FireSprite

I think this is slippery slope, depending on the person you are responding to. It also matters whether the advice was solicited or not, IMO. I tend to just abstain from giving any unrequested advice. (part of MY codie-recovery is to stop telling everyone how I think they should fix their lives no matter how much knowledge I may have about a situation..... giving unsolicited advice is almost always a bad idea in my world.) If it's a poster here on SR & I don't have firsthand experience to share I tend to read & thank but not necessarily reply. (I learn lots from those that do respond though.)

If you're talking about IRL people, I think I'd ask them what they base their opinion on....(every time I ask a parent this I get a blank stare, which tells me they are making assumptions, & have no real point of reference) and then ask if they have ever taken the time to talk to an ACoA. Most often parents think that in the absence of dramatic crisis-like behavior (i.e. "acting out"), that their kids are unaffected & everything is perfectly OK. Most of them don't know the common traits that a child of an addict develop and therefore don't know what signs to even be looking for. So...... you don't think your kids are affected & you also don't know the signs you'd be looking for to know if they are or not? Hmmmm......

In my personal experience & even being an ACoA, I have learned WAY MORE by listening to others share their experiences than I would have anticipated. They are the voices that helped me to recognize some of the same patterns, habits, dysfunctions in my own world that even *I* was missing..... I truly thought I had escaped fairly unscathed from my childhood because my history is so much less abusive than what other's have experienced. I was so very wrong.

If anything, it sometimes makes it harder to define our damage when there isn't a big obvious neon arrow pointing it out & instead we have to sift & sort through every memory, habit & personality trait & put it to a litmus test to see: does it belong to me naturally, or was it borne of damage done via my environment that I can choose to change/overcome?

Stung made a good point to keep in mind - not every non-A spouse is healthy or ready to hear that they need to work their own recovery. If they aren't ready to hear & see all of this, there's nothing you can do to make them. I can see how, if you are really NOT ready to face the music, then you would resist any idea that your kids are hurting... that can be too much for some to handle emotionally. None of us wants to ever think that we are allowing our kids to get hurt.