Originally Posted by
ShootingStar1 
People have said so many wise things here, Liz, and I echo their support, compassion, and caring for you.
One thing strikes me from your post. Because your husband works from home, and you home school your son, most of your time is spent in a closely locked circle with just the three of you as major players. I know you and your son travel for tennis tournaments, and he has outside activities, and your husband travels for work also. But the bedrock living is done just with the three of you.
It is insular, and I think it helps keep you locked in this circle. My therapist once said, talking on my dysfunctional childhood family who I tried to escape, that living in a dysfunctional family is like living within rubber walls. Everytime you try to exit, they bounce right back in. The whole family system exists in a dysfunctional stasis, and it NEEDS that structure, and it has a life of its own.
This is part of what you are fighting, and I found it despairing. Maybe try to bring in as many new influences as you can, and get yourself out in the world and opened to other people, ideas, ways of being, as you possibly can.
This way of living is like living with carbon monoxide unknown to you permeating your house. You don't see it happening, but eventually it will kill you.
ShootingStar1
This really hit home with me. It's so true, the dysfunction that has occurred insidiously through the years. It's been like a slow leak, though, and awareness has brought me to where I am today.
I am spending lots of time with the dog right now, trying to keep him from licking his wounds that he can STILL get at even with the dang cone of shame on. He had his stitches and staples removed today so that was good and it appears that he's healing. He's very skittish outdoors, though, so I took him for a short walk tonight once the sun was setting behind our mountain and the temp dropped a bit.
I have a lot of connections: church, Al Anon, homeschool group(both in real life and an online community of friends who've been together for 7 years now), and my tennis team of ladies. Some know my story, some know nothing, but I know they are all supportive and loving people.
I have worked very hard all these years to make sure I didn't wallow in AH's issues. When he turned down an invite to a party, most times I would make sure that I would go with our son. I kept our son active in the darkest of days when my AH's depressions were really bad. Zoo trips, science center, 1.5 hour long bike rides after he finished school work, hiking, walking, etc. I made sure we weren't all sitting around staring at each other basically. I just never realized how much this all affected me until recently. To put so much effort in to put forth a facade of 'normal' was exhausting. I remember having a friend confide in me about her husband's binge drinking and violent outbursts. I remember thinking, "Gee, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that." I never really recognized the abuse that was going on, and this was well before the drinking started with AH again. I was truly blind. I had friends who called me for marriage advice because my marriage seemed so solid. God, what a farce that was. I didn't even see it, but looking back I do now and it makes me really sad. Who was I to give marriage advice, and who the heck were these friends of mine who thought I had a better marriage than theirs? Ah and I were definitely good liars because I think we both knew deep down there were serious problems, we just kept sweeping them under the carpet and ignoring the elephant(s) in the room.