First, what we want and what we need tend to be two entirely different things when it comes to healing, from my experience. If our T's give us what we "want", most of the time we won't make any progress because they will just be enabling our old patterns of thinking and behavior. In fact, I'd pretty much say my T almost never tells me what I "want" to hear.

As far as the effect all this has had on your son, I can totally relate. I have three sons, and my husband and I both come from backgrounds of extensive abuse, severe depressions, and bipolar disorder. Remarkably, the boys have turned out quite well although they all have their quirks that probably result from their parents' "stuff". That's pretty inevitable really. No one has more impact on our children than we do, for good or for bad. Two of our sons have actually had sessions with our T to work through some of the spill over. But all in all, they've come through being our kids really well. They are resilient beings and delightful individuals. The good wins out in the long run. Try not to spend to much time blaming yourself; rather, just see to it that your son gets whatever he needs to move through the difficult times. That's really all we can do as parents--our best at the time, sometimes under very difficult circumstances.