What to tell young children?
I am wondering whether and how parents explain the alcoholic parent to their young children? In particular, I am wondering whether you explain the "subtle, functional" alcoholic, and how you do so.
My AH drinks wine every evening until he falls asleep/passes out. We separated last summer, by which time AH had become very disengaged from my sons (aged 8 and 10) and me. I was a SAH mom until recently, so I lavished attention on my children, thinking (mistakenly) that I could make up for AH's lack of attention. Things were tense between AH and me prior to our separation because he did nothing to help with household responsibilities, never went anywhere with us, and spent nearly all his time by himself, drinking and using his laptop. But he never had drunken rages, stumbled around, slurred his speech, or engaged in any behavior that my children would have noticed as unusual. Even I was slow to pick up on the fact that his wine drinking, which troubled me for years, had progessed to alcoholism. My AH has been diagnosed and referred to rehab, but at this time he is refusing to go.
I have a therapist, my children have a therapist, and I attend a weekly support meeting (not Al-Anon but a similar, therapist-led group). I sometimes find the advice from the therapists and group members confusing and contradictory, especially when it comes to what to tell my children and when. My children's therapist advocated not telling them about their father's alcoholism until they were older unless it was clearly necessary, and then telling them a "minimal amount of information." My support group members recommend that I do tell them, and my therapist felt I would have the judgement to tell them in an appropriate manner at an appropriate time. For months, I abided by my children's therapist's recommendation though I was never comfortable with it and wasn't sure what it meant.
In late October, I told my 10-year-old about his dad after he showed up for custody time, had been drinking (in violation of custody agreement), and was turned away by me. My 10-year-old persisted in asking questions and not accepting what I was telling him, which were basically lies (e.g., "Daddy doesn't feel well."). He was sad to learn about his dad, but it answered a lot of questions and ideas he had been harboring.
I chose to tell my 8-year-old today because of some AH behaviors we've experienced lately (not returning phone calls, not coming over on Christmas, etc.), and I've grown weary of making up lies. The lies are starting to feel like I am covering for my husband and I don't want to do that. But I am not convinced that this is a reason to tell young children that a parent is an alcoholic, and I'm wondering what others think and how they have handled this.
Another difficult area for me is explaining to my children my own anger or indifference toward my AH, which they pick up on from time to time. His refusal to go to rehab will probably result in my going to court to seek full custody of my children. At times I feel very upset and it is difficult to hide these emotions from my children. At this point, I've explained that their dad has a drinking problem, that it is a disease, and that it affects his brain so that he doesn't always make good decisions. I've explained that they should never get into a car with anyone who has had any alcohol to drink. But I think all this is confusing to my children because dad's drinking is under the radar, so to speak.
Finally, I welcome advice on how to handle my own negative emotions about my AH's enabling, heavy-drinking mother, alcoholic brother, and sister (who may have a drug addiction). I've had a 20-year relationship with these people but I can't stand them at this point because they are enabling my AH and telling him he doesn't have a problem, etc. It is often difficult to hide my negative emotions about them from my children. I don't really want my children spending time with them, but since my AH has no friends and his family accept his behavior, he visits on many of his custody weekends. Plus, my children LOVE these relatives, who shower them with expensive gifts.