Co-parenting with an alcoholic —children refusing contact. What now?

The poor mother. Sounds like he was an impossible father and she was under terrible emotional and financial stress.

But there is no need for drama.
The children need calm and consistent parenting, something they don’t get from an alcoholic ( ime, I was married to one)
SS are involved, they will listen to the children. They are old enough to make up their own minds about seeing their mum and the Court will take their wishes into consideration.
Yes, 5 children is a lot but they’re older, at least they’re not toddlers!

You need to agree a strategy with your husband.
Then explain this to the children. Reassure them they can ask questions, change their mind about seeing their mum etc…
Get support for yourself —- either via SS or contact Al-Anon. Honestly, when I spoke to a support service for families of alcoholics I saw what was going on, everything became clearer, it was like a weight had lifted.

it’ll be a marathon, not a sprint but none of this is the kids fault. If you cannot cope, don’t think you can support long term then say so now. But if you can you’ll help them not only through their childhood but into adulthood too.

Sorry, but you need to step up. Seek support for yourself from a counselor who will help you to stop spiraling.

The children have one parent who is responsible and sober, and you need to support him as his partner.

The alternatives for those children are unthinkable - foster care or a return to the bosom of someone who will psychologically and emotionally abuse them while continuing to indulge in denial about alcoholism.

But you cannot depend on that remaining the case. She could have died, moved away leaving the children, this. When you get into a relationship with someone with children you need to be willing to have them live with their parent full time if circumstances dictate that is what the child/ren need.

Oh.

How disappointing.

Or maybe he is a good father and the money given in CM wasn’t being spent on children but on booze.
Vodka isn’t cheap and I doubt exw had a job whilst having vodka shots throughout the day

No offence OP but this guys sounds worse with every comment you make about him - so he only took his kids 50/50 to avoid paying maintenance?

this is one person's chaos straining to contaminate another person's order. It is completely different.
Thank you. No one else seems to understand the distinction 😢If she were dead it would indeed be completely different mentally and emotionally.

It isn’t though. His ex isn’t an alcoholic just to mess up your life.
I get that it’s difficult for you but by saying things like if she was dead it would be completely different (as in better?!), this just sounds like you are making this all about you and your feelings and your need for predictability and consistency in your life. Life doesn’t work that way. Not for anyone.

After 8 months, you should be more adjusted to it being your normal - don't fixate upon it in terms of 'they'll go away then' - and the idea of them having the stability, reliability, safety and security you both can offer them will become more logical than chucking them back within a couple of weeks after she's come out of rehab (if she even gets that far) and having them need to come straight back.

Tbh EOW was the norm at least 15 years ago It’s only fairly recently that 50/50 is something that has become the norm

I know quite a few people (fathers and mothers) who wouldn’t be able to do 50/50 because they work abroad. Or their job isn’t Monday to Friday 9-5.

Wondering how they would have done 50/50

So not a good Father then. But typical of a number of divorced father's who feel the money is what matters and their children are simply possessions to be used as it suits them and not what is best for the kids.

I mean, he was there, pushing back on some of my stepmums behaviour, supporting us to a degree, failing to support on other bits, largely spiralling into his own depression in ways that understandably or less understandably didnt always leave space for us to be well supported or ways that i would like to think i would be better at. My recollections of my dads role for good and bad in this period would be lengthy and detailed but practically of little use here. As I say, my reflections are neither holistic or comprehensive and certainly are only my perspective which is not authoritative. But I’ve tried to frame my responses only in terms of how me, kid of an alcoholic with a stepmum and opinions on how we interacted, could best offer advice to you.

I’m sorry you are going through this OP but if your DH is willing to get his already traumatised children put in foster care then he is an absolute monster. The EOW should have been a red flag- any decent divorced dad would be devastated to only get to see his children 2 days out of every fortnight. Either he’s a good dad and will care for and nurture his children full time (which you don’t want) or he’s an awful father and person (surely you don’t want this either?!)

Your husband was able to give you what you wanted and needed for your stable functioning when he was a very part time parent to his kids. Now he's going to have to step up and make his kids his priority because they're in crisis. It's an open ended situation that unfortunately demands flexibility and that's up to you to decide whether you can deal or not.

They are his children and their mother is hurting them. There should be zero pressure on them to return to her home. He should be doing everything in his power to keep her as far away from them as possible until she proves that she can maintain her sobriety. Even then, her parenting should be heavily scrutinized for the duration.

honestly, the plan should never be to return to 50:50.

if you can’t handle that, then you need to leave. I’m also autistic. It doesn’t matter. These are his children and it’s his job to protect them and be their father.

I was raised in an alcoholic household. It is hell. There should be no thoughts of even trying to send them back. Just active working on ways to keep the monster away from them.

I don't think it makes much difference to be fair, You also signed up for it OP, at any time anything could have happened to his children's mother and they would become your husband's sole responsibility.

It was the risk you took, and the fact that he has fully accepted your children into his life, would make it seem pretty selfish to not accept his now, at a time when they need love and stability the most.

If you don't think you can fully accept his children as part of your life now and create a happy home for them to live in, then you should leave, but for their sake, not yours or your children.

He’s accepted your children so you need to accept his. If you’re not happy with the situation then live separately. The children have to come first. Their mum will have to be sober for a certain length of time before contact can even be considered.

I appreciate that — thank you. I’m in a good place now, but the impact on my family (the whole thing, i don’t put anywhere close to all of the ‘blame’ for this on my stepmum) was severe. We lost my baby brother at 19 due to mental health issues, which, if not directly caused by, were definitely exacerbated by our traumatic upbringing. Being a nine-year-old trying to manage everything and everyone against this constant wall of hatred from my stepmum had such a wide-reaching effect on my life — across so many contexts — until I could finally afford intensive extended therapy haha!

For context, my dad and stepmum met two years after we left mum and got married two years after that.

I want to be really honest in saying that my dad, after raising three kids single-handedly in such a difficult environment, was clearly seeking emotional and practical support in remarrying in a way we see so often discussed here and this is support he should have found in therapy not a woman’s unpaid emotional labour. I don’t see him as blameless. But my stepmum was stupid. She openly said she didn’t want to marry while my mum was still in our lives, then did it anyway. She regularly talked in front of us (me and my dad’s other 2 kids, her 2 kids) to her friends, colleagues, neighbours about how “messed up” my mum and our family was and how ridiculous it was that her and her kids’ lives were being impacted. As we grew into normal teenagers any rebellion or teenage act was weighted unfairly and unequally imo towards me and my brother and sister’s ‘delinquent background’ rather than just being teenage twats. Dont get me wrong, I had my fair share of twattery, but no more or less than my stepbrother who was given the grace to be a teenager it felt like.

She’d speak spitefully about our maternal grandparents and aunties/uncles, blaming them for not supporting my dad and leaving the burden on her. Over time, that turned into her actively blocking our access to them, said no more visits, no more calls, and that had a knock-on effect where they gave up reaching out, and my relationships with my cousins slowly fell away.

I want to stress that many of these examples could have been understandable, but were just awfully executed. Like, complain to your mates, sure, but not in front of us. And I don’t think she was the only one at fault: my mum’s side of the family could and should have tried harder to stay in touch. But these are all examples of how she put herself in a difficult position and then let that resentment turn into bitterness and, eventually, spite.

At the same time, she was also genuinely good, even great at times. She took me to book my first counselling sessions before I was old enough to get a part-time job and paid for them, knowing my dad couldn’t afford it. And to be honest, he was so emotionally checked out at that point that I doubt he’d have even thought to offer. So I do have empathy for her. I think it was just all too much for her, and she acted out of frustration.

Things like booking holidays just for her and my dad and her kids — because “her family needed a break from the mess my family had caused” — or openly favouring her children to somehow redress this imbalance… It was hurtful. But again, I don’t think she was trying to be evil. I think she was overwhelmed and dealing with it badly. Ultimately, the real failing was my father’s, not hers, and I don’t mean to place the blame unfairly on her by focusing this reply on her. I still have a relationship with my stepmum today (her and dad are no longer together unsurprisingly) - although it has been hard won - the reason your post resonated with me so much is because she is far from a bad person, simply a normal human who acted with malice borne out of legitimate frustration imo. I’m just trying to answer your question in a way that gives the clearest picture of what it was like for/with her and could be perhaps most useful from your perspective.

Adult child of an alcoholic parent here. Please please please don’t underestimate the calm and safety these children are now feeling being in the home of a stable and sober parent. You need to put the kids first and frankly if you can’t face now being their home 100% of the time you need to seriously consider moving out and allowing them the stability of being with their dad full time. This is what it means to be romantically partnered with people who already have kids!

my heart goes out to the three of them, I’m sure they will have longstanding trauma from living with their mum during these relapses and from experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

please look into Al Anon for them and your husband too, and perhaps yourself as it sounds like you need a bit of educating on this which they do call “a family disease” and you are now part of this family

On a practical level I would focus on what you need to do in set time periods. E.g. for the next week that is making sure all the kids have somewhere to sleep and everything they need for school. For the next month it could be organising the support you and the kids need e.g. counselling. Every time you think of something that needs doing, put it on the short term or long term list. And just keep putting one foot in front of the other to keep yourself, your husband and all the children as supported as possible.