Whoa, slow down. You're fighting with the wind. The reason I think further discussion would be useful is because my aim is only to share info, and I've done that.
I'm not trying to tell you what your focus is or is not. Rather, the focus of which I speak is the focus of groups for codependents of various stripes. The point is that it doesn't much matter what the nature of their partners problem is, because the focus is on the individuals' codependency, not their partners problems.
As far as why it seems to me that you are codependent, I've shared that you've made H's life work for him for a very long time. This is not a new thing. As you suggested yourself, your patterns of behavior probably extend back to before you met H. There are a lot of things that go along with this -- like normalizing his behavior, rationalizing your enabling behavior, and so on. It sounds as though unhealthy ways of living permeate your family, including your children. It would surprise me very much to find that there weren't deep and longstanding problems of codependency in your FOO and in your current family. Of course, I've certainly been surprised in my life, lol.
It is up to you to choose to seriously examine your own behavior or not. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, unless it has been examined. If you want a different future, then the best place to focus your energies is on understanding yourself. Suppose the oracle from Delphi told you everything about H's behavior and its cause. It really wouldn't much matter. That understanding would not give you the power to change H's behavior. Nor, would it give you the power to change your own behavior. You are the one that has enabled H's lifestyle. Why? The answer doesn't lie in the causal story behind H's choices, it lies within you. Should you take this seriously, then it is very likely that a 12-step program for codependents would be immensely valuable to you. If you are interested, you can get a better sense about this stuff by skimming the early pages of some of Melody Beattie's books on Amazon. You can look at many various websites for codependents, like Coda, Cosa, Al-anon, etc...
The reason that I've chosen not to go further into specifics is because I don't think it will be helpful, not because I believe I know everything there is to know about you. I find that to analyze particular instances of of codependency is an exercise in wheel spinning if a person is not receptive to the idea, and unnecessary and perhaps even inappropriate if they are receptive.
I'm not sure about the tone of your responses to me. They seem hostile and argumentative to me. But I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm not even trying to exchange ideas or to explore whether I'm right about whether or not you have codependency issues. Either I am or I'm not. I'm OK being mistaken. I don't seek to convince you or defend my belief. Rather, this is my aim:
(1) To share with you that from my perspective, you appear to be thick in the weeds of active codependency.
(2) Meetings for codependents are amazingly and wonderfully helpful to codependents in terms of transforming their lives.
(3) My belief is that you'd benefit enormously from such meetings.
(4) Such meetings are very different than you seem to anticipate. So, I sought to remedy your apparent misunderstandings that led to roadblocks for you. This was probably a mistake on my part. I know from my own experience that we tend to find roadblocks to paths forward in any number of ways until we choose to take the path. Then, miraculously, the roadblocks disappear.
(5) Giving meetings a fair chance to help you by attending several meetings has the potential to yield huge personal benefits and pretty much no downside as the costs in time and money are minimal. Without trying meetings, you don't know what your experience of them would be like. Not trying meetings is certainly an option. But, it gives you no information on whether or not they can help you.
The above is all I seek to convey. I understand that you want to push back in some way. I'm not sure in what way or why this is the case, but it is not something that I choose to pursue because I don't think it would be helpful.
I will share that in my experience, the things that stress us out, anger us, annoy us, give rise to feelings of hostility, or otherwise irritate us the most are the things that we should try to examine deeply first, rather than push away.
Further, the most helpful posts to me were the one's that pissed me off the most. I don't take your apparent anger toward me personally. I'm not offended or hurt. It does tell me though that: (1) There is a bee in your bonnet now. This is often a good thing and I'm happy to leave the bee to do its own work in its own time. (2) It is time to stop because I've done as much good as I can (if any), and engaging further in such situations merely allows me to function as a convenient target that distracts a person from their true work.
