I have(had) a longstanding friend. He is a very sweet, kind, rather desperate man and also, very sadly, an entrenched alcoholic.
I have recently separated from my husband. During our married life, we lived in a great old rambling house in the middle of nowhere and now and again this friend would come and stay for a bit in an attempt to sort himself out. He would usually turn up incoherent and looking like a tramp, spend a couple of days wandering about with the shakes, then start to come round/dry out and spend another two or three weeks helping us out with the endless works on the house. He was always considerate and polite no matter how bad a state he was in, and we genuinely appreciated his help, so it worked all round. In fact, he even lent us a very significant sum of money one time, for which I am extremely grateful.
However, the last time he came to us (three years ago) was a sort of reverse process: he arrived fairly compos mentis but then took to his bed drunk for the next two weeks, hardly showing his face at all. His behaviour was disgusting and it ended with him refusing to leave when asked and us having to manhandle him into our car to take him to his son's house. My then 7-year-old ds witnessed some of this.
I have not spoken to him since. Now that I am separated, I have started to move in some of my old social circles and am coming under pressure to reconcile with him. I have two humungous problems with this: a) he has never actually phoned or written to me to apologise; b) he has never acknowledged his alcoholism, but continues to make excuses and minimalise it [I know this because ex re-established contact quite soon after the event].
Am I being a cow?