My A (who is home with us, now, sober for 60 days) has been asking out loud to me ocassionally-- "what was I thinking?"
He says he is here, and it is warm and loving and stable, our son is a joy, and its a nice house.
HE says he can see and is seeing more and more of how he would tell himself all kinds of things that he could use to justify choosing that uglier existence. He would say I was unbearable, our child was being kept from him, the house was too small, I was controlling...
He looks at it now, and he says even he has a hard time believing that his need for alcohol lead him to those thought processes.
Still, at any moment, I know that he could and maybe will go out one day, not come back, and resume that life.
One thing I know now that I never knew before is that he does want to be here, I am not the one who is at fault for all that mess, and this is a great place to live.
If he does go back to all that, I will know in my heart that it is not because of my failings shortcomings.