Thank you, Florence, as always for your input! I would love more clarity on how you see detachment as becoming it's own codependency. I think that thought has a lot of merit here and I 'think' I understand but would love a discussion on it, too!
Ha! I don't really know. It's just a hunch. To me, ending the cycle of addiction and codependency was me saying, "This [situation/behavior] is not acceptable." There was one point where I took a good hard look at myself and realized that my choice to stick with him any further would be literally crazy. I couldn't keep kicking this dead horse expecting it to get up. I had to do something else, and unfortunately, I didn't want STBXAH on my team anymore. He was not a team player. Is your A a team player? Decidedly not!
Somebody said something to me the other day that really lightened this up and gave me a lot of clarity. We were talking about life in general and relationships, and he said, "All we're really doing here is picking our team. Who do you want go through life with? Who can you count on?"
Like this anecdote about you and your A, there are so many things wrong here, big and small. You can't count on him, you can't count on him to communicate with you or tell the truth, you can't count on him to be okay to watch your son unless the court is involved, and this situation provokes real anxiety in you. Where is he? Is he dead? Is he ignoring you? Is he on some crazy binge? That's not okay! It's just not okay.
To me, you can practice detachment all the day long, but it doesn't relieve you from the hard fact that you're in a relationship where unacceptable behavior is commonplace.
I just really question -- based on your many anecdotes and your very valiant attempts to change yourself and improve your marriage -- whether keeping your probably-active A on your team is the best thing for Team Lizatola, and whether trying to keep your dysfunctional team together is it's own denial, but I'm just some lady on the internet.