Adult Children Know it ALL!!!!
I could really use some input! Raised 2 steps and 3 bios (his, mine and ours). Husband and I have been together 22 years. My ex & husband's ex abandoned their children, contact was minimal- their choice. When exes would spend time with kids they would fill their heads with lies which would come to us, we'd correct. I tried to talk to each parent and help them realize that their actions were hurting the kids but I was not heard and infact it just made things worse.
My oldest was very much daddy's girl and we started having all kinds of issues when her dad left. She was seeing a counselor requested by school because of the trouble she was getting into. Counselor felt she had an unrealistic fantasy picture of her dad in her mind and blame was full on me, everything I did was wrong.
Oldest step was very in love with bio mom and absolutely crushed that she had left him. Everything he said about her was glistening with sparkles for her. Rejection was full-swing for me. My daughter and oldest stepson made quite a team and together I was marked as the problem.
Fast Fwd: this is 22 years later now. Kids are 25, 27, 29, 30 and we share one teen at home. I think there has been alot of talk among the older 4 on how "we" have been the hurtful parents. 27 year old, thru emails this past year told us what terrible parents we were and how we did him wrong. 25 year old who recently visited told me pretty the same, asked me to go to counseling. Basically I was put under a microscope and everything that was implanted in her heads from ex, her sister and her step brothers was being analyzed. I was being watched.
I did end up in counseling. We had received 2 emails from two different kids within days of each other and it was too much for me. The counseling is helping an awful lot. It is not what my bios and my steps are thinking of me and "my" problems that is comig out in counseling....infact they would be very hurt to find out that I am actually getting lots of support for the very hard job of raising these kids.
What hurts the most is being told that I did not love them, that I wasn't there for them, and the indirect statements that I was the trouble maker. I built my whole world around my family. Everything I did was about my kids & steps. My career was run out of my home so I could be there for the kids. We were the family who always had an extra kid at the table for dinner. It was our house that the neighborhood kids came to to spend time. I was at every function. Always celebrations and pats on the back, rewards. I tried very hard to spend one-on-one time with each child. I was always thinking how to be fair to each child so no one felt favored. From the time I woke up in the morning til the time I went to bed my life was about my children, my marriage, my home. And now this? It stings! These kids have no clue what is/was in my heart.
Has anyone had to deal with this? I would really like to hear how you managed to cope. I have had to let go and that hurts. If the kids see me as the one to blame, the one that wrecked their lives, I don't see how we are going to move fwd.
My counselor said this is typical 20-something behavior. They get to a point in their life and reflect on hurts from their past and blame the person they have had the closest tie to, the person who will listen, counselor said it is normally the mom. She told me it is best not to take any of this personally and realize they are trying to find themselves and work out their own issues. In the case of my steps she did suggest that I make no contact and completely disengage......she felt they were blaming me for the mother's abandonment and I had become the easy target for their pain. All good advise and I am doing just as counselor suggested but it is hard. Husband and I were talking abut this last night and he too is hurt. I wanted so badly to give my kids everything I could and I feel I gave 100% of myself, so to see all this turn out like this is disheartening.
Counselor said I am a very compassionate person and that it is very typical for USERS (narcissistic people) to use people like myself to turn the blame onto, which I think has happened, and could see it happening the whole time but could not manage to turn the lies from exes around.
Perhaps I shouldn't but because this all has bothered me and I want my daughter to know that my counselor thinks I am okay and that I did what any mom would do to help and protect her children, I have shared some things with her what the counselor has said.
These kids are absolutely cluelss and have no way to comprehend what I/their dad (stepdad) have had to deal with, yet I feel every move and every word is under complete and total scrutany. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Dear AVR1962, Hugs to you for
Dear AVR1962, Hugs to you for having been caring enough to love and raise these children. Sometimes raising steps or in my case raising Gsteps ends up different then we expected. Young people often are so busy complaining how life failed them they do not see the many times a caring adult was there for them. Sometimes it takes going through having their own children,going through divorce and going through struggling the hard times on their own to realize how it feels to be in anothers shoes. I have found that sometimes repeating the accusations and complaints made of me and stating them as fact to other people often works better then continuing to defend myself or argue. Often the accusations are so far fetched it takes repeating them as fact to clearly see just how rediculous it sounds. Leave the emotional baggage out and simply state the remark as fact. Here are a few of my favorites: When DH told me his kids did not come around to visit because they did not like me I quit defending myself. If the subject comes up I say his kids don't like me. If asked why , I say "according to DH I tried to steal their kids." See how rediculous that sounds? Everyone who knows us was aware that the only other choice was foster care. Same thing works for a variety of complaints. Yes, I am heartless. Yes I am a bitch. I was never there for you. I stoled your parent away from a perfectly happy marriage. I keep your father from giving you money. I plotted ways to mistreat you. and the list goes on.
Thanks, good tactic, I'll
Thanks, good tactic, I'll give it a try.
Thank you so much for your
Thank you so much for your reply! You hit the nail right on the head with many points. I do have to stop being the martyr, I need to draw those boundaries and leave them in place without feeling an ounce of guilt or remorse.
I think as parents, whether bios or steps, we give and give and give eventhough our children can be hateful at times and I think I got used to all the grumbles and just pressed on. When it continues as adults like this has it looks completely different.
If I look back to my 20's I recall a person who was always willing to help, always wanting family to get along and going out of my way to make visits and set up functions. After being emotionally stabbed in the back repeatedly I have not only been hurt but I have got to the point where I said, "No more." I have felt I was being mean and my own bio (25) has made comments about me trying to get along. At this point there is no going back. The damage is done. Has anyone realized what they did that hurt me? They look and harp at what I did. And like you said, the apologies made no difference.
My sister-in-law who butt her nose in where it didn't belong and undermined my authority with my stepsons apologized to me recently after many years gone by. Was she sincere? I hardly think so. I think she did it because she wnated her brotehr back in her life. I did not fall for it.
It's this stuff that my bios (and steps) and sitting back and making judgement on. They have no way to comprehend what it was like to deal with husband's ex/ my ex......I understand they love their parents and they have that right but these exes made our life miserable and they filled the kids' heads with such outrageous nonsense.
My 25 year old keeps landing hints about how other people are trying, she is the one that asked me to go to counseling because she could see I was angry. I feel bad that I want nothing more to do with my inlaws but I never liked them in the first place. So I am thinking I need to just try but I do not want to be set up for yet anotehr horrible experience with these people. These are not epople I would have anything to do with if I were not married to my husband. I do not expect my husband to attend every function with my family and no one harps on him but somehow I have to be the magical "peace maker?" It's frustrating!
I did get a chance to unload some of my feeling on 27 year old stepson before I completely disconnected. I turned his little tricks and lies right back at him. I think that was one reason he got so furious. He had been married like 3 years or so and I think he has not told his wife the truth of what has happened and in order to shut me up he had to turn his fury towards his dad and I.
Your reply has regained my strength, thanks agian for taking the time to reply to my post.