malc,,,, interesting statement you made on the other thread about lessons being passed on to our children. let me ask this question, what are wew teaching our kids? is it love, compassion, forgiveness and understanding, or is it sometimes there is nothing you can do but except the crap life hands out? and, how do you know the difference? ** note, i am not concerned to here it shouldn't matter what any body else thinks but rather some real opinions to the questions. pops

Hi Pops

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">malc,,,, interesting statement you made on the other thread about lessons being passed on to our children. let me ask this question, what are we teaching our kids? is it love, compassion, forgiveness and understanding, or is it sometimes there is nothing you can do but except the crap life hands out? and, how do you know the difference? ** note, i am not concerned to here it shouldn't matter what any body else thinks but rather some real opinions to the questions. pops </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Pop I was told it's real simple but people complicate things.

1. I was told, we are told things as children ,good bad and indifferent that will shape our lives forever.

2. I was told we were taught by our parent and society not to honor our feelings, when in pain to stuff our feelings. One of our famous sayings MOVE ON. Instead of finding out what went wrong and fix it.

3.We teach our children to lie not honor there feelings good bad indifference we teach them to run.

4. WE teach them it's OK to go after what we want regardless whom it hurt.

5. We teach, not to honor family not to respect family.

6 We teach them do as I say, not as I do when in fact our children mimic us they watch 24/7

7. We don't teach them treat another as you would want yourself treated.

What we run from we run into.
what we avoid it will continue to show up in our life with avenges.

Basically what been done here is to destroy the very fiber that the Creator put in place in the name of what I want.

Look at the president thousand and thousand of people will die because of what he wants.

Millions of marriages will be destroyed because of someone selfish wants.

Children lives will be devasted because know one considered there feelings as if they have none.

So many children will be born out of wedlock because someone decided to have a child without a father, or someone elses husband without considering the ramification of there choice they are only looking at the the now not tommorrow.

Basicly we are taught to live a lie we are taught not to take personal responsibilty for our action.

We are taught to rejoice in someone pain, we've become very good actors, in other words we have been taught not to be our true devine selves but a carbon copy of satan that's what we've been taught..

My CO-workers all ways ask me, what is it I do here on this site so I gave them a peak.

The first thing I was asked was these grown Women & men who was justifying these affairs, I said yes, they thought this site was a adolescent board or young people age ranging from 17 on up. They were just so shock to see grown up acting out this way.A statement was made no wonder our children are in trouble look who is teaching them.

I know what they are saying, because when I first came here I thought I was alone in my situation.

When I seen no remorse coming from some OW here. I was shocked I thought I was alone in my situation.

We teach what we live. There is no getting around it. We may have good intentions. We may say to ourselves, "I will not be like my mother" but we might end up worse off than our own parents!

Hopefully I have taught my OC whom I raised with CS but without contact that there is a purpose and a destiny that God has planned for OC's life and there must be a very important assignment that God has for OC since there was so much negativity surrounding his birth.

An affair is NOT the way to bring a child into this world but ultimately good can come out of bad situations.

Pops,

I worry and wonder about this also.

We have not yet told our newly adopted children about Mr. J's affair and child. We are scared of them thinking that their new home is not going to last either when that is absolutely not the case. If we made it through the A/OC we can make it through anything. I don't fear that we are going to teach them that As are acceptable because my H feels anything but that.

What I do worry is that we are going to teach them that being a Christian is the same thing as being a doormat. I have forgiven OW and we have worked out some sort of working relationship. We can even chat about kids stuff--you know what cute thing Precious did, how our boys are doing, what Halloween costumes they are wearing--Mom stuff. We have found our common ground. What I would like our boys to learn is some self preservation--that when someone hurts you the way OW hurt me (I will get to H in a minute) that you forgive, but you forgive with the door shut. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. She trampled all over me and my life and I haven't slammed the door in her face? I don't know how I can explain that? How can I say that my ability to forgive was strong enough that I can love Precious, be pleasant to her mother and yet, somehow can still protect myself? I have a rare ability to forgive. I am not bragging on myself. I know that it is rare and I have no other explanation than that God equipped me with enough of it to get through this horrible mess. Believe me, if I had to put up with some of the hideous behavior from our exOW that some BSs on this board do, you could hear the door slamming from anywhere in this country. She is allowed to poke her toe into our lives because she behaves herself and knows what the limits are.

So, my husband...the lesson that I hope our boys get is redemption and grace. He is a different case than our exOW. His part of this hurts much more than her part of it, but yet I forgive and love. I am accutely aware of all God has forgiven me for and I attempt to extend that Grace to my H. I could have chosen forgive with the door shut (divorce) and I think I would have gone on to a good life. However, the adoption of our boys was hanging in the balance. If I divorced I would never have gotten them as a single woman. (They generally won't let you adopt for 2 or 3 years following a major life event like a divorce or death of a spouse.) I stayed because I love him but also, in part to complete the adoption. Remember these kids had been in our home for 6 weeks. I had hugged my children, fed them, bathed them, tuaght them, disciplined them, played with them and loved them. And they loved us. Their loss would not have been some sort of abstraction for me--it would have been the equivalent of a crib death.

So I stayed in part due to children. OK, it is a basis to rebuild a marriage. Even the Harley's say so. What I made up my mind was that if I was staying in this marriage, I was not going to become a bitter, angry person. I would leave before I would hand that much power to his affair and lover. I made up my mind that forgiveness had to be total or it was a sham. In those rare moments when something triggers me and I feel the full force of his affair again, I keep my thoughts to myself. I don't need to punish him any more; he does a perfect job of that all on his own.

MJ

ladies,,,, sorry i haven't been able to reply but fh has been busy prepping for her cs hearing today. very interesting answers and all different.

malc,, i don't excatly know how to respond because you seem to have no positives anywhere.

btdt,, i have to agree that every child has been put on this earth for a purpose.

maryj,, i have to admit that i don't feel that i have forgiven om. that is because i believe that forgiveness is the work of God not me. i beleive my work is tolerence. i believe that as long as you are responsible for your actions i can tolerate you. (i don't mean you personally, instead you is meant here as anyone). as far as om is concerned, i hope i can teach my children that although this guy crossed a very person line i didn't have to lash out violently at him. therfore i hope to have taught my kids self control, patience and respect. my dealings with om is going to be just plain business. no extra chit chat. i will be able to show respect as long as i am shown respect.

as far as fh goes. i hope i have taught my kids that love and committment (marriage) are to be entered into seriously and that when you stand up and take vows with someone that you don't turn and walk away when times get tuff. i knew that i loved fh so although i had been hurt i had to work on the last part of the vows, for better or worse. again this goes back to responsibility. she has taken responsibility for her actions and expressed deep remorse for those actions. i see her struggling almost daily with her own quilt over the damage her actions have caused. this is both hard to see and frustrating because there is nothing i can do for her except to be patient and try to encourage her.

i also originally stayed in the marriage because of our small children. i knew that seperation was very difficult on children from my experiences with my oldest son. i just didn't want to put my little girls to bed at night with them ever crying because they miss their mommy. i hope that the lesson taught here (and it will be taught down the road as the girls age) is that sometimes you have to look past yourself and do what is best for those around you.

i don't feel that being a Chistain is being a doormat. instead i feel it means that being a Christain gives you the strenghth to face the deversity head on and prevail. it gives you the strength to face your adversaries face to face and be able to stand tall with your head held high when seemingly all your self esteem has been stripped away. and it gives you the strength to show the world that you have the heart of a lion to be able to be knocked down with such an emotional blow and wind up on your feet.

i don't see where the boys would feel like their world was caving in with the truth of precious. instead i think they would see the possitive in the fact that your h was meeting his responsibility to the confusion he created in your lives. i would believe that those insecure feelings would tend to raise if your home life were volital with a lot of anger around. it doesn't sound like that is the case in your home. i here you saying that your house is full of compassion and understanding.

imho i also think that it is not your ability to forgive that is so high but rather it is your own self confidence that is overwhelmingly high that allows you the ability to tolerate the turmoil that has been raised in your life. but that is just me. like i said i feel our job is tolerence not forgiveness. pops

Hi POPS

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">malc,, i don't excatly know how to respond because you seem to have no positives anywhere.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Pops but there are positives in what I wrote
by being an example doing something different from the norm.
teach children they are not only seen but heard also.

Teach them it's not alright to lie and hurt people. Look at what I wrote and honestly ask yourself am I quilty of any of these and start from there make the change. That's the positive side.

malc,,,, my appoligizes. like has happened here before i read your reply from a limited mind set and i missed what you were saying.

yes you are right those are lessons most definately needed to be taught. pops

pops
I hope the day goes well for you and fh, be strong and god bless.

Pops,

Thanks for your long and considered response. My kids' situation is a little different. There was infidelity in their first home that led to two homicide attempts on two different occassions by one of the three adults on the other. They saw their world disintegrate due to infidelity. (We knew none of this when we adopted them. This has all come to the surface since then and we have independelty confirmed their view of what happened by talking to third sources.) When children have lived in such stark terror, there are often triggers that lurk just below the surface.

I see it like this: All three adults had severe alcohol problems and the children were brutally abused when the adults were drunk. So, although no one in our home uses alcohol in an irresponsible manner, we no longer drink in our home. Just simply the sight and the smell of alcohol triggers traumatic memories for them. We have begun educating them about the dangers of alcohol abuse and explaining how their first family broke apart because of it. Our oldest son said it best "Papa, if I see you drinking vodka, I have to be going somewhere else so I be feeling safe. I am ascared of vodka." There may be a lesson to be taught about safe consumption of alcohol, but for right now, we are a dry family because the more important lesson for them to learn is that this is a safe home."

So, my fears about infidelity....I am afraid to trigger trauma in them. Eventually we have to get the truth out, but I don't think that they are ready yet. We are only a couple of months past them fretting nearly obsessively about what would happen to them if we died. They thought that they would wind up in an orphanage or being sent back to Russia. It was almost too much for them to comprehend that we had life insurance and a plan for who would raise them. That we loved them enough to make sure that they were taken care of even if we couldn't do it. Their roots aren't deep enough in our family yet. I'll admit that I thought that by one year home they would be like every other kid, but they brought their own special needs and their own life experiences to this family that affect them in ways I never understood nor anticipated.

It is hard to sit by and see your spouse tear themselves apart isn't it? At some points I just want to scream that it is unproductive because it keeps us focused on what happened instead of what we can make of our future.

MJ

mary jane </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Their roots aren't deep enough in our family yet. I'll admit that I thought that by one year home they would be like every other kid, but they brought their own special needs and their own life experiences to this family that affect them in ways I never understood nor anticipated.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I just wanted to comment on this, I thought the same for the child we adopted, and it has been 7 years, we still see the signs the abuse she suffered before her joining our family. But she has come so far, truly a blessing. But some damage isnt undone and there will always be some of the effects of there life before with them. But if you knew how far it has come, you would be amazed. So keep doing what your doing, we have always found it such a joy to see all the milestones she and we have come through. WE have come such a long way... Going from a small child of two stealing food, because she was scared she would not have any, a child who throws fits for 6 hours, to a child who loves to help cook and make things, who now has fits only a few min to an half an hour. Big difference. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Mo5,

Aha! you have been there, done that. Our boys have gone from 2 to 3 hours of rage tantrums a day down to none. It is the triggers and some disassociative behavior that concern me. I believe that their roots will develop and they will be firmly anchored in our family strongly enough that the news of infidelity and Precious will not pull them from the soil of our family. But right now, our goal at home is no earthquakes to uproot our little saplings. No even any aftershocks.

Glad you shared that with me. Yeah, some patterns get burned into the neurons. Our older son sometimes sits with me in the choir loft and although the music is lovely, he covers his ears and cringes when it is too loud. Loud noises meant--be careful, someone is drunk and the beating of children and the violence amongst the adults will soon begin. It also meant that the money had been spent on vodka and that there would be no food for yet another day. Our older son says there were often 3 days w/o a single bite of food and that at other times they lived on one pound of rice for a week. He cried throughout the 12 hour fasting he had to do in order for a medical test. He said it felt like being back in Russia. He sobbed and begged me to feed him but the medical test was necessary. Parenting child with a history is not easy but it can be very rewarding. My kids also love to cook and grocery shop.

MJ

maryj,,,,,, what a pity that so many c's in the world have had such experiences where one person has such little regard for the life of another. your boys must have some very horrible memories tucked away in their gray matter. let's hope that with time and continued out ppouring of love and kindness from those around them they will suppress those horrid thoughts and learn that life is a tremendous gift.

it has been discussed here before that information on these matters should be given as is age appropriate for the child. and also remember that the manor that the information is given is just as much a factor in how it is recieved as is the information itself.

not to make light of the alchohol situation but the up side is that wine, whiskey and rum are still options <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> for the responsible.

mo5,,,,,, thanks for the thought. as you know things going well in these matters tends to very opinionated depending from whose eyes you are looking thru.

i must admit that i am so proud of fh for the way she stood firm yesterday that it is overwhelming. i/we decided not to go with her for the reason that she had told the courts we were separated and she thought it would sem funny if i were there. i disagreed with that reasoning but felt that om would surely try to use our being together somehow against her. he did show up with his wife for the hearing but had her sit in the hall during the court part. he walked into the court room and sat next to fh, gave her his cutest smile and asked her to help him out and say something to the judge to be kind to his family. she asked him to sit somewhere else.

when the j asked fh if she had anything to say she replied "no". after the j told him how much he had to pay he asked the j not to do that to him and the j said that it was not him but om's own doing that landed him in this mess.

after court fh left and om left a message on her cell saying thanks for nothing, why weren't you honest like me and thanks for putting me on the street. here's the best part to me. fh called him back and told him off. letting him know again that it was i who requested her to seek cs not her, that she has always been honest, and that if that was his attitude don't even bother coming around because she doesn't trust him or those around him to be nice to grace or speak demeaningly of her around grace.

he went off on the if i'm paying i want her to have my last name, and the what about 50/50 custody (the j told him if he took some interest in his d then MAYBE he could get the amount reduced).

the amount he was ordered to pay was shocking to both fh and myself. i had figured about 400 - 500 plus half day care. he got he got over 600 plus half day care and arrearages.

i kind of feel sorry for his family but i wonder if he even feels sorry in the least for the pain and heartache he has caused my family. most likely he doesn't.

Well pops,
I don't think you should feel more sorry for OMs family than he did... The judge was right, OM made the choice to take risks with his family--his marriage and his finances... And we all know too well about the consequences of taking those kinds of risks--we are all living with them.

I agree that forgiveness doesn't mean be a doormat--that's why we can forgive with the door closed to further abuse.

Kids are tough tho. They are resilient. They handle the truth better than lies and so I guess the best thing to do is pray for wisdom in what to tell them, when, and how to tell them the truth.

(((fh&pops)))

sorry for not finishing but i had to run and meet fh for lunch.

anyhow i don't think anyone wins in these things. we all just try to get thru them with our heads up.

btdt,,,,, i agree that kids are very resilient. they always need the truth and if given to them with compassion they will be able to handle it and adjust.

funny i was just thinking of the very beginning of fh's relationship with om. she had just started to act funny around me and i had seen her coming out from lunch with him. i called her and asked if she were having an affair. she told him of my accusations and he imediately told her that he can no longer be her friend as he didn't want anything to jeoparidize his family. i gave him credit at that time for his morality. to bad it didn't hold up. i quess he started thinking with the wrong brain.

didn't elvis say it in song "fools rush in where wise men refuse to go"?

fh still has some apprehensions about stuff but i keep telling her to relax the balls in her court now. hopefully she will start to believe me soon.