Dear Jackthedog, you wrote "So this has been day 19 of AH's moving out. My son seems happier when he is with me, and I do too, at times. Being alone is difficult. How do I get my son to see his father has a problem with drinking? I have talked to him a little about it, but I know he doesn't want to think of his father like that, he loves him. When I spoke to my son about seeing a counselor, he ademately said he didn't want to go talk to a stranger, but I am going to make the appointment anyway and make him go. In Michael Gurian's book about raising boys he writes that boys have a much harder time with divorce because they don't let out their emotions as females do."
I noticed you didn't mention the age of your son, but I'm going to take a guess he's in his early teen years. I'm not sure you
REALLY want to convince your son his father is an alcoholic. I have raised two sons into adulthood. One is 35 and one is 19 years old. I have tried to hold onto the belief that there should be a bonding between a son and his father.
And I wish I could still hold unto that belief!
Their father and my husband is a dry drunk and has become totally detached from us. Somewhere along the years my 19 year old has become very hostile to his father. There is so much tension between the two of them you could cut it with a knife. I've been worried that I have taught my 35 year old son to become the mediator between myself and his father.
I have done everything I could to try to keep the relationship between my sons and their father alive! I used to be the one that had to make plans for outings for the three of them so they could spend some time together.
Well, I've decided that I need to start making plans to move out and start our lifes without my dry drunk husband. By my speaking out to my sons, especially my 19 year old, there is a lot less stress between the three of us. Previously without me speaking out, my 19 year old would take his hostility out on me. I was the "safe" one he could explode on.
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It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was."
Anne Sexton