You darn well better make sure your son is safe. You absolutely do have to stay with her and your son, or else take your son and go. You can refile with the court later. If you leave that child with her, you are guilty of reckless endangerment of the boy. She is not a "co-parent." You are the "sole" parent. She's been sober 2 months. That means nothing - as you well know. She "appears" to be off drugs. How nice.

She is playing you with this rape story. I don't doubt she was raped. Drunken women get raped all the time. She's 42 and has been drinking heavy for years? She may have been raped more often than you know, or than she even remembers. I am not unsympathetic to your wife's plight. I do not judge her. I know not what turned her down the path she took. She may not know herself. With help, she may be able to recover. But she is very, very far gone into her disease. It is possible that she may be too far gone. She may be incapable of coming back. She can't be allowed to take a child with her. Left alone, without you there, it is only a matter of time before either she, or some guy she meets, horribly neglects or abuses your son.

Dealing with your S/O being raped is not at the top of your list of worries. Don't go asking for any more details. This guy doesn't matter. It is the substance use that threatens your wife. The recent rape is just the latest awful consequence of that addiction. For a woman to combine severe substance abuse with promiscuity is extremely dangerous. I'm not judging her. These are simply the facts. Stop airbrushing this picture by saying she was "smitten" by someone who "professed love" and she trustingly went up to his place, thinking it was just for a nightcap. Your S/O is no ingenue. She likes to get wasted, and she likes to do it in the company of a male. You evidently don't adequately serve that purpose. Thank goodness you don't. Someone has to take care of the kid.

No woman deserves to be raped - ever. It doesn't matter how drunk she is. But the reality is that drunk women attract rapists. The older she gets, the more scummy will be the men whom she attracts. Her prognosis is poor. I've known alcoholic women who did their drinking at home. Unfortunately, that is not your girlfriend's pattern. She craves the comraderie of drinking with others. Her disease is complicated. If she continues drinking and using, she'll find bad company faster than you can beat em off with a bat.

After your son gets a little older, he will spend a good deal of his time being worried sick about his mom. This is why I say that your hurt feelings over your S/O straying and your outrage over her being victimized are not at the top of your list of concerns. You're having trouble trusting her? Well, I should think so. Go to some Al-Anon meetings. Get an harmful of their literature. You seem pretty literate. Start reading, and stop fantasizing about how great things almost were. You don't need to know more of "the whole story." You know all you need to know. Don't encourage her storytelling. That encourages headgames. All substance abusers play them. Be supportive of her working a program. Pray. And hope. Maybe she can clean up and learn to love you.

If and when she falls off the wagon, her justification will be the "trauma" she's gone through. And you will be a heartless beast for not excusing her on that basis. This is why I say drop all talk about her "extramarital affairs." There's probably been a series of sordid encounters. I wouldn't call them "affairs." To stay clean and sober, she needs to stop thinking about them. That stuff needs to get placed in the file labeled "over" by both of you. Let professionals help her with any further processing that is needed, at least for a year. They and female alcoholics in recovery can help her. At AA she can meet other ladies with very tough stories of sexual abuse. Don't insert yourself into that. One caveat: AA meetings draw some unrecovered men, looking for unrecovered lady drinkers. That could be a pitfall for her.