SC, my mom was often the way your dad was. And my brother, who never left home is an raging alcoholic, too. My father present, but, passive. It was not a good place for a child to say the least.
And yes, as an adult, I realize why my mother was the way she was and I see now what her good qualities were. And there were many.
Yes, it has all affected me in many ways. I know that my inability to handle certain things, like my son having the same disease as I do and marrying a man who didnt open up about his feelings, were some of the things that put a real stress on my marriage. I take ownership of that.
Now that doesnt excuse my xh's actions. I never let MLC be a free pass. He has his own free will. But, I know, without a doubt that he is lost and broken.
Nothing I can do about that. I was lost and broken, too. Before the bomb and after.
Here's the thing. I do not blame myself for my inability to see who my xh is. I know who he was before. I know that something has happened and he is not that person now. It was not my fault that I didnt know this way coming.
It is great to reassess. We should do that often. We cannot ever truly know how to discriminate between authentic people and inauthentic ones. We are not them.
So, we do the best we can. Most times we are right. Sometimes, we are not. That is part of life. And it doesnt really matter if we are right or not. It's what we do when we are wrong that matters.
I know that this is all a process. Try not to be too hard on yourself. You were working on certain assumptions. You did the best you could with the tools and the knowledge you had.
That's why the focus should be on you. You need to figure out who you want to be.
I have no doubt you will get there. No doubt at all.
