Husband Visiting His Son, I feel sick
Struggles many like all of you here. SS, 29, has made it known for years now that he will have nothing to do with me. Family came to blows 6+ years ago when my oldest daughter made claims about this SS sneaking in her bedroom at night when they were teens. That all got dumped on me when I supported my daughter. The SS came out with all kinds of hateful comments against me, how I handled the sitaution (like he was Mr Know-it-all), etc and we have not seen each otehr or spoke since. My husband has tried to make contact from time to time but SS has been very resistant towards his dad. SS has been full of anger towards us, last time husband saw him he railed on his dad saying that I should not have had such a big role in raising them (their mother left them and husband was gone with work alot so that left me to raise them), he accused me of saying and doing all kinds of things that I never did, told his dad that he didn't know how he could have stayed with me but divorced his mom meaning that his mom would have been alot easier person to live/deal with and how could he have made such a lousy choice because he and his brother paid the price of his mistake.
Eventhough I have had no contact I have encouraged my husband to try and make peace with his sons. I have been thru counseling and realize thru her that I became the scapegaot for the issues the boys had with their parents and the real healing has to start with them.
Husband told me last night he had contacted his son about visiting and that it was received by his son. I am happy for my husband but sick to my stomach all at the same time. This kid has been so terribly terribly hateful towards me. His mother is a train wreck and the only stability this kid had was me yet he made every excuse undr the sun for his very selfish mother and I have been all the trouble. I gave and I gave and I gave to this child, always trying to do what was best for him. Finding out about him sneaking into my daughter's bedroom at nite was the final blow and if he, his mom, or whoever cannot understand how devestating that is I have no compassion for them. Never an apology, never a word of thanks. Just absolutely sickening!
Thank you StepAside! These
Thank you StepAside! These were the very words I needed to read. You are so right and to read your reply gives me strength.
StepAside I agree with
StepAside I agree with everything you say-except there are certain people in this world who do NOT deserve to be treated with respect. Respect is earned, not given. Steppunk 19 will not get one ounce of my respect until he earns it. Other than that-you go girl!
You are right, I wouldn't
You are right, I wouldn't tell steppunk 19 a fat slob at a family function....normally. I can't say I wouldn't tell him to quit being a damn "human horse with no consideration for someone other than himself and thinks it's OK to eat other people out of house and home" if I had to deal with much of his behavior and was fed up enough. Normal circumstances, no I wouldn't.(and when he helped us move he said "if I haven't eaten much for 2 days I'll eat them out of house and home") so it's not like he gets so hungry he eats more than he realizes. He acknowledges ahead of time that he's done it, has apparently thought about it and sees no problem with it.
So when you say the first type of respect is how you treat someone, I treat people with a certain level of courstesy because they are a member of the human race. It has nothing to do with how much I respect them.
For the pig behavior-I'd have to say there comes a point when enough is enough and if "pig behavior" is what it takes to get someone to back off and understand that you're not a doormat that's what it takes. Some people, stepkids or not, will walk all over you if you let them. Sometimes they need a smack upside the head-whether it be verbal boundaries, action boundaries, or whichever. For me, if that becomes necessary with steppunk 19, I will. 9 years of hell with him was waaaaay more than plenty and he's lucky I deal with him at all. KWIM?
In reference to this
In reference to this statement- "In my book, folks who can not take responsibility for their behavior, and only attempt to justify it, have not matured emotionally. It takes a bigger person with confidence to behave with grace and class, and when they screw up, to own it."
I think most young people enter a stae of narcissistic behavior in their teen years where everything is about them and little consideration is given to others in some cases. There are those who are simply lazy and never out-grown it, bums with no desire to be anything more and so be it. It's not fun to live with. But people who attempt to justify poor behavior, point the finger another direction to avoid responsibility for their own actions, those who lie and manipulate to get from people what they want for their own personal gain, those who have no empathy for another person are narcissistic. These people will never see anything they have done as wrong and will only twist tings arounf to make it look like it was your fault. These people drive huge wedges! Dealt with it more than I would like know. This is what is hard to forgive in my book.
StepAside always deals with
StepAside always deals with her Skids with such grace and poise. I don't know how she does it. But I wish for you some of the peace she exudes...
{{{hugs}}}
So sorry that your SS whom
So sorry that your SS whom you basically raised is acting this way. If it is any consolation, my biological son is acting like this to me.
He has issues from is father dying from cancer, and the issues he has with me are basically not MINE, but rather HIS. He has to deal with his anger of his father dying, etc..... My son doesn't feel "allowed" to have negative feelings about his father, because he is dead - so he dumps all of his anger on me. I have bowed out, and it is up to him to come around when he has dealt with his issues. His therapist says he is working with him on them, but my son is VERY stubborn.
I am not the only one who I have heard this - in regards to their biological kids - not just stepchildren. It's a crap shoot when you raise your own kids, or stepkids.
StepAside has some good advice.
Good luck.
Not-the-Mom, I am sorry to
Not-the-Mom, I am sorry to hear this about your son. My bios are 14, 25, 30....steps are 27, 29. Husband and I had custody of all of the children as the other parent in both husband and my first marriage abandoned the children. When the did come back into the kids lives it was filled with lies and manipulation to try and hurt the feelings the children had for us. They would come back asking all kinds of questions and telling us the stories these absent parents had told them. If we confronted the situation with the other parent, it made it worse, so we tried as much as possible to correct the stores and hoped that the kids would some day be able to see their other parent for who they are.
Since, I have heard things from the kids realizing these parents are not truthful or dependable. The kids have even made comment that the relationship with them is not that of a parent and child but more like that with an aunt or uncle. But what I see is a desire to have the love and acceptance for the parent that has already left them once and they do not want to jeopardize anything with them for fear they could very well walk away again. Because these other parents have bashed us the kids know/have known they have someone to run to if we get tough with them and the otehr parent will jump to their defense only to tear us down that much more. So who turns out the bad guy in this situation? Us, of course, and they can get away with their garbage because the other parent pats them on the back for their poor behavior.
I have been in and out of counseling over the 22 years I have been a step parent. I am currently in counseling now and have been for the past 7 months. My body finally got REAL REAL sick, partly continued stress from dealing with exes, bitter children, raising teens, and the ugliness of a step family without alot of input and support from my own husband. It will finally wear you down to nothing.
What I realized is that I was the type that welcomed all, felt I was capable of loving everyone and felt I could bring two hurt families togetehr as one and I took on more of my husband's responsibilities than I shoudl have but in some ways I had little choice as I did become the main aprent to all the children. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart I gave everything I could give to each and every one of them. I did feel my steps were my children and I raised them as such. Husband and I only had examples of intact families and we wanted top create this for our children, at first the other parents were very absent.
Now with blame as adults my counselor says the issues the children have is with the abandonment of their other parent. They cannot blame them or fault them for fear of losing what they currently have with them. Turjning on us is a way of showing their loyalities to a very unroyal parent, all for the sake of love and acceptance from this parent that willingly left these children's lives when they were little. My couselor told me I could have done everything right eventhough no parent has all the right answers but my SSs never wanted to accept me. They wanted to blame me and hurt me because of what happened between their bio parents and while I was not the one to blame, I became the scapegoat, their target for their hurt and frustration. She told me as long as I were to stay involved with them they would see me as the bad guy and may all their lives and they would have to go very deep to figure out what the real issues were truly about. So she told me to completely disconnect and I did. I don't know that my bios completely understand. They consider the boys their brothers and they see me turning my back to them rather than forgiving them so their has been alot of hurt and pretty much nothing I can do about any of it as the whole thing has taken so many twists an turns along the way.