Old 03-29-2013, 08:04 PM
  # 11 (permalink)  
EnglishGarden
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
It is very hard to accept what is. That is something we all here have struggled with.

Your children's mother is an alcoholic. Your family is already damaged. Your children will, for the rest of their lives, have an alcoholic mother, and it will be solely up to the alcoholic whether she is a sober alcoholic mother or not. That is not in your control, and this lack of control will be a real challenge for you, because as much as you want to stay married and keep the family intact, if your wife does not get sober, your marriage will not survive it. Even if you stay with her. The relationship will be shot. And your children are already wounded by the alcoholism in the family and there is much yet to unfold which is going to be hard for them, however things go.

But if they have a father who is getting healthy, getting counseling, is educated about addiction, monitors his codependent impulses, listens to his children and reassures them that whatever happens, he will be there for them and that their job is to blossom, that's all, the adults will deal with their own issues, then they are going to be okay. Children in alcoholic families often develop into very astute people, centered and aware, when they have parents who have done a lot of work on themselves. It rubs off. If neither of the parents get healthy, the children assume all the guilt, shame, fear, and depression the parents were unwilling to deal with.

No need today to anticipate all the hundred possibilities of what might happen tomorrow. Take care of your side of the street and leave the rest to your Higher Power. Turn it over. Wait and see. But take responsibility for what is inside you and what your children need to heal up what is inside them. If you haven't called a counselor yet, I would pencil that in for next week.
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