Ah what a wonderful thread. Thank you for talking honestly about this.
I spoke with him privately. He said that he feels like she's always disappointed with him and sees him as a loser with no future. I told him that his future is whatever he wants it to be. Right now, he continues to make the same choices he's always made (not doing his work and lying about it). He's certainly capable of doing the work. But, nothing changes if nothing changes. He's got to decide he wants to do the work.
He said that he's walking on eggshells around her because he never knows when she's going to yell at him. Hey, I feel the same way!
When I told her this she started to vent. I took it personally and told her not to react. She told me to go %&#@ myself. I turned to go and said I wouldn't be spoken to that way. She went into the "O great! You're all against me! Just go upstairs and leave me down here" routine.
Kids will and do recover, no one has it perfect that's for sure. You're becoming aware of patterns and what boundaries are necessary, which is huge. How our dysfunctional relationships affect our kids is difficult to look at sometimes, as it's way easier to just take the abuse personally. Once I saw how my kids are affected, my fear lifted enough to allow me to start taking steps toward somehow disentangling my children from the madness.
It's never perfect, but we get better, step by step.
I"m so glad you're here Steppingup. Cyranoak is right about not ever every talking to a person while they're drunk. Doing that one thing alone did more for my ability to see my life clearly than anything else.
And
God Bless YOU Coyote You are consistently honest, supportive and have clarity of thought that helps me every single time.