Decompression
In two hours, it will be time to begin heading over to pick up SS from camp. Don't know what to make of the past week. Seemed like SS had come so far in so many ways, but that he can't go away for 6 days and 6 nights without "checking in" like an obsessive stalker has me steaming, to say the least. Glad for some early morning time to vent before the Beloved awakes.
Discovered yesterday that school starts back this Wednesday, so that's a bit of a relief. They'd somehow put up last year's school calendar on the web site and I was in a panic thinking he'd be stuck up under us 24/7 for an extra week and a half. His mother hasn't taken him for this weekend or last because of camp. Maybe she'll step up to take him next weekend. There is never a set visitation schedule. Even when there is one, it changes constantly, usually within a day or hours of the agreed upon weekend. Always an emergency, urgency or crisis in the life of BM and her progeny.
So I really can't smack the whiny being around and bury him beside the road on the way home. Seems as if he's intent on sabotaging any arrangements we make that do not include our dragging him around with us everywhere we go. Does that mean we give up on making independent arrangements and activities for him (and ourselves)? Don't know just yet. His father doesn't object to putting him in activities, but doesn't actively work at finding any or getting him into them either. Is there a summer camp especially tailored to whiny, mentally and emotionally immature teens? One where they will not give in to incessant demands to phone home and "check up" on (IOW, control) their capable, responsible parents?
I don't deny there is a selfish motive in my wanting this almost 14yo behemoth to find his own interests, activities and life. Clingy, needy, helpless people are repulsive to me. My family was loving and supportive, but stressed independence and our working out our challenges on our own without a lot of drama. My brother and I left home and began living on our own by the time we were 18 and my daughters did the same. Not because we were forced, but because we were all excited to live independently out in the big wide world. How can a young person with no friends or independent interests, one who depends entirely upon a few adult family members to provide all of his entertainment and activities, ever develop to lead any kind of fulfilling or successful life? I see where it's gotten SS's dad, whose own father consistently and actively sabotaged any effort the Beloved made toward an independent life and interests.
Who am I to insert myself into this (IMO) pandemonium of utter nonsense that the Beloved and SS were perfectly happy with before I came along? Then again, the Beloved was not at all happy when we met. He was drawn to me because he said he'd found peace with me that he'd never known before. I was apparently the first person who ever told him it was ok to make himself happy and to be happy. Now it's his son who seems to struggle with that concept. He only behaves as if he's content and happy when he's hooked into his dad like a strangulating octopus. His father is not necessarily overly facilitating or enabling of the behavior, but he does express more patience for it than I'm able.
With two very needy individuals in my household, albeit needy for different reasons and in varying ways, I struggle to keep touch with myself and hold on to my balance. Until now, I've shared a lot of my good with a young fellow who actively and sometimes intentionally fails to earn it. I've put off a lot of my fun and interests frantically trying to get him to show some interest in something, anything! That is, in essence, a living death for me and it needs to end yesterday. Does getting back in touch with myself and my own life and interests omit active participation in the lives of the Beloved or SS? I dunno just yet.
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Wow, things are going
Wow, things are going downhill fast. Not many details about camp other than poor Baby Huey (SS13.5) didn't make friends wif everyone. Awww. A barrage of questions about what Dad did - "Did you fix the brakes?" (Nah, Einstein, we're making this 150 mile r/t without any!) "Did you fix Grandma's car?" "Did you cut the grass?"
By the time he got to the last stupid question I lost it and responded, "Didja really think we'd sit home and slave for the week you were gone?!" Like, who's the parent here? How are those things any of his concern? As soon as SS was home again, he commenced to "cleaning" his room. He who thinks he wants to be a mechanic like his dad when he grows up wasn't interested in helping his father tune up my car. The same car that takes him to and from camp, on family camping trips and anywhere else he and his father need or want to go.
"Cleaning" is apparently a code word for arranging his furniture and everything else so SS has a bird's eye view into the hallway and can detect every movement coming from our bedroom or the bathroom. I kid you not. Pillows at the FOOT of the bed which juts out in view of his door. Bed shoved into the far corner that gives him the best view of the f'ing door! What is wrong with this kid? He makes me feel so smothered and violated. Not that it's me he's interested in. I'm just the resident maid. It's all about "Dad. Dad. Dad." (The tone resembles a calf bleating for a teat.)
Late in the afternoon, it occurred to us adults that we needed cigarettes. Swear I heard dad go down the hall to tell his kid that we were going to run to the store and would be back shortly. I was relieved that I might have a minute to speak to dad ALONE. An inaudible exchange occurs as I'm walking out the door and suddenly Baby Huey is walking out to get in the car. Oh no. OH HELL NO. What exactly do you want, Beloved? It doesn't take 3 f'ing Aggies to go to the store for cigarettes and the third one is not of age to buy or smoke them anyway. I'll go by myself.
When I got home, it seemed that SS was determined that I not have a moment alone with his FatherGod. Finally, the insecure little shiznit strolled back to his bedroom and I snatched up the Beloved with a "we need to talk." I made him walk up on the hill with me and he asked why. Can you say "PRIVACY", Dad. Dad. Dad?!?! I told him that I was already struggling with resentment over a kid who can't go to camp for a week and leave us in peace because he has to phone his only friend in the whole wide world (Dad) multiple times per day. That the pillows on the foot board and the bed scooted all the way over to the wall so I have to see him and he has to see (and hear) us come or go from the bedroom or bathroom is just too gross an invasion of privacy and that I felt smothered. That the bed better get moved back where it was and the pillows find their way to the head board before Baby Huey goes to bed tonight. And that Baby Huey only has 4.5 years before he turns 18 and he needs to grow up and get his own f'ing life, SOON. Biodad's response was a curt (and likely passive aggressive), "I get your point."
I did the evening chores by myself. The Beloved offered to help, but I politely refused and explained the chores were helping me to blow off steam. Seemed like it was working, until 2 hours later when I came in to use the bathroom and sat in someone else's pee on the seat. When I lifted the lid, it was streaming down the inside of the seat too. SS never lifts the lid and always misses. Nobody ever bothers to clean the toilet but me, of course. I tried to let it go, but when the Beloved came to ask whether I minded if he took a shower, I said, "sure, and clean all that piss off the toilet seat that I just sat on too!" He immediately lashed back that he was the last one to use the toilet so he must have done it. He never misses the toilet, nor a chance to make excuses for his sloppy son. I told him that who it was didn't matter other than I'M SICK OF WIPING OTHER PEOPLE'S PISS OFF MY TOILET!!!
At that he asked, "Are you done?" I told him that yes, I was DONE. He caught my tone and said he'd just make a new arrangement then. Then he went off and took a shower and is now parked out in the living room. I guess he isn't making a new arrangement tonight.
The Beloved has been the light of my world more often than not, but I cannot bear his son. I've done my best as far as feeding, clothing, putting a roof over SS's head and even provide a lot of fun activities. But, I'd want nothing to do with SS if he was some random individual I just happened to meet out in the world. It isn't that SS is a total loser, but he won't unplug from his needy, clingy, helpless and self-sabotaging ways. His dad doesn't seem inclined to grow a set big enough to insist his son grow up. Dad will likely let me go rather than do what he needs to do for his son. I won't protest if they go. This is too draining and unproductive.
The next morning and nothing
The next morning and nothing has changed really. Bf slept on the couch. SS is closing the door to his room, which is probably their answer to not moving the bed back as I asked. Within a few days, he'll have the door cracked constantly and then after another few days, wide open unless I walk by and close it for him. Wish they would go somewhere. I'd put his room back to the less intrusive manner that it was before with an arrow sign on the head board, "HOUSE RULE: Pillows and head belong here." If they don't go somewhere, I'll probably catch the brat and make him put it back. It does no good for me to explain how intrusive his doing things like that are (even though I will) because he'll just go to his father and they'll shake their heads and puzzle about why I'm so bitchy (or such a bitch).
Guess the bf and I are in a stand off at this point. I want him to stop playing "best friend" to his overgrown behemoth and be a real parent. Set some boundaries and stick to 'em! That's not specifically for my benefit although we'd all benefit from it. Those two who resist any expectations and boundaries are they who have the most to gain, little do they realize. (sigh)