I am not an alcoholic, but I have quite the experience in dealing with addicts of all kinds – based on personal, near-family experience, having volunteered in recovery programs and professional.
The infidelity is dreadful, and it needs to be dealt with. But the real problem you have – and where the focus should be – is your wife’s drinking.
Hear me out: You and your wife could do EVERYTHING to reconcile. She could seek therapy, you to go to MC, she be totally transparent and whatever... but if she hasn’t dealt with her addiction then one day INEVITABLY she will cave in to it, and that’s when she again can/might/will become blacked-out drunk and doing what’s needed for the next fix.
Your wife – on anti-depressants and alcohol – get’s totally blacked out. It’s not clear from your post if that was after getting home, or if she was already intoxicated when driving.
Now – Imagine this happening maybe a few years down the road... Imagine the battery of her car dying, only now in the rear seat she has your 2-year old kid. The kid that has health issues due to the mom’s drinking during pregnancy. The kid that wasn’t breast-fed cause mama wanted her whiskey...
Won’t happen? Well... she did get blacked-out drunk now. That wasn’t a choice per se, but something her illness – her disease – makes her do. The same disease that will control her until and unless she changes. She can wake up in the morning committed to sobriety but be passed out on the floor before lunch.
I’m a former cop. Left that career decades ago. But I still remember the parents that day-care called about because they reeked when picking up the kids, the women – and men – offering sex for money for the next fix, the near-automatic connection between substance abuse and domestic violence...
This instance NOW might be a one-off. She might have been incapable of consent or whatever. We don’t know based on what you share. BUT even if... even if OM forced himself on her or whatever... while she is drinking then it’s near-inevitable that comparable conditions will arise. Conditions where you are nagging her about her drinking, and she’s escaping with someone else that enables her to carry on – maybe at the cost of some physical affection.
I enjoy my beer and my gins and tonics. As do most of us. But for a significant fraction of humanity, alcohol is like a reverse allergy – an allergy that those affected have a craving for despite the adverse effects. She can’t control it – the craving gets stronger and stronger and stronger...
I have a lot of belief in what AA is about and their stance on addiction. It’s a force you cant control, but follow their program and you learn to live a life – physically and mentally – where you acknowledge that lack of control BUT control what you can, and that creates an environment where you are less likely to fall for your cravings.
A successfully sober alcoholic for ten, twenty, thirty... years will honestly share that they still have to take care to remain sober. They know that if they let their guard down the craving can be fed, and that will lead to a fall. Alcoholism isn’t something you recover from like some rash that eventually goes, but it becomes something you can keep contained while living a fruitful and happy life.
Your wife needs sobriety, and ANY decision on your behalf should be based on that sobriety. That’s not something she can promise and deliver now. She needs 2-3 years sobriety before you even can be clear on your marriage having a future.
