My parents raised me to be Muslim but then when I got to be a teenager I rebelled and chose not to. I got pregnant and was living with my then boyfriend for years before we finally got married. When we got married I still was not practicing and was married by a judge. My father however would not be a part of it unless my husband took the shahadah so he did that day. I didn't know about that until after the wedding and I was surprised that he did because I wasn't even thinking about practicing at that time. Since then we have had 2 more daughters for a total of 3 girls ages 12, 3, and 1. For about the past 2 -3 years I have slowly started working my way back towards living an Islamic life .I stopped drinking, smoking, and eating pork 3 years ago and I now pray and wear hijab and I am now struggling to do what a muslima should. I have been urging my husband to do the same but he still wants to drink and party with his family. (to them it is not normal if you don't drink) We have come to the point that we are selling our house for financial reasons and I have gotten a new place. I wont move in there until we close on the house in about 10-15 days. I have told my husband that I don't want him to come to the new house with us unless he is going to stop drinking and make a serious effort to study Islam and hopefully honestly mean it and become Muslim. So we can do this together. It has been very difficult for me trying to teach my daughters and he wants to have his family over every weekend hanging out. My husband is not against us practicing he just doesn't want to do it. He says he will try but he told me that a year and a half ago and did nothing but got worse. That is not good enough. First what I need to know is if I am doing this the right way. If I can preserve the family that would be best but I cant continue with him if he is not going to be Muslim. The children love their father and I don't want to take that away from them.

All praise be to Allah, and may his peace and blessings be on the last and best prophet and messenger, Muhammad. It is an enormous favor from God that he accepted you back, for many go astray and their punishment from God would be simply to lead them more astray. Allah must have seen some good in your heart. As for your marriage, it is invalid. You are not married in the sight of God if your husband is non-Muslim. The right thing to do now is to suspend your marital relationship until he becomes Muslim. I would be wiling to meet with both of you for further discussion and hopefully persuading him to sincerely accept Islam to salvage the family. If he became Muslim, then you can resume your life together. Drinking is an enormous sin, but it doesn't make a Muslim unbeliever, nor does partying. Let us first convince him of the creed of Islam, and work thereafter gradually on his character. Allah knows best.