tldr: daughter of alcoholic, meets someone with drinking issues. multiple boundaries crossed, final hurt.

How can I best move forward? What would you behave like when a boundary is broken?

In December 2024 I fell in quickly, intensely, and wildly with my female coworker. I knew I was gay for some time but was married and poly with my husband of 10 years (married 5, together 10). Had dated other women but felt so seen by her. She was let go from the company within 3 months of dating.

I have always had a party girl mentality and she and I’s early relationship was marred with a lot of drinking and fighting. I feel like I tried to vocalize that things were out of balance but I was in the process of moving out, staying afloat, and making things work with her.

She is a deeply traumatized person, having suffered deeply from physiological, sexual, and physical abuse from her mother. She left home at 21 and had a 10 year partnership with a woman that helped her go through her first rounds of healing.

Cut to now, she has been unable to keep a job despite having had employment though all that previous time, she has no friends outside of people she watches sports with or knows from bar life, and has cut off her family.

We just came back from a trip where I believe her alcoholism was on full display— she started drinking one night and I couldn’t use the tools to reach her and she ended up getting kicked out of a bar, calling me names and having an anger outburst the next day. It was the last boundary to cross— I love and care for her when she can be stable but it feels like a snowflake and most of my time is helping her stay there :(

I do believe she is good— I do believe she is kind. She has built a home with me and I feel like I wanted so badly to heal with her but I developed the boundary that was broken on that trip and now I am asking that she move out by 5/5– with no job, no savings, and no friends. We had a trip planned that I do not feel safe taking her on— the words are too hollow I have no actions to believe when she is drinking. I feel this in my gut and get some push back because “you (me) drink too”. I also just feel like am I ready to take on a sobriety journey with someone?

My heart is so torn. I have never experienced anything like this before and it feels so sad to be in shared space. I care about her so much and don’t want anything to hurt her but she embarrassed and broke me in a way in front of my chosen family that I feel like a fool. I feel caught in a cycle of letting her make breakfast or help me with some annoying tasks to “show up” — it’s giving drunk person acts up, shows up big to apologize but until you’re in it it doesn’t make sense how it can feel in the cycle.

Asking her to move out feels like I’m punishing this nice person but having to protect the sad, alone person that had to focus all my trip on her. My friends all say she’s not good for me :( I feel like she’a just so different when it’s her and I and this other person comes out and I get so stuck. If she’s drinking she’s angry, if she’s around new people, she’s anxious. Our therapists have said her trauma feels “safe” with me.

We are both in individual therapy, couples, she is starting AA and I am starting Al Anon. I know these will all offer more resources but I am really trying to see if anyone else can just provide some context from their experiences.