Now it is more like he that is desperate to keep ahold of me.
I'm sure this is true. He is probably panicked at the thought of a separation/divorce.
if someone is a @$$hole when they're drunk, sometimes after they get into recovery, it turns out they're @$$holes sober, too.
I agree. From my experience with my father and uncle, they seem to feel entitled to be a$$holes because they think they're making such a sacrifice by not drinking. They don't seem to know who they are without a drink in hand. They started drinking because they couldn't cope with life, so take away the booze and they're not nasty drunks anymore, but they can still be crabby, rude, anti-social, self-centered and selfish.
My cousin (eldest daughter of alcoholic uncle) and I used to talk about which of us had it worse. She lived in a relatively peaceful house post-divorce, but grew up on public assistance because my uncle skipped out on child support for FOUR children. She said it was embarrassing to be on welfare and come from a broken home. Of course, this was the 1970s, when it wasn't so common. I grew up in an intact family, where both parents were able to work to support the family, but they fought constantly and it was a chaotic environment. It was embarrassing to be their child sometimes because of the fighting and my father's drunkeness. My father has never been a person I could count on for anything, really. I stopped having any kind of expectations of him a long time ago. My uncle is pretty much the same with his kids. (He's lucky that they have anything to do with him at all.) I remember my father being passed out drunk on the sofa a lot and it was pretty pathetic. And when he wasn't passed out he was nasty and tried to provoke us into a fight. Countless times we'd have plans to go somewhere as a family and then at the last minute he'd pick a fight with my mother, she'd fall for it, and he'd refuse to go.
I know that divorce is really tough on kids, but growing up with an alcholic parent in the house isn't a walk in the park either. It has a deep and lasting impact on the kids.
