WL...
I have followed your posts and I feel for you...your anguish is palpable. I can hear how desperate you are to have this nightmare behind you and your family “back.” But this is scary thinking.
Your ex wife has been drinking alcoholically for a decade, with occasional “unverified” short breaks.
Over that length of time, your brain gets warped. You accepted the unacceptable so often that you don’t even realize how far down CrazyTown Road she’s taken you.
That you’re even considering her request after three weeks is, well, insane. I don’t want to be harsh, but please, this is an eleven-year-old child who is implicitly being used as a bandaid. This is so, so bad.
Your daughter is NOT...
a bargaining chip
a cookie for good behavior
the solution for your wife’s addiction
the magician who can make it all better.
You say she’s stoic. What choice did she have? Just because she developed ways to cope with this situation doesn’t mean her reward is to go deal with it more.
Honey, someone has got to be the adult here and that someone is you. If you knew someone else had an entrenched addiction problem, say the parent of a friend of your daughter’s, would you hand your child over to them and say, here you go, by all means, get in their car, sleep at their house? No.
Just because your ex gave birth to her doesn’t make her equipped to be her mother.
I am rarely this direct, but get a grip. Please.