I’d like to see if we could all do a brief check in.

Thanks for the comments. My older daughter and I are on and off again at an impasse. Right now I think she is angry that I keep being hurt, and in the process don’t give her the attention she wants. This is old stuff with her (she was 5 when I married my SAH). While he and I are separated I am not planning on divorce (though prepared if I change my mind) and do continue to interact with him. This annoys her beyond all things. She also is just starting to come to terms with the way SA influenced the dynamics of our home through much of her life. My son is now a really struggling with alcohol and relationship issues of his own. He is the most loving man I know, but completely in denial about alcohol impacting his life.
Fortunately I started seeing a therapist again immediately upon being aware that SA was an issue again. Fortunately, also, I have a steady career and since the first real discovery 4 years ago have really built my “self care” dimensions of life. Unfortunately, even more than many marriages, our work and other community lives are really intertwined. We are both professors at the same University, offices in the same building (thankfully different departments), are both very active in the same community groups, and it is a small town. My closest friends do know his history. They find it hard to reconcile with his public image, but believe me. MOreover he has been in the past willing to share some of this struggle with people in our lives — a friend and coworker who he is staying with while we are separated, some members of the church, his family (who are so messed up as to think it is no big deal) and so forth. I have also made sure that people in our lives are aware of my “safety concerns” and the ways he has lost control in the past.
All this means that now, exhausted as I am, I am in a much better place to be sure to meet the kids’ needs than I was four years ago when the trauma to me was completely overwhelming. I thought I would feel that again, but really I am so much better able to not let it destroy me. I know what I am worth, and that this is him. I know not to allow deflections and minimizing and attacks. I know that the pain of not having in the home is well worth the cost in order to avoid the ongoing damage done while he is unable to stop his defensive crap.
Wow! I guess I have grown stronger. If you had asked me a few years ago I don’t think I would have known it.

I suppose our children respond EXACTLY the way we would respond IF they were involved with someone who was continually hurting them…I mean really damaging them on an emotional level and we could see it. Children can see things. Especially older children. They are torn and they are angry and they are confused. It’s tough. Sometimes I think they know WAY better than we do? Karen xx