fedup3

Squadly, a marriage is a partnership and it sounds like you all alone in this partnership. It sounds like you taxi, cook, probably clean, keep up on the kids homework it sounds like your dad and mom. Do you think your kids will grow up knowing what a mother or wife is supposed to be when it's time to choose a spouse themselves and even if by some wild chance they don't know their mother is an alcoholic?

Squagly

I hear what everyone is saying, but the problem is everybody's experience is not the same. The drinking stopped several years ago and the arguing and all of the theatrics subsided after PAWS had run its course. Almost everyone who knows our ten year old raves about what a great kid he is. His teacher last year told me he is an incredibly well-adjusted kid. There was a time when she was drinking that the dysfunction was obvious, but she has worked hard at almost all parts of her recovery. We rarely argue, and she tries really hard with the kids. She accepts criticism now from them without going completely bezerk. She no longer spends like she once did. Her relationship with her kids has never been better. If you rewind two months ago, she was going to her part-time teaching job that ends at 11 am, going to the gym every day and she was going to AA meetings and sometimes socializing afterwards (as encouraged by the program), sometimes spending extra time to help fellow addicts in dire situations (all easily corroborated). She was doing everything right in her recovery as she had done for quite a while. To the kids, it seems as normal now as it was two months ago although they do not realize that she goes to the gym less and that her time at the meetings isn't always time at the meetings.

She and I are both popular with both kids' friends because we are considered cool approachable parents. She spends time with my younger son and his friends every day after school. Our house is the one to go to. Several years ago I was in the situation that everyone describes with the obvious-to-anyone-involved dysfunction, and I know we will be there again if she touches alcohol (which hopefully is not inevitable at this point). We really aren't there now. If I had come on these boards two and a half years ago at the height of her last relapse, it's chock block of full of stories that could have been my life at the time, and it may have given me what I needed to cut the cord. Misguided or not, I had faith in her and I stuck with her.

She is probably the best liar I have ever known and picks apart other people's arguments like a great trial lawyer. She grew up in a home where her mother was a fully-fledged probably bipolar alcoholic and pill popper, and her father was a never-at-home maintenance alcoholic. Lying was a way of life necessary to minimize physical and verbal abuse. She was a liar a long time before she ever touched her first drop. Last week, we were talking about a family whose son had died and the parents divorced. She threw out the line that if we got divorced, it would be a good divorce. My older son replied "don't even mention that." This is part of her technique, the if part was meant as a joke and the comment was intended to illicit the response. It wasn't an innocent comment as it appeared, it prays on people accepting nobody would be as cruel as to discuss something so blatantly (I was the intended audience). My older son also attended counseling with and without her and they worked through issues to repair their relationship that largely stemmed from her alcoholic behavior. My older son also frequently states we are an awesome family.

I drive my older son to school every day which is about ten to fifteen minutes. He has no qualms telling me problems he has with her (or me for that matter), and I often follow up on them with her and she usually takes the right corrective action or talks through it with him. He can become argumentative when he sits on something (which comes out in discussion), but there has been nothing lately. For what it's worth, I think she, her new boyfriend and I are the only people (non-anonymous board based people that is) in the world who know what's going on.

If things had been like they were when she drank, and I asked her to leave, the kids would think that it was because of her erratic behavior, the drinking, the arguing, the obvious lying and all of the fun stuff an active alcoholic brings to the table (the kids know more than you think scenario). It would have been troubling, but understandable. If I asked her to leave today, it would seem incredibly puzzling that we had made it through the hard times, working through a family disease (as it's called), seemingly came out on top, and I (or even we) arbitrarily decided to call it quits. She is basically relapsing without the blatant obviousness of alcohol. If I outwardly reacted the way I inwardly feel, they would probably know something is up. I tend to be laid back and calm, and I don't exactly wear my emotions on my sleeve, so my natural poker face belies how I feel inside.

For the kids, it would be like having the rug pulled out from under you from one day to the next. Any reason other than the truth would seem illogical and disingenuous to them, and the truth would be detrimental to them and the sudden shock would be very painful to them. I know I have the right to be happy, but my happiness is not linear. I chose to bring my kids into this world and their happiness is my number one concern. I think the guilt I would feel in pulling the plug, and changing their world forever would parallel or eclipse the sadness I feel right now at their expense. I'm pretty sure a full-on alcohol relapse would follow causing everyone involved even more problems.

I know that me putting off any type of action is a bit like people who think they might have cancer putting off a trip to the doctor because in a way they rationalize they don't have it until the doctor tells them, and then it's devastation, only I'm delaying someone else's devastation.

Special kudos to anyone who made it to the end of this rather rambling post. If nothing else, it's therapeutic to get it off my chest. Thanks.

Carol Star

In my opinion you are putting your kids and yourself through a nightmare situation. I would get out with the kids and find a mate I could trust. Please read code no more. I agree with your therapist.

marie1960

Squagly, All I can say is WOW!!!!

I believe your main focus is to protect your children. Your 17 year old will be an adult soon, going off to college, and starting his own life.

You still will have the 9 year old. So for 9 more years you are going to live this lie. You are going to harbour all the pain and hurt of your wife's selfish actions. Those 9 years are going to go by so very fast. The days may be long but the years are so short.........
Then what?

I remember my dad telling me "We lead by example." I have to ask you, would you want one of your kids to one day be living the kind of life you have resigned yourself to live??

The love you have for your kids is evident. I commend you for being a committed father. I see the sacrifice you are living. Kids are often alot more perceptive than we give them credit for, I would not be the least bit surprised if one day they ask you why you choose to live like this and then all the years of turmoil will not have been for the greater good afterall..........



Wishing you peace..........