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Exhausted and Back to Square One
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<blockquote data-quote="WSM" data-source="post: 215955" data-attributes="member: 5169"><p>Thank you. You are very kind to say that. There's always the suspicion that he's scapegoated or I'm the wicked stepmother and since he says he's being abused, there is always suspicion. </p><p> </p><p>We were told by the probation officer, the one who later disappeared, to keep a journal of what he did. After my husband went to the last comprehensive psychiatric evaluation and forgot a couple important factors such as a couple incidents of self harming and the picture, I suggested we get a notebook for all the evaluations, all the police reports, all the events so that in the future we can just hand over a copy to anyone who wanted to evaluate him, court, medical, educational, whomever.</p><p> </p><p>He thought it was a good idea, and I started on it, but he didn't help and I was the only one doing it, and it felt like I was keeping a dossier or a tattle tale sheet on him.</p><p> </p><p>My husband is overwhelmed and has a tendancy to stick his head in the sand or say, what can I do, nothing works, I'll do nothing. In his heart of hearts, he wants to coddle and pamper stepson, he feels very guilty about the 3 and a half years stepson spent with his mother, and how he was put in to 3 foster homes. He doesn't want to label, he doesn't want to research, he says he's sick of mental illness, and hates 'labels' and just worries that he's going to spend his whole childhood being unhappy (as it seems we are going to spend all stepson's childhood being unhappy) and he wants stepson to approve of him. husband had a problem mother and he spent his childhood trying to make her life better and keeping her stable, then he married a very ill woman and tried to help her, and now he is trying to rescue his son. He's been trained to rescue and make happy, not to do tough love.</p><p> </p><p>And it doesn't really matter, because I don't think there really are options for stepson anyway, so why not ignore the problem? Except it's warped our lives and keeps us in turmoil and is exhausting, humiliating, expensive, and depressing. </p><p> </p><p>Anyway, re the journal. husband was resentful because I was cataloging and it felt to him like all I want is to record all the bad things stepson does. I stopped doing it, and the therapist we are seeing agreed with that. It's husband's responsibility as a father. I'm just the stepmother; it's not my responsibility. </p><p> </p><p>So I'm not doing it, and he's not doing it, and it makes it easier for him to 'forget' what's going on and not see patterns and to see stepson as normal but just a little troubled. His kid, his choice. But I wonder often how long I can tolerate being uneasy. What about when this boy is 14, 15 or more? </p><p> </p><p>I'm not criticizing, he tries, he really does, there are no answers, and this is something that just kills your soul, and he doesn't know what to do, and he's sorry I have to deal with it, and he's worried that our handling of it makes it all worse, and he feels bad that stepson is so unhappy and hurt that stepson doesn't seem to care about him and when he's nice to stepson, stepson retaliates by doing something awful in return.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="WSM, post: 215955, member: 5169"] Thank you. You are very kind to say that. There's always the suspicion that he's scapegoated or I'm the wicked stepmother and since he says he's being abused, there is always suspicion. We were told by the probation officer, the one who later disappeared, to keep a journal of what he did. After my husband went to the last comprehensive psychiatric evaluation and forgot a couple important factors such as a couple incidents of self harming and the picture, I suggested we get a notebook for all the evaluations, all the police reports, all the events so that in the future we can just hand over a copy to anyone who wanted to evaluate him, court, medical, educational, whomever. He thought it was a good idea, and I started on it, but he didn't help and I was the only one doing it, and it felt like I was keeping a dossier or a tattle tale sheet on him. My husband is overwhelmed and has a tendancy to stick his head in the sand or say, what can I do, nothing works, I'll do nothing. In his heart of hearts, he wants to coddle and pamper stepson, he feels very guilty about the 3 and a half years stepson spent with his mother, and how he was put in to 3 foster homes. He doesn't want to label, he doesn't want to research, he says he's sick of mental illness, and hates 'labels' and just worries that he's going to spend his whole childhood being unhappy (as it seems we are going to spend all stepson's childhood being unhappy) and he wants stepson to approve of him. husband had a problem mother and he spent his childhood trying to make her life better and keeping her stable, then he married a very ill woman and tried to help her, and now he is trying to rescue his son. He's been trained to rescue and make happy, not to do tough love. And it doesn't really matter, because I don't think there really are options for stepson anyway, so why not ignore the problem? Except it's warped our lives and keeps us in turmoil and is exhausting, humiliating, expensive, and depressing. Anyway, re the journal. husband was resentful because I was cataloging and it felt to him like all I want is to record all the bad things stepson does. I stopped doing it, and the therapist we are seeing agreed with that. It's husband's responsibility as a father. I'm just the stepmother; it's not my responsibility. So I'm not doing it, and he's not doing it, and it makes it easier for him to 'forget' what's going on and not see patterns and to see stepson as normal but just a little troubled. His kid, his choice. But I wonder often how long I can tolerate being uneasy. What about when this boy is 14, 15 or more? I'm not criticizing, he tries, he really does, there are no answers, and this is something that just kills your soul, and he doesn't know what to do, and he's sorry I have to deal with it, and he's worried that our handling of it makes it all worse, and he feels bad that stepson is so unhappy and hurt that stepson doesn't seem to care about him and when he's nice to stepson, stepson retaliates by doing something awful in return. [/QUOTE]
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