I need some help with a friend of mine who has separated but not divorced her husband. I feel like I am on the outside looking in.
Background: two years ago she left him and they separated. She wasn't happy with him, he was drinking heavily, had serious depression and had been hitting the children. He left. I do not know but I got the impression there had been a fair amount of emotional abuse. She hinted at it but never confirmed. He is my view an alcoholic.
About six months later, he managed to get his feet back under the table and was back in the house. He did it incrementally, she wanted him to see the children and he had stopped drinking. Pretty soon he was back and sleeping in a different room from her but back. It degenerated and he soon began drinking again and there was another incident of him hitting one of the boys.
She rang me and said he refused to leave the house. She sounded completely ragged and asked for help. He knew that she couldn't make him leave so I went down there with my husband and brother, changed the locks and told him he wasn't welcome. I know we should not have done the locks but she sounded terrified and I wanted her to have protection for the children. I told her hat sh should not let him back in.
He left, got a job and moderated his drinking. She seemed happier but didn't go to the next stage that I thought and start a divorce. She arranged for him to hae access to the children (often at the house) and pretty soon he was around to use the computer, pick up the post and anything else he could think of. Then around for Sunday lunch as part of contact.....
Cut to today. She told me (and seemed ashamed) that she came downstairs and he was busy doing the ironing! The children had let him in. He then announced that he was being made homeless in a fortnight and could he stay at the house. And he had lost his job.
Okay she told me this and sounded really worried. She is on antidepressants. I said it was his problem, and could he not stay with his family. No apparently not as his mother is in sheltered housing and his brother shares a flat and no room. Sounds to me like he had it all ready for her to hear. She is worried that he will end up sleeping on a park bench, to which I said tough.
She is a lovely person but she is too soft, she said but he is the father of my children. She worries that he will camp outside the house in two weeks. That is her fear.
I think he is a manipulative alcoholic who knows that she will struggle with the toughness that is needed. Her life has been blighted by suicide, her mother and her brother in law both killed themselves from drink and the isolation it brought. I know that she is worried about it for him and yet she wont put herself first. She has sent out a lo of mixed messages to both him and the children by letting him back in and with the access arrangements. Bottom line is I think he sees that and her as soft. But because of her depression I am struggling with what to say to her so I don't sound critical. I want to positively help, not make her feel worse. She has always used me as a sounding board and I know she wants my help but I think she has to do this for herself.