Originally Posted by bluecastle
Putting aside the drinking issue, I think once you're entertaining the notion that a relationship is something your partner needs to "fight for," or "fight harder" for, is the moment a relationship has turned too fraught, that the fight is over. Relationships can't be sustained as wars, romantic partners can't be judged like soldiers.
Whether that fight surrounds booze or putting down the toilet seat, if you're just going round for round, around and around, you're in a destructive pattern with a fellow human. Some people have drinking problems. Some people have bad bathroom etiquette. Pick the battle that doesn't feel like a battle, where whatever "fight" a person has to offer is something you can live with in harmony. That's who you marry.
I'm not trying to negate the severity of the drinking—I'm the product of one parent with drug and alcohol issues—but this just sounds like a relationship you've outgrown. What works in our 20s doesn't always work in our 30s, and beyond. He remains rooted in a mode of living that you are not interested in, and he is not interested in changing.
Is this him for the next year, the next 10, forever? Does anything good come for you in even making that kind of wager, or from trying to get him to "fight" in a way he has proven incapable of?
I know how hard this is, I feel for you, and it's in my general nature to find silver linings in the darkest of situations. But in this one I think the silver lining may only come from moving on.