Hey KOS,
Very sorry to hear about this situation and what you're going through.
When children are involved a messy situation becomes even more complicated.
You're getting all kinds of advice but I think maybe what you need are some objective opinions.
I wish I had one to offer.
It's obvious there are some problems and I don't know if they can be worked out or not.
For your son's sake, I hope you two can figure out how to work things out (whether it means you stay together or not).
I know many former couples who have better relationships with their children after splitting up. They just don't fight anymore.
Not saying that's what you should do.
The drinking has to stop but the person doing the drinking has to figure that out for themselves. That's just the way it is.
Is there a reason or reasons she drinks?
Does she have mental health issues?
I apologize for the personal questions and they certainly don't need to be answered in an open forum.
They are questions you need to ask yourself and your wife (most likely you already have).
I met someone back in 2009. She was a great person with an amazing personality. Outgoing, funny, incredibly beautiful and successful (only to name a few of her many qualities). She was a popular fashion/fitness model and a well established real estate broker doing quite well in both fields.
She did drink quite a bit and dabbled with a bunch of other substances. It wasn't until I'd been with her several months that I learned about her history of mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia)and of course it didn't matter to me. I wanted to do everything I could to help her.
We were doing great, she was getting plenty of work and selling a bunch of property at a time when real estate was way down. We were happy, or so I thought.
She was drinking more and more and I finally got her to tell me that she was drinking to quiet the voices she was hearing. She was seeing one shrink after another and they kept prescribing more and more meds which got her popped three times in two months for DUI.
The doctors all said she was going to be "fine" she just needed to adjust to her meds. In the meantime she just kept drinking. Thankfully, she wasn't violent.
She would call the police to the house for things that were only happening in her head...it was all real to her though.
I would try to talk her through her episodes which became longer and longer. Mostly she just drank until she passed out and started over again the next day. No more work, shoots cancelled, listings cancelled...nothing.
In 2010, the day after Christmas she left the house with some friends to go do some shopping. She didn't come home that night. She never stayed out.
I called and reported her missing, her mother also filed a report and her mental health counselor (state worker) filed a report of a "known mentally ill missing person" which the police are supposed to act on immediately...they should have pinged her phone but they did nothing.
Two days later she was discovered by a motel attendant in the room where she hanged herself early that morning.
I truly hope your situation is not like this at all.
Unfortunately, when people are drinking until they pass out at any hour of the day when they should be taking care of a child, I have to assume the worst and hope I'm wrong.
I'm a very private person and normally wouldn't put something this personal in open forum.
I wanted you to know that I empathize with your situation.
I also wanted you to look at what's going on as possibly being a sign of mental illness.
I have a friend who went through a similar scenario with his wife recently. She got a DUI with their daughter in the car.
She had been constantly putting the child at risk since she was born. Drinking and downers.
I told him my story. He talked to her. She told him she heard voices and saw people no one else could see. She was scared. She was contemplating suicide.
She admitted she had attempted to kill herself by drinking bug killer.
She went in for a psych eval and three month commitment.
Things are going good now.
She's not drinking, she takes her meds and they've been doing much better for six months or so now.
Mental illness isn't always obvious. Heavy drinking can be a sign of it.
I guess my suggestion to you is to have your wife evaluated. The court may do it anyway.
I hope it works out in whatever way best benefits all three of you.