else she was going to end up in real trouble.

She curbed it for a while, but would still have the occasional bad night. I was still drinking too much myself, so I sort of let it happen and tried to detach. I started curbing my own drinking but was still a pretty heavy social drinker and thought it was easier to be an enabler than a hypocrite. In retrospect, I probably let it go on because I did not want to quit myself.

Fast forward a year or two. I caught her in a phone-and-text affair with a guy from out of town she met through work and confronted her about it. She was not especially remorseful, but agreed to end the relationship. Her brother, who has been in recovery and is active in AA, told us both we needed to get all of the booze out of the house and quit drinking, that his sister was an alcoholic and I wasnt far from being one myself. We did thisfor a while. Then she insisted she was not an alcoholic, her brother was crazy, he thinks everyones an alcoholic, etc. She wanted to be able to have a glass of wine. I said okay, but lets put some serious limits on ourselvesnothing before the kids go to bed, no more than one glass of wine a night, maybe two on the weekend. She agreed. I believed she was abiding by these rules. I cut my own drinking down dramatically and started to lose a lot of weight. Pleased with the changes to my health and appearance, I cut back even more, to the point that I am not abstinent but not a regular drinker and never have more than one or two, and never in front of my children.

Fast forward a few more months. I caught her in another phone-and-text affair with an old high school boyfriend. It also came to my attention that she had not cut off contact with the first guy she got emotionally involved with (that I know of). Again, I confronted her. I kicked her out for the night, but the next day we talked and agreed to get into counseling together. I told her I would do anything to fix whatever was broken, but that she had to cut it off with the guy. She promised she would. A few days later, I found e-mails exchanged between them on her phone. Without telling her Id seen the messages, I asked her if shed heard from the guy. She said she hadnt had any contact with him. I asked her to swear to me on the lives of our children. She did this without hesitation. I told her I knew she was lying. I asked her how she could swear on her childrens lives. She said she didnt believe in God so it was easy for her to say something like that; she didnt feel that what she was doing was wrong and she didnt want to tell me about it because I wouldnt understand. She later revealed to me that she had loaned this guy a large amount of money and was still in contact with him because she was afraid if she cut him off he would not pay her back. I was understandably upset, but told her I loved her, I thought what shed done was a symptom of her problems with depression and anxiety, etc. I got involved and told the BF he needed to pay us back but have no further contact with my wife. He did eventually pay back the money, but the contact continued. For some reason, I put up with this, hoping counseling/therapy would help her get to the point of a breakthrough. Our counselor told me she identified more with the BF because he had depression issues himself and she felt inferior to me because I have my shit togethergood job, respected in the community, plenty of friends, etc.and everyone thinks shes a loser and wonders what Im doing with her. I dont see it this wayI love her, never felt like trading up, always felt lucky to have her, even after she started messing up and breaking my heart. The therapist said she thought my wifes problems related to childhood trauma and that with continued therapy shed eventually get control of her impulses and stop doing things to hurt me. To my knowledge, she hadnt slept with either of these guys; she seemed to think of the affairs as harmless because they were mostly just happening through the phone (she did meet with the second guy a few times, but swore nothing physical happened). Because of the trauma issue and the fact that we did not keep much booze in the house and I was policing the supply, I did not suspect alcoholism to be part of the problem. I actually said to myself at one point I wish she was just a drunk; that would be an easier problem to address.

Fast forward a few more months. More broken promises, more betrayals. I discovered that shed been fooling around with an (ex) friend of mine. When I asked her why, she said she thought it was safe. The friend told me hed made an isolated mistake but now she was more or less stalking him. I didnt know whether to believe him, but knew Id been told plenty of lies before by my wife, so I definitely didnt believe her when she shifted all of the blame for the situation onto him. I hit the wall. I called her father and told him I needed helpthat she either needed to go into some sort of in-patient treatment for her issues or I was going to kick her out of the house and get a protective order. With the help of her brother, her parents, our priest, and our therapist, we persuaded her to go to a 30 day trauma therapy program. We were in regular contact. I wrote her encouraging letters every day. We talked on the phone. She had a few weak moments where she wanted to leave, but overall, she seemed to be positive and on the right path. I was in regular contact with her therapist at the treatment center. He gave her positive reviews.

There were a few trouble signs near the end of her stay, but I was too excited about the prospect of her returning on the path of healing to care. When she got home, she was excited to tell me about the program, but I immediately picked up some hints that something was amiss. Her therapist had told me she was committed to sobriety, so Id emptied the house of booze and bought her a new electric teakettle so we could drink lots of tea instead of wine. As soon as she settled in at home, she told me she wanted a glass of wine. I was shocked. I told her what the therapist had said. She said I never said that, said she just wanted one glass, etc. She went to the store and bought a bottle and drank about half of it. She got a little tipsy but seemed okay.

The next morning, she left to go to the grocery store. About an hour after she left, she texted me that she couldnt come home because she thought our eldest daughter was being distant with her. I called her and begged her to come home. She refused. She turned off her phone and disappeared. I called and texted frantically. Finally, I called the police and filed a missing persons report. They couldnt use the phone to pinpoint her location because shed turned it off. I couldnt hide what was going on from our children; they were terrified. I got a neighbor to come sit with them and drove around the city looking for her. Ten hours later, I got a call from the ER. Shed been delivered by an ambulance. Theyd found her sitting in her car sobbing and incoherent. I raced to pick her up and brought her home, too relieved that she was okay to be angry. She said she'd been given a breathalyzer and passed because she hadn't been drinking, but she also said the EMTs told her she was lucky they had found her instead of the police (?). She did not remember where shed left her car. We had to call the police/emergency service the next day to get a location on where shed been picked up. It was miles and miles away from where we live in an area shes totally unfamiliar with.

The next day we talked. She said she knew she couldnt drink, that it worsened her depression. We talked about forming routines so she didnt have idle time to worry and get anxious. I told her she needed to get into an outpatient therapy program ASAP and offered to take off work so I could go with her to get enrolled. She agreed.

The next day, I took her to get enrolled in outpatient therapy. That night, while putting her laundry away, I found a letter in her sock drawer from a man shed met at the treatment center. It was four pages long, single-spaced. It was very clear that she had formed yet another love attachment with another man. I confronted her about it. She denied and evaded, said it had gotten a little too close but they had both agreed to back off, etc. I didnt believe her but wanted the marriage to work so badly that I just went with the same old please promise its over and tried to move on.

The next day, she was supposed to go to therapy. She called me from the road and told me she wasnt going. I went home at lunchtime to check on her and found her on the phone with her rehab BF. She continued to insist that I should tolerate this relationship, that it was something she needed, that it wasnt a threat to our marriage, etc. I told her I was going to contact a divorce lawyer. She became incensed that I would consider such a thing. I told her Id already lost ground at my job because of her nonsense and wasnt going to argue with her anymore. I went back to work. A few hours later, before I was going to pick up our children from school, I had a bad feeling and decided to run by the house. Just before I arrived, I got a call from her. I just slit my wrists with a razor, she said. Why on earth would you do that? Because I want to die. Why? I asked. Because everyone hates me. I raced home and found her incoherent. The razor blade slashes were superficial, but there was a good amount of blood. Regardless, I said we are going to the ER. When we arrived, the doctors quickly decided to put her on a hold so she could not leave. When asked if shed had anything to drink and how much, she repeatedly denied drinking. Her blood test came back with a BAC of .340. 

Suddenly, I felt as if a curtain had been swung back. Everything became so obvious. Shed been day drinking away from the house ever since I tried to make her stop and cut back. I started looking at the finances and discovered a lot of money missing from our savings and a huge balance on her personal credit card. The withdrawals and payments were not huge amounts, but it looked pretty clear that shed been spending a lot of money on booze and hiding it by taking the money from savings or charging it so I wouldnt notice that we werent living within our means and start looking at her spending habits. 

They kept her in the psych ward for a week. Her parents came back. Her father immediately insisted that we start researching in-patient centers for alcoholism and that I should be prepared to take out an order of protection to bar her from the house and the children if she refused to go to rehab. Friends came forward to tell me that theyd seen her driving with the kids when they thought she was plastered. My neighbors told me theyd seen her swerve into the driveway and up into the front yard and had watched my 10 year-old daughter have to help her into the house. There are more details, but Im going on too long as it is. You get the drift.

We had an intervention with the case worker. It was awful. But at the end of it all, realizing that her choices were rehab, a half-way house, or the street (she has alienated all of her friends), she opted for rehab.

Were now eight days from her discharge date. She wouldnt speak to me for the first two and a half weeks. Weve talked in the past few days. She is civil sometimes but then starts to lash out at me, blaming me, insisting that I am at fault for what shes been through (rehab she doesnt seem to mind so much, but the psych ward was hellish), claims I conspired to keep her locked up there as long as possible, attacked me for threatening a protection order, swore shed never been a danger to the children, etc.  I just listen and try to detach. Her brother says I should ignore everything she says, that shes just beginning the process of recovery, that all of the hateful talk is just noise, etc. She told me her counselor is recommending she stay on at the treatment center for two weeks of outpatient, which would mean wed have to pay room and board. Im already $10,000 in the hole from my behavioral health deductible on my insurance, but mercifully, the rest has been covered.

I am struggling about what to do. I did have a consultation with an attorney. He is ready to file as soon as I turn over his paperwork and retainer. I love my wife and would prefer reconciliation, but Im terrified of what will happen when she comes back. She is obviously nowhere near contrition. I am stung by the infidelities but feel that with counseling I could consign them to the influence of her disease, and I have no evidence that shes fully consummated any of these relationships. If she can get better, I would want to stay married. Honestly, I dont really think she wants to be married to me anymore right now; she just wont straight-up say it because she wants to be back with our kids and live in our house. I dont want to separate her from the kids and I dont want to put her on the street, but I cant bear the thought of the same insanity coming down on us again. My mother is urging me to file for divorce for the childrens sake. My father-in-law also urges that I put the kids first (he was the one to suggest the protective order), but his talk mostly leans toward forgiveness and patience. He and her mother have made it clear that they will not take her in. I have no idea where she will go if I have her legally barred from the house. My priest says I should file for divorce, shes too far gone, she has to stand on her own, she was the one to break the marital vows, so Im in the clear with the Higher Power, etc. My therapist was noncommittal but said that at the least I should expect contrition from her. Our last conversation suggests that she is a long way from that. 

I don't have much doubt that I'd get full custody of the kids because there's a paper trail of her insane behavior over the past few months, but the divorce would force us out of our house, devastate our already shaky finances, and, I fear, hurt her recovery process, since she has no job, no friends, no place to stay, her parents won't take her in, etc. We are supposed to have a conference call with her counselor at rehab about continuing care and transition, but I don't know if or when that's going to happen because I don't know if she's signed the release yet that will enable the counselor to call me. She has no plan whatsoever right now; I think she thinks she's coming home. I did speak to the counselor once--she couldn't tell me anything because of HIPAA, but I made clear to her that I didn't want her back in the house unless I had clear evidence that it would be a safe and healthy environment for the kids. My wife has said the counselor has told her she doesn't think it's a good idea for her to come home. Last time we talked, she had sort of turned on the counselor and was arguing that they only wanted her to stay on in out-patient to bleed more money from the insurance company. I think I know what I have to do, but it isn't what I want to do. My heart is still holding out for a miracle. 

I know folks dont tell other folks what to do, but I could use some feedback in terms of shared experiences. Reading over this message, it seems pretty obvious that the practical thing to do is to move forward with the divorce filing, but I do love her and am terrified that putting her out will halt any progress shes made toward full recovery. 

Sorry for the book-length story. I could really use some help.