ally,
I started not to post this because you seem to be in pain and I didn't want to add to it, but realized.....nothing anyone can really say to you about asking your son to leave will ever give you comfort. So I'll share our story. Our son, now 21 and me ----left a severely abusive relationship when he was 4 years old. His bio father is past description. If he could have been raised by Charles Manson? It would surely have been an improvement ten fold. No joke, the man did things that were absurd. So I left, took my son - went into hiding and managed to stay off the radar for years - and in that time? We went to extreme therapy, and my son was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, group homes, Residential Treatment Center (RTC)'s, foster care and sadly eventually jail- more out than in. I think in 12 years I had a few birthdays, two Christmases and one Easter at home. The rest? Institutional settings leaving each time choking back tears while trying to smile and assure him this was for the best. It really was. We (fiance (DF) and myself were told we were absolutely raising a psycho/sociopath who had antisocial personality disorder and if we wanted to give him any chance? This was how to do it.
So fast-forward to age 16 and he is kicked out of Residential Treatment Center (RTC) or Group home # I dunno - a lot, and pending jail charges for suspected I can't remember. We bail him out, bring him home from the hell-hole Group home and lay out the rules, consequences and it wasn't even fifteen minutes that he was home and we knew we had made a HUGE mistake. HUGE. Mosntrously huge. We just spent about our entire savings on bail, took him to breakfast on the way home from 1.5 hour drive one way - and stopped to get him necessitites, underclothes - a few outfits - all his had been taken...and WHAM----the "I will do what I want to do when I want to do it and you can say jack about it" guy showed his ugly head - I mean we had JUST had the family meeting about THE RULES.....and then Jerkface shows up - LIKE -----WTH? Thanks for nothing.
So this persisted for about two weeks, and we finally found a placement for him - sent him off and I bawled. I will never forget thinking how sad he must have been as the state came to pick him up and the counselor told me later that day in fact our son said "Thank God you came and got me when you did - I don't think I could have spent another hour in that house with HER." - I was crushed, scared - I mean you'd have to have known him at the time to know - that could have meant anything and I was already sleeping in a locked room. So off he went. Then from there when he got kicked out - he went into foster care. He stayed there, and got in to MORE trouble with the law and somewhere in all that? I had a stroke. He was looking at 30 to life at age 16 - It was nuts. Foster care promised to watch him and basically collected a paycheck and said - be back by midnight.
So when THEY couldn't handle him? They had a secret meeting and kicked him out and he was either going to be homeless -----and I mean in November....(and we did look at parks, shelters) and there was none open due to high unemployment or he would have gone. So we bit the leather strap again and brought him home- EVEN THE DOGS were back to being a wreck. The only thing that had changed this time? Was me. I was not so reactive to his BS, I had been in therapy so long I had a good control on my anger.....until that one fateful day I snapped after he called me names that were so foul my biker DF had his mouth hanging open ---and said things about me personally that were so derrogatory I just was in shock...some words you just can not ----and I mean not - over look - and what he said? Was foulest of foul. So I threw a handfull of change at him from across the room - WWIII ensued and now I'm farily certain my neighbors think I should be locked up - but the rock border around my flower beds was being lobed at my son who was out in my yard destroying my beautiful yard, bird feeders, bird baths - It was beautiful ----and he stomped it all down and pulled it all out - and kicked and broke everything and I threw 3lb rocks at him ---not near him AT him. DF tried to stop us and made the bad mistake of getting in the middle and after that? The two of THEM were trying to survive.......me. I was off my nut. Not joking. Years and years of being a fantastic, sacrificing, consciencious Mother - willing to do any and everything to save her son who constantly flipped her the bird of life-----came out and by the time it was done? My son all 6' and 180 lbs of him - was so freaked out that HIS Mother could twist and bend, and stoop to the same obscenities as gutter rats, while hurling boulders at his body? Just stood there shocked out of his pants. The ONLY thing that saved him that morning was DF telling him to get out of the yard.
When he came back? He was still smart mouthed - and I was in no mood for a smart ***** apology... THERE WAS no apology you could utter -----I don't think years from now there will be an apology for this.....but I was shoving his stuff into trash bags.....and told him he was going - OUT --didn't care where......didn't care how. I had SOooo had it with him talking about "wonderful daddy disney" you know - the drug riddled, crack head, who sells drugs, beats women, dogs, and steals - lives off others like a parasite and then can't even send a nickle for his own child in 15 years on his own volition because I never asked for support. Yeah that slob...well he found him and he was GOING TO GO LIVE WITH HIM. I said good -----Took him to the train station - BOUGHT his ticket as a Christmas present - and told him to ENJOY -
He came back two weeks later telling all the wonderful stories of Daddy Disney - How nice he was, and how great he was, and how he had missed his son due to the evil Mom. Then said he was going to live there. OMG NO,,,this just can't happen. The man is a virus. (sigh) Then I talked to a cousin who said "the man saw his son, stole his money and tried to beat him to death with a ball bat." AND THIS is the man that he chose to live with? WOW.
That was nearly 3 years ago.......He got OVER the Disney part of Daddy - and saw him for who he really was/is. He finally had his 'out' with him or so I'm told and has written him and said "I want nothing to do with you ever again." and explained in detail why. It was very strong - and I'm proud of him. He's been on his own, making a way - not asking for a thing - except help with some clothes for an interview and a couple bucks every now and then. He has been homeless, tempted by drugs and alcohol, starving.....eating out of dumpsters, living in a park, showering at the beach........and no....That wasn't what I had in mind for him when I said - "You don't like it here.....you can have it ANY WAY YOU WANT===at your own place." But you know what? I was thanked, told I was right, told he understood my choices after years and years of fighting me (re: Daddy), and while it's not perfect? And I don't know what he's going to do? I'm detached from him, his problems, his crisises, his self-inflicted troubles......and the fall out. I get calls and texts regularly - they're nice, I get NICE long lasting conversations without rude language or behavior - and I showed him - What I would and WOULD NOT tolerate.......even if......EVEN IF.....it meant loosing him....because the most important person IN YOUR LIFE -------has to be you - because NO ONE - is going to take care of you like you do, no one is going to CARE about you -----like you do. NO one will WALK on you ---unless you allow it - and that includes our kids. I didn't set the bar so high he couldn't reach it ----I just set it high enough -----so that someday? We could both jump over it together....
What I can give him now? Is prayers....hope, encouragement, and an example of HOW to NOT allow people to bend your principals no matter who they are. He'll respect you for that more than you know .......and if he does not? Then you never really had the heartache that would have come with keeping him in your home and stomping on your heart with your permission.
My point is ------I couldn't make my son understand his biofather-----or my choices. He had to see it for himself first hand. He did, and now a lot of that anger? Is gone. Sometimes they just need to go and do these things for themselves while you live your life - and eventually with hope ------you meet back in the middle and have a good rest of your lives.
As far as what he feels for his Father? I would say that the anger? The anger he expresses to you? Is because he is very comfortable with you - and knows NO MATTER WHAT -----you'll be there for him. With the Dad person? He already left once, so he had better play it safe......and not upset him or he'll leave again. So naturally everything now that he WANTS to say to this man - but won't - is going to come back to you in some form or another. You don't see him screaming about his Dad to the guy at Dunkin Doughnuts right? ----Okay then good - because if /when that happens? Then you get him 911 to the ER.....past that? You just find a way to talk to him about things OTHER than his Dad......that chapter CLOSED in YOUR LIFE-----Give supportive but vague replies - like - You're a smart kid - you'll figure it out. I'm sure you'll think of something. Things like that. But I wouldn't ask a single ? or talk about his Dad to him -----nope. What he wants to know about his Dad? He should be asking his Dad.