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I love my kids no matter how screwed up they are...
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<blockquote data-quote="BusynMember" data-source="post: 630203" data-attributes="member: 1550"><p>I agree with your husband. Your children are actually adults now and they will survive being disappointed and sad. It isn't healthy for them or for you for you to "do anything to help them." You can't. Have you ever seen a counselor?</p><p></p><p>I strongly recommend reading the books "Codapendent No More" by Melody beatty. Until you stop living through your children, who are approaching middle age, you will never have a happy, sane or quiet moment of peace in your life. Yes, YOU have a life and it is equal in importance to your adult children. Your daughter is not your baby girl. She is your adult daughter. It isn't a good idea to think of grown up adults as our babies that we have to save and fix. We can't.</p><p></p><p>You may also consider why you are allowing your grown daughter to abuse you.Also, she is responsible for being with this dumb-ass guy for six years. She bears equal blame. Nobody put a gun to her head. She chose him. We can not always look to others for blame when our own grown children mess up. She had the ability not to get involved with him and then to seek out resources to leave him. It' was her decision to give up her good life for him. That's on her, not him. He has his part, but it's usually 50/50.</p><p></p><p>I suggest you read the aforementioned book, get a very good therapist to help you with your own identity and life, and start working on taking care of YOU. You can't be any good for anyone else, especially yourself (and remember YOU matter) if you try to fix a nd help all of your adult children, who are old enough to not need your care, AND your elderly parents who could probably get help outside of you. You are one person trying to take care of your entire family and doing nothing for yourself.</p><p></p><p>If I were you, I'd step out of son's custody problem. It is up to him to fight for his kids. If he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't want to do it, and there is not one thing you can do to make him. He bears some responsibility here. It is not all her. It never is. He picked her to marry. My own son's wife ran off with another man and he has to pay child support and it affected him, as it does everybody. Is it fair since he didn't want the divorce? Does it matter? It is what it is. He has to pay it. It is your son's responsibility to go back to court if he can't pay child support and not just stop paying. The court needs to know he lost his job and may modify his payments. They will not care about his depression. My son was depressed too. Your son needs to stop being a victim and needs to get out of bed and seek help for himself. If he has no money, there is mental health by the county. You probably need to stop telling him what to do. He will learn or face the consequences, which is already happening. The law doesn't care about ex's new honey. He made a baby. That's what they care about. That was on your son for not doing anything. Don't waste your money on grandparent visitation rights. There are none.</p><p></p><p>Let your son learn to grow up. My guess is you have always tried to make everything smooth for him and he is unable to take care of himself, a skill he has got to learn. Nobody will take you seriously anymore if you try to "Help" him because of his age. Look, I did that too when my kids were younger, but I learned that they will not learn the skills to be an adult if I don't stop and have had many heartbreaking experiences. Two of my grown children had to be told to leave. One was on drugs. She totally turned her life around and is now VERY responsible and wonderful. The other struggles emotionally, but he does have a job, his own house, his son 50% of the time and he knows nobody is going to come to his rescue if he can't figure out how to solve a problem. My ex sometimes gives him money, but if he had nowhere to live, he couldn't come back home to either ex or me because of various reasons you can read about here. I have learned boundaries.</p><p></p><p>Your daughter is choosing her life. You can't change her. You shouldn't try. You have 0% over her and the only person you can really change at all is yourself and your reaction to your struggling adult children. By 30 adult children need to be taking care of their own problems. What will they do when you are no longer here?</p><p></p><p>It does not mean you don't love your adult children if you let them go. We are supposed to "give them roots to grown and wings to fly." I love all of my adult children with all my heart. But they are separate people from me and most adult children, unless we are handing them money (which they should be able to make themselves) do not appreciate our two cents or our attempts to change them. Nor should they. If they make poor choices, in our opinions, they are the only ones who can change them. And our nagging and saving won't do the trick. Have you bailed any out of jail? Have they used drugs? Stolen from you? If so, did you call the police to show them that this is not acceptable even if it's you?</p><p></p><p>You choose your husband vs. children when they are under eighteen. At your age and your childern's ages, you are choosing a far different picture: Enabling your children and keeping them needy vs. living your own life, which can be wonderful even if you have children in their 30's who are struggling. You can choose a great rest-of-your-life or the drama of freaking out and crying and begging and using all your money for your middle aged adult children.</p><p></p><p>Sadly, you can't control your son's child's mother either. Your son made a poor decision, in my opinion, to have a baby with a woman who clearly has children with many men probably to get child support. But he is as responsible for the situation as she is. There are condoms. If he has no transportation he can do what my daughter did after we made her leave. She walked to Subway and back for her job. It was a long walk. She walked in the cold and the hot. She did finally buy a bike. Maybe your son would have to take less money, b ut there are jobs he could get. That is HIS problem, not yours. My daughter learned to have a strong sense of responsibility and work ethic by having to do things herself. Not all adult c hildren learn, but t hey have no chance of learning if we don't believe in them enough to step back and let them try. It is their life, not our life. My daughter quit using drugs, even quit smoking cigarettes. She bought a house and just gave me a precious granddaughter with her SO of eleven years. Life hasn't been easy for her either, but she clawed her way out of the hole and made it.</p><p></p><p>Since you are so new to the idea of stepping back from your adult children, I will leave you with my favorite prayer of wisdom, which I feel is helpful even if you have no religion:</p><p></p><p>"God great me the SERENITY to ACCEPT THE THINGS I CAN NOT CHANE (like other people),</p><p>The COURAGE to change t he things I can (YOU CAN CHANGE YOURSELF AND YOUR REACTIONS TO OTHERS AND YOUR NEED TO FIX EVERYONE)</p><p>And the WISDOM to KNOW THE DIFFERENCE."</p><p></p><p>I hope you keep posting. This is a hard journey and doing it alone is sometimes impossible. But you on a path of self-destruction and you are not helping your adult children at all. The only ones who can decide to help them is them. The more you try to step in, the more child-like they will behave. The first time somebody told me to put myself first, I thought it was such a selfish thing to request that I walked out a room full of people. It was group therapy. But I did start to read and then I joined codapendents anonymous. I started letting go and working on myself.</p><p></p><p>I am sixty. I have a serene life today. If I hadn't been frankly told not to try to be a "mommy" to my children who were messing up and too old and scolded to have my own life, I would still be miserable and my adult children would be no better off. I demand respect. I don't send money. I let them figure it out.So far that has worked a lot better than trying to scoop them up, even when they do things that will harm them in the end.</p><p></p><p>I hope this did not offend you. That was not my intent. And I hope you can start a journey of learning how to let go so that everyone can live his own life. Your health, physical and mental, is going to suffer greatly if you keep this up and you will be good for nobody, not even YOU, if you fall apart.</p><p></p><p>Gentle hugs for your hurting heart. Hoping for a new beginning.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BusynMember, post: 630203, member: 1550"] I agree with your husband. Your children are actually adults now and they will survive being disappointed and sad. It isn't healthy for them or for you for you to "do anything to help them." You can't. Have you ever seen a counselor? I strongly recommend reading the books "Codapendent No More" by Melody beatty. Until you stop living through your children, who are approaching middle age, you will never have a happy, sane or quiet moment of peace in your life. Yes, YOU have a life and it is equal in importance to your adult children. Your daughter is not your baby girl. She is your adult daughter. It isn't a good idea to think of grown up adults as our babies that we have to save and fix. We can't. You may also consider why you are allowing your grown daughter to abuse you.Also, she is responsible for being with this dumb-ass guy for six years. She bears equal blame. Nobody put a gun to her head. She chose him. We can not always look to others for blame when our own grown children mess up. She had the ability not to get involved with him and then to seek out resources to leave him. It' was her decision to give up her good life for him. That's on her, not him. He has his part, but it's usually 50/50. I suggest you read the aforementioned book, get a very good therapist to help you with your own identity and life, and start working on taking care of YOU. You can't be any good for anyone else, especially yourself (and remember YOU matter) if you try to fix a nd help all of your adult children, who are old enough to not need your care, AND your elderly parents who could probably get help outside of you. You are one person trying to take care of your entire family and doing nothing for yourself. If I were you, I'd step out of son's custody problem. It is up to him to fight for his kids. If he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't want to do it, and there is not one thing you can do to make him. He bears some responsibility here. It is not all her. It never is. He picked her to marry. My own son's wife ran off with another man and he has to pay child support and it affected him, as it does everybody. Is it fair since he didn't want the divorce? Does it matter? It is what it is. He has to pay it. It is your son's responsibility to go back to court if he can't pay child support and not just stop paying. The court needs to know he lost his job and may modify his payments. They will not care about his depression. My son was depressed too. Your son needs to stop being a victim and needs to get out of bed and seek help for himself. If he has no money, there is mental health by the county. You probably need to stop telling him what to do. He will learn or face the consequences, which is already happening. The law doesn't care about ex's new honey. He made a baby. That's what they care about. That was on your son for not doing anything. Don't waste your money on grandparent visitation rights. There are none. Let your son learn to grow up. My guess is you have always tried to make everything smooth for him and he is unable to take care of himself, a skill he has got to learn. Nobody will take you seriously anymore if you try to "Help" him because of his age. Look, I did that too when my kids were younger, but I learned that they will not learn the skills to be an adult if I don't stop and have had many heartbreaking experiences. Two of my grown children had to be told to leave. One was on drugs. She totally turned her life around and is now VERY responsible and wonderful. The other struggles emotionally, but he does have a job, his own house, his son 50% of the time and he knows nobody is going to come to his rescue if he can't figure out how to solve a problem. My ex sometimes gives him money, but if he had nowhere to live, he couldn't come back home to either ex or me because of various reasons you can read about here. I have learned boundaries. Your daughter is choosing her life. You can't change her. You shouldn't try. You have 0% over her and the only person you can really change at all is yourself and your reaction to your struggling adult children. By 30 adult children need to be taking care of their own problems. What will they do when you are no longer here? It does not mean you don't love your adult children if you let them go. We are supposed to "give them roots to grown and wings to fly." I love all of my adult children with all my heart. But they are separate people from me and most adult children, unless we are handing them money (which they should be able to make themselves) do not appreciate our two cents or our attempts to change them. Nor should they. If they make poor choices, in our opinions, they are the only ones who can change them. And our nagging and saving won't do the trick. Have you bailed any out of jail? Have they used drugs? Stolen from you? If so, did you call the police to show them that this is not acceptable even if it's you? You choose your husband vs. children when they are under eighteen. At your age and your childern's ages, you are choosing a far different picture: Enabling your children and keeping them needy vs. living your own life, which can be wonderful even if you have children in their 30's who are struggling. You can choose a great rest-of-your-life or the drama of freaking out and crying and begging and using all your money for your middle aged adult children. Sadly, you can't control your son's child's mother either. Your son made a poor decision, in my opinion, to have a baby with a woman who clearly has children with many men probably to get child support. But he is as responsible for the situation as she is. There are condoms. If he has no transportation he can do what my daughter did after we made her leave. She walked to Subway and back for her job. It was a long walk. She walked in the cold and the hot. She did finally buy a bike. Maybe your son would have to take less money, b ut there are jobs he could get. That is HIS problem, not yours. My daughter learned to have a strong sense of responsibility and work ethic by having to do things herself. Not all adult c hildren learn, but t hey have no chance of learning if we don't believe in them enough to step back and let them try. It is their life, not our life. My daughter quit using drugs, even quit smoking cigarettes. She bought a house and just gave me a precious granddaughter with her SO of eleven years. Life hasn't been easy for her either, but she clawed her way out of the hole and made it. Since you are so new to the idea of stepping back from your adult children, I will leave you with my favorite prayer of wisdom, which I feel is helpful even if you have no religion: "God great me the SERENITY to ACCEPT THE THINGS I CAN NOT CHANE (like other people), The COURAGE to change t he things I can (YOU CAN CHANGE YOURSELF AND YOUR REACTIONS TO OTHERS AND YOUR NEED TO FIX EVERYONE) And the WISDOM to KNOW THE DIFFERENCE." I hope you keep posting. This is a hard journey and doing it alone is sometimes impossible. But you on a path of self-destruction and you are not helping your adult children at all. The only ones who can decide to help them is them. The more you try to step in, the more child-like they will behave. The first time somebody told me to put myself first, I thought it was such a selfish thing to request that I walked out a room full of people. It was group therapy. But I did start to read and then I joined codapendents anonymous. I started letting go and working on myself. I am sixty. I have a serene life today. If I hadn't been frankly told not to try to be a "mommy" to my children who were messing up and too old and scolded to have my own life, I would still be miserable and my adult children would be no better off. I demand respect. I don't send money. I let them figure it out.So far that has worked a lot better than trying to scoop them up, even when they do things that will harm them in the end. I hope this did not offend you. That was not my intent. And I hope you can start a journey of learning how to let go so that everyone can live his own life. Your health, physical and mental, is going to suffer greatly if you keep this up and you will be good for nobody, not even YOU, if you fall apart. Gentle hugs for your hurting heart. Hoping for a new beginning. [/QUOTE]
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