In Utter Agony...Long 1st Post

[25yearsmlc]

never underestimate the kids' ability to figure things out on their own, and then appreciating that their other parent did not inform them of the problem.
My cousin just found out (3-4 years ago) her dad had an A and that is why they divorced. She said "My mom (meaning my aunt) never once critisized my dad for their divorce and I will always be thankful that she's a saint b/c she let me love him without feeling disloyal to her..." That's important to note.

My dad was a highly function alcoholic and every time he'd go on a binge, the next morning my mom would talk about how drunk our dad had been as if we didn't know. We did not need HER to tell us, of all people. We needed her to try and defend or explain it all to comfort us, so that he didn't look like such a loser to us or that he was choosing booze over us, etc. She told us about it all, and I always wondered what the goal was in her telling us the obvious. Guess her anger was the reason b/c it's not like we didn't get it.

There is a high risk for the LBSer of having the wrong motivation for telling AND OR looking like you do, b/c it looks punitive even if that is not the goal of the LBSer telling the kids. Plus I have seen some M's survive A's and NONE of them had told their kids. Wow, I just realized that.

That bears repeating. None of the M's I know that survived A's, informed the kids of the A. I think part of the WASs coming back was due to discovering on their own, that the OP was a jerk of some sort. The "high" wore off. AND that the LBSer was gracious, forgiving and made it easy to see that THEY (ie the lbser) were the winners and not the OPs....

Like I said, it depends on whether saving the M is the goal.

j-