Still, maybe we'll start taking him to dinner once a
week or so?
Yes. I would do this. (I have done this!)
It is never wrong to love our children any way we can. It helped me to be very clear
with myself about what I would need to see from the child before I would help in any way. It will help you and husband to know with like, crystal clarity, what the signposts of progress will be for this son.
Then, tell that to the son.
That was the only defense I had. Seeing them, loving them and being so disgusted and angry and vulnerable all at the same time, we need to know what our own expectations are. Otherwise, everything slides into enabling, and it is all left to do again.
Recovering posted to me once that we will know we are enabling if we resent what we have agreed to do to help.
That information was golden to me.
That is how you can know whether you are helping or enabling.
Jabber thinks he just wants to get a foot in the door. I prefer to think he does actually miss us a tiny bit - but I know Jabber's probably right
I think you are both right. There is nothing easy about any of this. On the other hand, if we are very clear in our own hearts and heads about what we need to see from our child, those times might be a way to turn this around.
I am forever trying to turn this around.
I would not expect less of myself.
But I need to be crystal clear
with myself about where I want this to go, and about what the signposts of growth are going to look like, and about where I need to remember to place myself emotionally.
It's very hard.
But you can do it.
Our extended family's Thanksgiving is in 16 days and I don't want an hour and a half car ride over the river and thru the woods to grandmother's house with someone I can barely look at. I don't want to be on the verge of tears in front of Jabber's family. I'm so dreading the holidays.
I'm sorry. Holidays are very, very hard for us, too. What I can tell you is that you are here now, and you have all of us. However all this works out, you will be able to take some measure of comfort, here.
For what it is worth, I would speak very clearly to my child about family and love and holidays and time passing. I would require that the child be home the night before the driving to the family part. I would be uber clear, both with the child and in my own mind, that there are problems that will need to be dealt with
after I have given myself and my child the joy, the time out of time, that holidays represent.
You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain from the strength of family, and of tradition.
Because the situation is what it is, I would discuss it in just that way with my difficult child. At the end of the holiday (and no reworking the problems in the car on the way home ~ the holiday is an almost sacred gift to each of you, just like the Christmas truce between the Germans and the English in the trenches in World War II. I'm sure you have read the story of the Christmas truce. Lines were crossed, carols were sung, toasts were drunk. When the holiday was over, when Christmas day was passed...the war started, again.
But no one ever forgot the truce.
We can do that too, if we are lucky and smart and determined and remember that to gamble on love is always the right way.
Truly, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain
if you can determine that you will see this through.
If you cannot do that, then it will help you to be honest with yourselves about that, too.
difficult child would need to have his holiday with those on the street.
And that is okay, because there are no right answers here.
We do the best we know.
All in all, he seems to be taking this as some kind of Extreme Time-out, instead of it really understanding the seriousness
We are teaching our children (even I am, and mine are near 40) who we are, and who they are in relation to us. When I change, they change. That our children do not take their situations seriously...I could never believe it, either.
I still don't.
But I love them.
And that is why this is so hard.
But you do have all of us, and that is something good.
And we are right here.
Cedar