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).
This is where I got hung up in my recovery. Going No Contact with my AM was cake. It was then that I realized the full scope of the dysfunction in my FOO, and that my grandmother, whom I elevated to this saint-like status as a kid, was just feeding the beast. She was a huge part of the alcoholic machine. My dad got out, but in the early 80s he stood a snowball's chance in hell of getting custody of his kids. My mom was a pillar of society, as far as the courts were concerned. I loved my dad more than anything, but by the time I reached the age where I could choose where I wanted to live (12, in Virginia), I had been so brainwashed to believe that my AM's home was the best place on earth and that no one could ever take care of me the way they could.
I could have gotten out. My grandmother KNEW I needed to be with my father. He's a God-fearing, honest man who emphasized all the right things in life, and none of the bs that I grew up believing from my family at home. I could have had a better childhood. I could have had SLEEPOVERS, for crying out loud! You don't have friends over in an A home, because you're horrified of what might happen when your A parent gets trashed at night.
I'm still having a lot of issues with my resentment towards my grandmother and other family members who just sat by and watched it all happen. Or who pushed the abuse because, after all, she was my mother. I should just shut up and take it, and stop being a spoiled, ungrateful brat. Yeah, this is a sore spot for me. Any place would have been better than being in that hellhole. Which is why I tried running away a lot as a teen. I wanted to be anywhere but in the same state as my AM.