I'm not saying you're crazy. I think you're dealing with unbearable pain. It's just that we've been through the legal system with custody issues, where we had to do things we KNEW weren't helping the kids...because the judge said so. And I don't want this to boomerang on you. That's all.

tl

I talk to son about lying and how *I* feel about it. I talk about the fact that his father lied to me and that it destroyed my trust in him.

For me, because OW#1 took off, and DS was so young, his experience is different. He meets dad's 'friends' and they move in and out of his life. He was never forced to live with OW. I pushed his dad to keep OW from living with him, and he chose to comply as he bounces from woman to woman.

Thank you. I do know you are trying to help. I have got to get control of myself.

And it is unbearable pain.

My best friend was pregnant when she finally left her very WH. She had to send her dsnewborn to WH who was living with OW....She had a hard time for the first 2 years...then she remarried and things got much easier....I have been thinking about how much easier it would be to be sending a newborn off with WXH....newborn couldn't understand....wouldn't know how bad I'm hurting....My ds was 9 when this blew up. He has known all the highlights since just before WH moved out.

What does your son say when you talk about how his fathe lied and destroyed trust? I guess what throws me is that when I talk to ds about it calmly he still acts as if it doesn't bother him..it is only when I melt down that he gets upset. Why isn't he more upset by how his father treated me? By what his fathe did to us both?

I would listen to tl.

You are saying yourself that you need to get this under control. What do you think you can do this weekend to begin to deal with the anger?

For me, I liked to read and to be active to keep my mind busy. I started cleaning the house up, redecorating where I could, finishing projects that needed tending to.

I started with reading "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie.

DS acknowledges what I am saying. Usually, I am talking to DS about something HE did wrong, and then he says "That's why you left daddy, 'cuz he lied to you". I usually use it as a time to teach and to clarify that I won't be leaving him if DS lies, but he will have swift consequences.

Be very careful, SW, about your interactions with your son. You are blurring the lines here when you expect him to act as you do, and that you have to escalate your emotional response to get a reaction out of him.

He is the child, and should be treated as such, not as an adult. You could very well be confusing him. He doesn't have the coping skills of an adult, and therefore does not DEAL in the same way as an adult would, nor react in the same way. He may very well be trying to avoid making your emotional state worse by clamming up.

Your DS should not be the shoulder to lean on, SW. He should be leaning on YOU. Stop trying to elicit some response from him, to get him to feel sorry or bad for you. That's not fair and is dangerously close to abuse

Have you thought about your son's identity being tied up with his mom and dad. If his dad could be so horrible, does that make DS horrible. Is HE, the child, to blame for the divorce because he was so horrible? Your DS could be thinking these things...

Ok....I bought paint...friends committed to coming over Sunday after services to help me with that project. I bought a new IPod so I can go run and have my stuff on NIKEPlus....

I do have work to do around here...pics to hand etc.

And just now God spoke up to me.....the phone rang...it is my paranoid schizophrenic brother who is institutionalized.....saying....sister...can you come tomorrow and buy me some snacks? And a key for my room? It costs $3....

And for those of you are saying to themselves 'ah I see the crazy gene...'....:) He isn't biologically related to me. He is actually my half brother's half brother....but he thinks I am his sister and I live close by and do what I can for him. It is helpful to remember that I don't have it that bad. I could be 46 years old and living in an institution.

I am very dark and that does a WORLD of good. That is why I push so hard for other people to go dark and stay as dark as possible. I see what happens when even a little crack appears. I see how it throws me.

Your son loves you because you are HIS MOM. Your son loves your XWH because he is his DAD. I was horribly physically and emotionally abused by my Dad growing up. I still love him and I always have. I learned a lot from those experiences though, good and bad.

You need to find a different way to get your anger out. I know you don't want to tell your DS about what is going on and have him as your support. I know that you are a good mom. The fact that you recognize that you don't want to do it and feel badly when you do tells me that you are a great mom. You have made mistakes. I HAVE MADE MISTAKES. The thing is, you need to show your DS what people do after they make mistakes. How they tell someone they are sorry, and then change the behaviour so they don't repeat the mistakes. Remember? There are lessons you are teaching your son all of the time. That is how I deal with each sitch.

Have I ever said too much to my DSx2? Probably. Usually, it is because I became overwhelmed. I still have boundaries I will NOT cross. Things I will NOT say. If I feel like I have gone too far, I will tell them that I am sorry. That I should not have said things like that and that it isn't their fault. They need to learn how to deal with things that make them angry. Your DS needs to learn how to deal with people that make him angry.

Do you have people who can really support you IRL? Do you have a friend who you could call and just cry, or scream about what has happened. It ISN'T fair. NONE of us wanted this to happen to us. NONE of us deserved to be treated this way. You can either let the anger consume you, or you can work through it, teach your son some lessons and MOVE FORWARD.

Like SL said, you can't go around the feelings, they will always be there. You need to work through them and deal with them. I have yelled many times(when alone). I have cried and sobbed in my bed at night. I have had tears streaming down my face in the shower as I looked up to God and said, "Why?" I have spent HOURS talking to my friends on the phone(when DSx2 were asleep) or in person in my friends van in my driveway. I also know that the anger will eat me alive. I don't let myself get too angry. It's not easy, but I have to try.

This may sound a little funny but when I first had kids, I said that I just wanted to try to make sure they didn't have to go to therapy for years because of how I raise them. THAT helps me figure out how to deal with them. I MAKE mistakes. NO ONE is perfect. Learn from your mistakes and move forward. Show your DS how someone can be incredibly cruel towards you and YOU will still be kind. Also, kids eventually figure out on their own exactly who their parent is. You won't need to teach him THAT lesson.

I know. I feel abusive. I feel horrible tonight. I wish I....didn't exist.


I do think it is possibel that his idenity could be tied to his father...if dad is bad and I bad too...not so much that he thinks he is to blame for the divorce though. I've been clear on that.

When my parents divorced I aligned myself closely with my mother. I didn't care if I ever saw my dad again. And I rarely did. I guess I just can't see how ds wants to see his father after all this.

THAT is stinkin thinkin. You made a mistake, SW. What do you think you should do in it's aftermath to correct the problem and move forward?

Your son needs you. He loves his father, SW. He doesn't want to suffer MORE loss.

Think about why you 'aligned' yourself with your mother. Was it something she said to you? Was it interactions that you witnessed between mom and dad? Did you come to this decision unbiased?

He will figure out what kind of a man his father is all on his own, because his father will reveal it to him .

I did apologize, but will do so more calmly when he returns and also STOP what I'm doing. I have to let him enjoy his time with his dad and even with OW and her son.


I do have people....but I am sick of leaning on them. I am sick of saying the same thing over and over for a year. I just want to be free of this. I want it to end. It seems it will only end when I just accept that I lose. But I guess I have to lose to be the mom I want to be.

Like SL said, you can't go around the feelings, they will always be there. You need to work through them and deal with them. I have yelled many times(when alone). I have cried and sobbed in my bed at night. I have had tears streaming down my face in the shower as I looked up to God and said, "Why?" I have spent HOURS talking to my friends on the phone(when DSx2 were asleep) or in person in my friends van in my driveway. I also know that the anger will eat me alive. I don't let myself get too angry. It's not easy, but I have to try. [/quote]

I have spent a year talking to my friends. I've got to stop. I've got to stop thinking and discussing it. I have things to keep me busy this weekend...I do things like I'm a robot....but I figure at least I'm productive. Paint ds's room. Take care of mentally ill 'brother'. Do service work. Go to religious services.

Maybe someday when ds is gone with his dad I will have fun and enjoy my free time.

You may. I mostly do try to enjoy my time. I sleep in and generally relax more. I also read and take care of business, errands, shopping, etc.

I ALWAYS think about DS being with his dad and what they may be doing and who with. I don't do it constantly, but I am further removed from the pain than you are SW. I have been in a form of Plan B since I separated two and a half years ago.

The only times I am away from my DSx2 is when they are at school(it's summer vaca), or when I am at work(not much fun there). I actually need to start having a life away from them, because I don't want to follow DS7 to college(although he says he is NEVER moving, oh I pray he is WRONG tehehehe)

The Zombie state of just being is a coping mechanism. It is a way to get through grief. At some point you have to grieve though. Have you ever truly grieved? Things happened so fast for you. Is there some symbolic way that you can grieve the life you had, the life you thought you would have? By burial or cremation? Then move forward. I am making sure I say, "FORWARD" and not "On" because it will always be a part of you.

I'm kind of a homebody, so I like to watch movies and sit out on the deck, just listening to the birds and sounds of children playing, cars driving by and lawn mowers whirring.
I read, sometimes bake, cook and talk talk talk to whoever will listen (when I'm in a talking mood)

When I still owned my own home, I would garden and make the yard pretty, take care of my pool and hot tub and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

You are still so close to Dday, SW.

I know I sounded harsh earlier, but you need to take control. I understand what you are going through and how painful this all is. One day at a time. Some days you will just work to get one foot in front of the other. As long as you choose it, better days will come

I'm sure you read what Melodylane went through ten years ago. The death of her son and then her marriage and then her other son went to live w/ his father and OW.

I can't think of anything worse to have to go through all at once. But, she told me the only thing that helped her get through it at the time was exercise. She just threw herself into it. And stopped going to support groups b/c they kept her focused on her pain.

So, in a way you're right, you've got to stay busy. Maybe take up exercising like Mel did. Exercise until you are too tired to think about your sorrow.

Maybe you could pick up the book I recommended or the one Sil did. You could read a little bit of it right before bed so you fall asleep thinking over what they say.

In the meantime, go easy on yourself, SW, you've been through a terrible trauma. You're just trying to find your way out to the otherside. You will get there!

((((((((SW))))))))

Also, have you thought about going to the DRs and seeing if you can get on some ADs? Something to help take the edge off for you?

I started exercising too (walking). I took better care of myself, in general.

I took AD's for a while, but it was exercise that seemed to help ME the most. Each person is different. I also didn't stop talking about the pain, the anger, with my closest friends. I would post here, too. I would read here too, so as to not feel my sitch was so 'special'. That would spurn me on to work harder on healing, especially when I read about others who had come before me recovering.

I'm voting for the FIRE!

tl

Me too but it depends on what it is. I thought of it like a symbolic Phoenix rising sort of thing.

I know it is bad thinking...I am not exactly suicidal...I just want to disappear. I know I can't though....I know it would devastate my son because I do know *I* am who he depends on.


I doubt we come to any decision unbiased...I witnessed my father being in the wrong. I don't really remember a lot of discussion from my mom....she was of the school of not bad mouthing kid's father...I hated him because he made my mom cry. I was 8 when they divorced. My brother was 3 and he didn't 'get' how bad my father is until he was well into his 30s.


Yeah, that is if I don't turn him TOWARD his father before then.