his case sounds strange then that he developed his problem so late in life, as i’d expect most people to have been troubled with substances on and off from much younger, but the fact the ex never used it in court is a pretty good sign, or he just hid it extremely well from her.
also sounds like he has had his fair share of troubles, but even so, I think people who turn to addiction can’t cope with the small things, and plenty of people go through much worse and still manage to hold themselves together its just something in their character, and trouble and bad luck always finds an easy path to them.
the great thing on this site is everyone else is in the same or similar boat or has been and seen all this same stuff.
whereas even if you talk to family,friends etc unless they have been there its hard for them to understand and will most likely just advise you to leave the person as they wont understand the love that keeps you there.
my parents really like my girlfriend though and one sister works in mental health and the other stood by her alcoholic husband, so I guess I’m quite fortunate that they are a bit more clued up on these things but even so its only in the last few weeks that I finally turned to them,
my sister with the alcoholic husband entirely understands as she has had all these emotions herself (and all the horror stories), but she stuck by him and for many years he has turned his life around and hopefully that will continue, so perhaps her “happy” ending gives me some false hope of riding it out waiting for the miracle.