Hi BB, I hope you have a decent mother’s day today. These holidays are usually pretty hard as they remind us what should be, could be, was and isn’t right now. I agree with your inside voice when it comes to informing the family. At the very least they might appreciate knowing what is going on because cgs often use their families as a resource for money. When you tell them is of course your choice. I don’t know how close you are with the in-laws but I think they already suspect that there is something very wrong. Isn’t it weird that when it comes to cg, we actually have to take some action while almost every other addiction is so obvious and can’t be hidden for long? I was in the same position, my hb seemed to only care about his family, mostly about his mother. Everybody else was more important than my daughter and I. Looking back I understand why because I learned so much about the dysfunctional dynamics in that family. While you are the wife, he might just try to protect his reputation with them? He might be embarrassed. Who knows. But cg is a family disease, it affects everyone. Just like you, they cannot really help him. Just be supportive and avoid any kind of enabling. Good for you that you will attend a meeting this week. And I think it is very smart to get more information before you talk to the kids. It’s not easy to explain the whole mess to them without bashing their father too badly. I also wondered who the person was I married. Which one was real and which one was not? Two totally different people. Your “real” hb is in there somewhere, the addiction is just not letting him out of its’ grip at the moment. If he opens the door and seeks help to battle the addiction, the man you knew might just walk through it again.
