Another thing that hurts kids which I dislike hearing about occurring is parents who vilify the A to their kids. My kids know their dad is an A and have seen him be abusive BUT Ill be damned if I am going to make my kids listen to me or anyone else put their dad down.
My kids will form their own opinion of him. They don't need to be saddled w my issues w him and I watched the severe damage it did to my brothers for my mom to vilify our father to them so that's something I think about a lot too.
The A's behavior and our reaction to it and our part in the dance is all harmful to kids and then there's the stuff that is squarely ours such as this denigrating the A (which I admittedly DID do in the past and have made a huge effort to fix)
I guess as I am trying to change a lot of unhealthy angry things in myself I am seeing those things in others and kind of taken aback wondering if I appeared the same way to others.
In my regular face to face al anon group is a dad who talks down about his AW and laughs about how their teenage son and he basically poke fun at her behind her back as therapy of some sort. He seems to think he has it all together and is a know it all & I have stopped enjoying being there bc his behaviors make me uncomfortable. I dislike how he speaks about his W but mostly I feel bad for his son and wonder if there's any gentle way to suggest he let his kid make the choice how he sees his mom? Probably not.