Something my therapist has helped me to come to understand is that as long as I still have emotions for someone, be it love, hate, like or dislike then I am still allowing that person to be part of my life. That was something I don’t think I understood in the past.
I’m trying so hard to remain calm and relaxed. To forget the past and remember the love that I still bear for my Husband. To remember the difficulty that he has in dealing with emotion and not give him anything to worsen his mental stability as he deals with the quagmire of business life in these credit crunch times.
But some days!
I try so hard to dig him out of problems of his own making. To clean up after he’s made a mess of things by not facing up to an incident as a responsible parent should. He asks me to do this! And all I say to him in return is that he must actively support me in this endeavour.
I should know better from past experience.
As soon as the proverbial brown stuff hits the fan and he has to do something he doesn’t want to do, he will sell me down the river and hang me out to dry, undoing everything that it has taken me days of diplomatic eggshell-walking to achieve.
DDD says that, if I feel nothing for him and try not to let his parenting style irritate me, then he will not be able to hurt me. But if he hurts my children and their future by his inability to engage them on important issues that require boundary setting, should I just stand back and watch? Knowing that a few months down the line, he will be on the phone to me telling me about the latest problem with them and asking for my help – without actually saying the words, of course. AGAIN!
Today, I just feel such rage that he can agree one thing with me and then seem to deliberately do another when the going gets tough. And the going does get tough with teenagers, especially when they have been allowed to get away with it for years.
I love my teenager so very much but I’m sure that there is a certain amount of word-twisting going on, playing us off against each other – whether consciously or not – in the pain and frustration of trying to deal with parental separation. And if I call my Husband out on it, I’d like to think that he would deny saying what it is alleged that he said – although I cannot even be sure of that on past performances where his behaviour has been beyond understanding to any rational parent.
And this is the problem. Because nothing can be trusted. Perceptions of situations are different to each protagonist. People hear what they want to hear and make assumptions. They impute their own desire and interpretation onto the words that have been spoken, making it fit their own agenda. And then will argue until they’re blue in the face that you said something which you know you patently did not – because it was the one thing guaranteed to upset the apple cart.
All I can do is try again another day. Keep sticking to my guns and doing the best for my kids, no matter how much everyone in that house seems to want to fight me about it.
Or perhaps I should do what my guru, Don Miguel, says in his Four Agreements Cards
and ‘release the need to be right’.
I don’t want to destroy my relationship with my child in order to defend my position.
But wouldn’t that be sparing the rod and hurting the child?
I’m in a quandary.
I can understand how difficult it is for you with your husband being the primary adult in the lives of your children. I don’t think you should be digging your husband out of his problems though. He will never learn to be responsible all the time he has you to do that for him.
Your priority has to be your children, step back but be there for them when they need you. They are not young children, they are of an age now where they too should be learning to take responsibility for their own actions. This may sound harsh but your duty to your children now is to turn them into adults who can stand on their own feet.
hugs I feel for you I really do
It really helps to see it written down in black and white. Thank you x
Yuck!
Can you take the teenager out and have an intelligent heart-to-heart about all this? That’s what I would do. Because, regardless of your husband’s actions, your teenager needs to have some measure of understanding and control in the quagmire. Give your teenager the tools to be strong and make the right decisions in all this.
I don’t know if that made any sense. But definitely I learned early on that the more I talked with my kids, the more I gave them a sense of being intelligent, responsible individuals with choices, the more secure they felt. My situation was different in that I had them full-time… Nevertheless, I had to clearly explain the dynamics of the situation. I didn’t trashtalk their father… But I was very clear about what was going on. The more honest I was, the more knowledge they had, the more they understood. Then they were prepared to handle things as they arose.
This was the problem. Allowing myself to become enmired with stuff at the house. Ruf said exactly the same thing. When I can take the child away from that backdrop, things work much better. They know and understand the dynamic but they’re kids; they will exploit the situation and manipulate the adult that gives them the best deal. It’s just another blip on th learning curve as I navigate the way forward to the future x
“I try so hard to dig him out of problems of his own making. To clean up after he’s made a mess of things by not facing up to an incident as a responsible parent should. He asks me to do this! And all I say to him in return is that he must actively support me in this endeavour.”
There is your first mistake ;) You should NOT be digging him out of anything or cleaning up after any mess. He is a grown man and needs to be responsible for himself. What example are you presenting to your teenager by showing them that an adult can’t take care of their own problems.
I know. Easier said than done.
You are not responsible for his parenting or lack of it. You can only control your parenting and that is the message in my post. Change what you have control over and accept what you will never have control over. Such as how he parents your teenager.
It is okay to be the “bad guy” to your teenager and lay down ground rules. Just make sure no matter what you stick to them. What their Dad does you can’t control and in the end children see that. They will try to play one parent off of the other and I believe part of that is a cry for security. But I also believe the message we send to our children by being firm and not wavering with them it the one they will understand the most.
Doesn’t mean it will be easy ;)
Diva
It’s the whole cry for help thing that keeps me going back. But, you’re right, I have to start putting distance between us and stop clearing up his mess – especially when he just uses it to take the easy way out.
I have to focus on my new life and hope that my children will join me in it, not keep trying to live with one foot in the past.
Thanks again for helping me to see the future x