Is faking being a good person while parenting wrong?

My mother and father had me at very young ages (16 and 19 respectively). My mother stayed around for 6 months and then was in and out of my life. She married 11 times between my birth and my 18th birthday and I went to 0 of the weddings. She and I were never close. My father raised me along side his mother and later,y stepmom.

My father worked endlessly to make sure I had food, clothing, shelter and enough to not be continually picked on. We weren’t well off, but I didn’t notice it until later in life. Growing up I loved when my dad would come to school to pick me up and drop me back off at home. He’s quickly make me a snack while I got started on homework. That was the routine until I was old enough to drive. He made sure I got good grades and applied myself to every academic path that could lead somewhere beneficial. My father would treat my best friend like his daughter-later in life I’d learn about how abused she was by her own family due to alcohol. Her mother died in 6th grade and she lived with us for the majority of any given week. I hope I’m building the picture of a man who sacrificed right and left to provide the best parenting anyone could ask for, especially given the circumstances.

My senior year my alcoholic stepmother committed suicide and blamed myself and my dad for her disease. He slipped into depression that worsened when I moved 5 states away for college. During the first years away my father started dating a girl I went to school with that had a drug problem. Then he lost his house. Then his business. Then he stopped calling me and if he did he’d say hurtful, cruel things. Fast forward to 5 years away. I was at the local bar for my birthday when the bartender who knows me and my family well (small town life) pulls me aside to tell me that she doesn’t want to upset me but it’s time someone tells me that my father is using meth, has been out of control and is now homeless. Shocked, I called him out on it when I went to “his house” and he fessed up. 3 years later he stopped dating that girl and seemed to be trying to get clean. Things have been ugly needless to say.

Now, fast forward 2 more years to last week. My husband went out hunting with my uncle. My uncle told him a side of the story I’ve never heard. My dad used to tell him that since my mother took away his partying years and left him strapped to a child that as soon as I was an adult and out of the house that he was going to make up for lost time with partying, being irresponsible and answering to no one.

I’m shocked. This journey has already been a roller coaster ride of having your hero turn into a homeless meth head, but to now hear it may have been planned for decades?

My question-is it wrong to pretend to be someone that you aren’t for your child’s sake? Where I’m sitting now, I think it was the best thing, but maybe some warnings would have been nice. I’m educated, married, emotionally stable aside from this nonsense and a mother who’s not faking it nor feeling like she’s missing out on anything and I believe a lot of that comes from my father’s ability to cover up who he really was.