‘The hardest part is the loneliness. It falls on me to try to educate our children and manage our dwindling finances’: the letter you always wanted to write

I’m sitting with the folding doors open, appreciating the sunshine while you sleep in, yet again. Our children have been excitedly planning how they will win the water fight you promised to have with them at 10am. Now, at 11.30am, they are feeling despondent.

We have been together for more than 20 years and parents for nearly nine, and you have always been a problem drinker. The drunkest man at every party, falling over and acting obnoxiously – an embarrassment, and a total contrast to the sweet, kind and fun person you are when sober. The person I glimpse every day before you go to work gives me hope that, if you could just stick with sobriety, family life would be joyful.