I could not disagree more with Cary's sweetly reasoned loving assumption of a pathway to healing that both tread in tandem. Unless I miss my guess, this one ain't gonna work that way.

This woman is ill, as some have noted, although the "illness" model is, indeed, controversial. Unlike the bizarre metaphor to cancer, the "remission" to alchoholism is directly in the hands of the one sustaining the illness. Period. Having come from a family of drunks, I was able to spot my own emerging dependence, and was able to stop my alchoholism before it marred my marriage, relationship with my stepson and my career in any irreperable way. This woman has choices, and if she is still drinking, and allowing drinking to color her relationship with her husband and son, her choice is to remain in the grip of the distortions of alchoholism. Poor choice. I doubt, truly, that this woman is seeking reconciliation, she is seeking the warmest saucer of free milk with the least impetus to change her behaviors.

HIS choice to date has been to be codependent, which translates to enablement. Also a poor choice, (and a lousy role model for their kid) and I hand it to him to work through his own issues of being emotionally battered by this caustic woman to define his needs first for a change. That said, if being her enabler is no longer his choice, he really has one or two choices - he can ditch her, or he can see whether an intervention will work.

An intervention would spell out HIS boundaries for reconciliation, which should include her drying out, sustaining personal therapy for internal growth, and participation in any one of several potentially targeted 12-step programs. It should also include, given that she is educated, acquiring a job that would contribute to the economic health of the family (and might, not incidentally, contribute to a sense of self-worth and well-being). If she says no, either directly in the intervention, or at any time following, he has every functional, emotional and ethical reason to leave this albatross and move on. And, given her recidivism rate, I wouuld suggest that he keep his options open by lawyering up and planning very precisely how to shape a post-dysfunctional life for himself and his kid.

But - frankly, since she's ducked the "hints", were I the author, I'd lawyer up first, determine my best options, and move on. This woman is draining him dry, emotionally and financially, and the role model for marriage is a lousy one for their kid. The kid will be profoundly affected by the separation, but he will be more profoundly affected by growing up in a household with a drunken, verbally vicious mother who incites violence in response. In fact, this boy's mother is already a "lost parent", alchoholism being such a distancing and self-absorbing state. And, were I Dad, I'd look into Al-Anon, and Co-Dependents Anonymous, as well as private therapy to explore what, in him, locks into a need to support this woman way beyond reasonable limits - might even lock into some family therapy so Dad and Son can process their parallel but different sense of loss of this woman, which began, really, with her drinking and indiscriminate sexual behavior. He's been patient beyond belief, supportive beyond reason, frankly, and he needs to understand whether he is emotionally locked into a pattern or some kind of new plaster saint. If it's the former, then he has already begun to work a path of healing for himself.

It is sad when one partner cannot sustain the growth, depth and maturation of an adult in a functoning relationshp due to a resolvable addiction. It is sadder when that willful incompetence drags down the other partner and - most importantly, the kid. Both Dad and Son deserve more.