Awesome post Aeryn...
I avoided reading the ACOA forum even when told to while I made rationalization after rationalization for staying bc I didn't want to face the truth.
I am sure there are many on here who dislike me for saying all that I have just as I disliked those who said it to me.
But had they not pissed me off by speaking the truth about how my staying WAS harming my kids, I never would have left.
If I had been told "yeah you've got it under control, you're unique and your kids will be fine" etc or any other nonsense I thought I wanted to hear, my kids and I
would be all the more damaged.
The post from you below Aeryn is powerful and maybe should be a sticky on this page so we all have to remember just how much kids Do know and worry.
Originally Posted by
Aeryn 
I hate to throw this in here but it's a harsh truth - read the ACOA forum to verify....but in my case and in many many cases later in life as adults adult children of alcoholics come to resent the codependent parent much more than the alcoholic parent. We (ACOAs) end up in tons of therapy to work that out. I think the reason is it's easy for me to see the alcoholism as a disease but my mother staying...well she was SOBER and chose to stay to keep her great "image" of marriage rather than do what was best for me. Now my mother is NPD also so it's easy to say my case is special but it's not - at ACOA meetings and right here on this board I often hear the same thing from ACOAs whose sober parent was not NPD...many feel the same way.
I often read - well my kid is doing great - in all these activities and succeeding. Well...I did great too but not for the right reasons - I did good in school and did activities to "keep from rocking the boat" and "keep that great image" my mother taught me was so important. I didn't do any of those things for the right reasons - none of them were because I was exploring me as a person as normal kids got to do - I was pleasing the alcoholic system. As an adult I developed a huge resentment towards my mother because of that - not my father (the A) but my mother because she was the one that was all about the image and keeping the system in tact.
She even kept his alcoholism from me - hid him down in the basement to drink...I didn't know he was an A for a long time but I knew my family was fake and just an image and I wanted to escape from there as early as age 7. All that good I did school I used to get away from that family...
I don't know - that's just my story but it's one I've heard from other ACOAs too...take what you want and leave the rest.
WTBH - I know it's been tough but when your children are adults they will appreciate you gave them at least one sober, authentic household (sure it may be not 100% of the time for now, I do think your AH will show his colors to the court eventually, but it's so much better than 100% of the time in an A household), I would have done anything for that (the idea of something authentic).