May you all have a very happy holiday

[Nancy]

However you celebrate the holiday I hope you all can find some peace and joy in your familes/lives. I know this is a very difficult time for many families, when things were darkest for me I hated the holidays and had to force myself to find joy, and some years I just made it through the day by telling myself it was just another day. I hope that each and every one of you has some blessing in your life that will help you enjoy this time with your loved ones.

I am looking forward to enjoying my girls tonight and tomorrow and have cooked all day today for tomorrow's dinner. My difficult child has been doing very well, but is involved in a destructive relationship and I hope this year she makes the move to change that. But our relationship has never been better and for that I am very grateful.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all of you.

 

[lovemysons]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you Nancy and all that follow...I am so happy to hear that you and your daughter are getting along so well these days. I too, hope that she will continue to make the necessary changes in her life that are needed to keep moving forward.

Our Christmas time has been filled with many party's! Had a company party last Tuesday with husband. A distant family Party Saturday night, birthday party for difficult child's 5 yr old Julie on Sunday and Monday night celebrated early Christmas with young difficult child, his wife, the grandkids, easy child and her boyfriend, and my mom. Yesterday was my birthday...so of course I went to the casino. Left with $300 and came home with a $1000.

But not all things are cheery and bright here. daughter in law is out of town at her grandmother's with the grandkids now. Young difficult child is staying with his buddy at buddy's grandmother's home down the road from my mom.

daughter in law just sent me this text a short while ago...
" It would be super nice of you to invite your son to Christmas. He's right down the road from your mom's place if she could scoop him up? He will be alone. I know you surely got presents for easy child and absolutely nothing for your son. My mom and grandma both got him a lil something but he won't get it until I get back. Bahumbug"

So I texted daughter in law back and this is what I said...
" daughter in law...We did not get easy child any Christmas presents. Ask her. We are not responsible for difficult child's misery. We love him always and wrestle daily with what helps or hurts difficult child. When he is taking care of himself and HIS family then we will openely embrace the changes. We love all of you and want to see you all moving forward in life. difficult child is not a baby...he is a Man and needs to be treated that way."

So...guilt trips. Nice huh. LOL I thought Christmas was about gifts the heart? We did buy all of the grandchildren $500 worth of toys that were so fun for husband and I to shop! We also gave my mom and husband's dad/stepmom a present as well as giving daughter in law's mother $150...but just sad that I feel like I have to explain myself. by the way, easy child got all of us presents! She is very thoughtful yet poor at this stage in life too.

But all in all it has been a joyous time. husband and I are so glad we stopped our drinking long ago as husband says, " These days we get invited back to party's next year!" lol

Meanwhile I think my mom is going to make arrangements with easy child to pick up young difficult child tomorrow. WE are not. I will not be guilted to make life better for young difficult child when he does not even think twice about messing up a holiday for his children.

Anyway, I do want you all to know that I read almost everything I can from the boards on a fairly regular basis and keep your difficult child's in my heart amd often my prayers.

Right now, husband is getting a massage in the living room by easy child while listening to christmas carols off the TV/stereo. Tonight I may convince husband to run me back up to the casino to try it out again, lol. And tomorrow is Christmas dinner at my mom's. Young difficult child may be there. Hoping it is a pleasant and uneventful time.

Love you all...
Merry Christmas.
LMS

 

[Kathy813]

Merry Christmas to all and I wish you the greatest gift of the season . . . peace.


~Kathy

 

[midatlanticdenial]

Merry Christmas to you!

 

[Nancy]

LMS you have done a good job at setting boundaries, I am very proud of you.

 

[lovemysons]

Thank you Nancy...it has taken me a long time to realize that young difficult child needs to FEEL the consequences of his life choices...and maybe the point could be made all the more clear on special days like Christmas.
Unfortunately, daughter in law still takes pity on him. I am no longer concerned about how "uncaring or heartless" I come across to daughter in law or young difficult child.

I keep wondering when it will dawn on daughter in law that her own children are the ones who are suffering the most...these are THEIR childhood memories that will last a lifetime! What will they tell themselves? Will grandson or granddaughters feel unworthy of being loved well by others? Will they expect to be taken care of by family for the rest of their lives? What messages are they receiving about themselves at this point?

Unfortunately daughter in law's mother has continued to enable her (and difficult child) by not forcing her to learn how to survive and take care of their children through sobriety and on their own. There has been very little growth on the part of daughter in law and Young difficult child in nearly 8 yrs. daughter in law is 28 now...Young difficult child will be 26 soon. It is looooong past time for them to wake up and realize that they are responsible for the precious little lives THEY put here and that any pain felt is pain They've caused...not others!

easy child did pick up young difficult child (with his buddy) and bring them to my mom's for Christmas dinner. All went smoothly...though at one point Young difficult child actually tried to have a discussion about "men's rights"...Ridiculous! I did not hear it or surely would have chimed in...husband told me about it later and said that difficult child changed the subject before it got heated!

How did your dinner with your girls go? DId you have difficult child's "boyfriend" there as well?
Interested in other's Christmas experiences with/without their difficult child's too.

Love,
LMS

 

[Nancy]

Dinner went really well and yes the boyfriend came with his 6 year old daughter who is a doll. boyfriend drank beer after beer after beer. I watched and he drank a beer in five minutes. It's very tense being around him because everything everyone says he takes offense at. He has no self esteem so every converstion or act is like an attack on him and I just want to scream and tell him to stop being so sensitive. At one point he called my difficult child a f*ing b*tch under his breath. I wanted to call him on it and scratch out his eyeballs but didn't want to start a fight. My dad had given difficult child $50 the day before for Christmas and he took it and bought batteries on the way to our house, 8 batteries for $30, and never gave the change to difficult child. They were lithium batteries and when I questioned him and told him to take them back he said he didn't get a receipt and I questioned why not and he got upset. He has no common sense at all, it made me angry that he would use difficult child's money. And he gets nasty when he drinks. We played games, the headbandz game where you put a card in a headband and you have to ask others questions to guess what the card was and he got mad that he was losing and took the headband off and just kept making comments about how stupid it was. I could go on and on but there's no point. I just wish she would leave him but she won't leave that little girl because she knows both her parents are irresponsible idiots.

But we had a nice time with easy child and difficult child. Thanks for asking.

 

[BusynMember]

Nancy, I'm glad you had your girls with you. At one time, probably like you, I wondered what would happen to difficult child. Well, she may be in a bad relationship, but she has developed a heart and a sense of responsibility for somebody other than herself if she can love that little girl so much. Her boyfriend sounds like a loser, but I'll bet she does leave him at some time, even though it will sadden her to leave the little girl. She has made so much progress, it is really amazing.

Happy holidays!!!! Your family has come so far!

 

[Kathy813]

We had a wonderful time in New Orleans with easy child and then a quiet Christmas Eve and day with her when we got home.

Yesterday morning we headed down to Florida to see difficult child. When we were close, I called her and she was slurring her words. She, of course, denied she was drinking and suggested that since we had gotten in later than we expected we could just go to our friend's house and see her the next morning which was fine with me.

We picked her up from her halfway house and took her out for lunch and then went to see a movie. She said she wasn't feeling well after the movie so we asked her if she wanted us to take her back to the halfway house and she said yes so we did.

I guess I have finally gotten to the place of radical acceptance because I am not upset. We had a nice time when we were with her and if she is still drinking that is something I can't change and I am willing to let her live with the consequences.

So we will see her again tomorrow and then we go back to our lives and she can live the life she has chosen.

Nancy, I hate to hear that your difficult child 's boyfriend has turned out to be a jerk. I hope she gets the strength to leave him. She has come so far.

~Kathy

 

[lovemysons]

Nancy,
I would have replied earlier but we had an emergency yesterday.
I am so sorry to hear that difficult child's "boyfriend" is such an abusive, angry Jerk...and of course, that's putting it mildly. I know we can't control who are children give themselves to to be loved by but it's got to be especially painful when it is someone like this.
I hope your difficult child will every so often attend an Al Anon meeting. She may find that she is in that mode...to fix, cure, etc with this "boyfriend"...putting herself in harm's way because of his sweet daughter. We can't save the world...only ourselves much of the time.

Kathy,
I understand where you are at...we really can't change them or their choices and we hinder potential growth when we interfere and try to play the role of their "Higher Power". There comes a point where we finally are ready to really Let Go. You are doing a wonderful job of allowing your difficult child's life to be her's...for her to fully own it and for you to go on with your own life too without being tossed and turned and tied to difficult child choices/behavior. It is no longer a battle between us and them.

Love,
LMS

 

[Nancy]

Thanks MWM, Kathy and LMS, she has made such good progress. She does not have much money but put some real thought into our gifts. The house they are livingin belongs to boyfriend's mother and it is in foreclosure. We told her she could come back home when they get kicked out and save for an apartment but she could not bring him here. She said she knew that and that would probably be when she would finally leave him. She truly has become very responsible, the problem is I think having to take care of his daughter has caused that and I'm afraid if she doesn't have that in her life anymore what will happen.

Kathy you really have come very far in your acceptance of the situation with difficult child. difficult child didn't try to manipulate you at all during your visit? I'm glad your New Orleans trip was good.

 

[Kathy813]

Oh, Nancy, she tried to manipulate all right. The first day it was just dropping hints on how she couldn't see because she was down to one contact lens. I reminded her that I had bought two pairs of glasses in the past year which she "lost" so I was done with worrying about her eyesight. She said some other things which I just ignored.

Yesterday, though, I lost it. We had picked her up for lunch and then went to see another movie. She remarked several times that she was out of her medications and 'hoped" she didn't have a seizure. She asked if we could take her to her doctor appointment on Monday afternoon and we said no since we were leaving in the morning. She whined that it would be a 2.5 hour bus trip which I again ignored.

We planned to take her out to dinner before we left yesterday and she said she wasn't hungry and asked if we would spend the money on toiletries instead. I said all right and took her to Walmart where she bought some things that she needed. Then we went to drop her off and she started begging for money for the doctor. She is going to someone off of her insurance which meant it would cost $75. husband had told her that we wouldn't pay anymore this calendar year so she was supposed to wait for the new year. She started crying saying she was out of medications and needed to go on Monday.

I was furious because she had let it slip that she had only worked two days last week since the bus "was always late." At that point I totally lost it and started screaming and cursing and threw $40 at her (all that was in my purse). I told her that this is why I have her blocked on my phone...all she wants from us is money. She flinched and I could see that my words were hurting her but couldn't stop.

So the visit didn't end well. She shows no interest in sobriety. She says that she doesn't want to live this life but won't do what she needs to do to change it.

~Kathy

 

[Nancy]

Oh Kathy I'm sorry. I have had those loss of control moments with my difficult child in the past also. I can remember driving her to work and screaming at her as she got out of the car and her slamming the car door so hard that I was sure it was broken. Just the other day husband and I drove past a Days Inn and husband remarked that difficult child had stayed there once when we kicked her out of the house and the room cost $60 and that's all she had so she couldn't buy any food. She begged us for more money that night and we wouldn't give it to her. It was a terrible snow storm and she had to call a friend to pick her up and take her to the hotel because we had called the police to make her leave and all she was wearing was jeans, light jacket and tennis shoes. I told husband gosh we were mean and he reminded me that at the time it was what we had to do. There are so many of those moments in our past that will stay with me forever.

Do you think she is really going to buy drugs with the money, not seizure medications? I would be so angry also knowing she only worked two days and if she needed money that badly she should have worked every minute she could. She is not seeing that her own actions are what causes all her problems.

 

[Kathy813]

Who knows what happened to the money.

difficult child checked herself into the hospital today. She was trying to find a detox to take her but there was a problem since her insurance was going to change as of the 1st and they wanted proof of the new insurance. husband called an paid the premium today but was told it would take at least a day to change from pending to active. I suggested going to the ER and having them send her to a detox facility. Instead, they said that they would admit her to the psychiatric ward and detox her there.

difficult child was out of medications and afraid of having a seizure. She was in withdrawal and vomiting. Surprisingly, she did all of this on her own. She called today and told husband what was going on asked to talk to me. I took the phone and apologized for what I said but told her that I just can't do this anymore. difficult child said she understood and didn't want to live like this anymore either.

difficult child was very up front and said she didn't know what to do. She said that she needs help for her anxiety but when she gets xanax she abuses it. I told her that she is an addict and needs to learn to live with the anxiety without using medications. I also told her that only she can decide to change. In the past, she only did it because she was being forced to do it. She has never initiated going to detox, either.

Does that mean I am delusional and think this means that she will actually get sober? I am way past getting my hopes up. I do feel better, though, after apologizing to her. I was not proud of my behavior.

~Kathy

 

[dstc_99]

Apologizing for your behavior is good if it makes you feel better. I hope she gets the help she needs.

 

[pasajes4]

HUGS for you and husband. Take very good care of yourself.

 

[midatlanticdenial]

Sending hugs to you! Sorry you have to go thru such a roller coaster ride.

 

[Nancy]

I'm glad you got to talk to her and apologize because it made you feel better. I'm also glad she went for help and that she is voicing her concerns and fears. I really hope that this year brings her some help that she can live with.

 

[Signorina]

Love and peace to you dear friends. I am still treading water with my own difficult child who has not yet determined if he will sink or swim. Who knew you could tread water so long??? When I first posted many moons ago - I thought it would all come to a head (one way or another) in 6 months max and all would be well or he would be in jail... he's no further along than he was in August 2011 but the situation hasn't escalated either and I am learning & trying to practice detached acceptance. At least it is calmer... both in my home and heart.

Here's to a 2015 that is calmer for us all.

You guys are still my lifeline and I am so very grateful for this board.

 

[midatlanticdenial]

Amen!