How to forgive

I have always had an issue of figuring how to forgive someone.  Most times I would just bury it and let it be (not the healthiest ways).  I was at church today and the pastor started a series on forgiveness.  How appropriate I thought as just last night I said a prayer to God to help me forgive.  I am trying to forgive my husband Shawn.  We have been separated almost two months now after a drunk physical altercation with him.  He has since realized what I already knew, he is an alcoholic.

He has begun AA and is living outside of our home.  I had filed for divorce but he asked that I stop that and just be separated while he addresses his addiction.  So here I sit and here I wait.  I do so to see if he can overcome this addiction because there were times within our 6 years of marriage that he was a great guy and it would seem to me that you take the alcohol out of the equation he could be that great guy again.

My problem that I face now is where to begin to heal.  I have since learned that his alcohol abuse started well before he met me.  It was apparently bad enough that he was trying to find help before we got married.  I never knew.  If he had come to me before we were to be married and said that he had this problem we could have postponed the wedding and focused on getting him the help he needed.  There was some reason why he did not, who knows.

How do I deal with this?  How do I begin to heal my heart and my soul?  This person I have loved for so long has lied to me for years.  Do I even know this guy?  He still likes the same things that he did before but how much of our relationship was a lie, just his "sobriety"?  Does it extend to other parts of our relationship?  I don't know, I guess those answers will come eventually.

All the while I am trying to keep up appearances for our three boys (well one is only 3 weeks old so he does not have a clue).  I do not know how long this separation will last (well until he is better for sure) but this single mom thing is a bit harder than I anticipated.  Maybe because I have a newborn as well as the two older boys as it was not a big deal before Reilly was born but now I just feel overwhelmed.  Maybe when I go back to work things will be a bit better and less crazy...then again I could just be fooling myself.  I wish I had a crystal ball to tell my future, I am not the best at waiting for things to happen...I need to get better.

I need to get to a place where I will feel fine if things do not work out the way I want them to.  I need to get to a place where I can put Shawn on the back burner while he is focusing on his goal of sobriety and I can focus on my goals of being a stronger person and mom, be able to let go of the anger I currently feel and be able to forgive.