Yes, I understand. I am very sorry and I wish that his kids find the way to get clean. I hope time will help, but it is a huge trauma. For everyone.
"I had loved him so long" did strike a chord with me, though.
I wonder if we can't leave because it is hard to walk away from our shattered
dreams.
When I was around 20, I met that person - not an alcoholic, gainfully employed, very far from a loser. Lying with abandon but senselessly (for example, about his birthday) was his hobby. A broken relationship was a small price I had to pay given what he did to others. So in six months time, on finding out that his birthday fell on a totally different month and year, I merely shrugged my shoulders. To the me of today, such people look like inflatable toys - there is a dark rag lying around, but with the attempts of the "community" and the parents and the people around, he is inflated into a beautiful dragon.
But, I still hung around for a couple of months after he proposed, bought a ring and ultimately, did nothing. He didn't even break the engagement. As I later found out, it was his typical modus operandi. (He proposed to another girl, before me, and when she went on a vacation, he married someone else). Why did I stick around? Well, i was 20, much younger than him and such people are uncommon. But mostly, i stayed because the image of our greatest future together was hard to walk away from. To admit to something worse than, "I have bet on a wrong card", to say "that card was fake", takes strength.
So I think, ES met CS in her 20es, and I bet he was a liar but tried his best to pretend for a long time, and in fact, they did have real things binding them. Maybe, just maybe, she is going through the terrible revelation, that her partner of twelve years is a sham figure? It must be hard to realize it so late in life, and at such a cost. So I am not blaming her, just waiting.
I still can't find a name for this pathological lying. No known medical syndrome explains it. In my BF, it was serious - crying, he'd tell me about someone dying in a car accident, and later, I'd accidentally meet that person, very much alive. I think I understand what prompted him to start yet another story (insecurity), but why stick with it knowing that sooner or later you'd have to admit to one more lie? All I know is that he would fly under the radar for any known diagnosis.