Ha!
:O)
(Cedar begins plotting her future revenge.)
Thanks so much, Tish. It made me feel a little less vulnerable, to think about defying difficult child's wishes and finding the address this other way. But...he IS the father. He DOES get to choose whether he wants us in his life, or in the lives of his children.
He really does.
That he sent the response on Father's Day was an extra little piece of toxicity. I have been checking my private Facebook messages every day since I sent that message to difficult child. About once a month, I have been sending difficult child a PM asking how they are, just being normal, sort of keeping those channels of communication open (in case the little sh** ever comes to his senses)
OOOoooo! wherever did THAT come from?!?
Bad Cedar.
:O)
Anyway.
Long and short of it is that I decided to respect difficult child enough to honor what he has made very clear are his desires and intentions where we are concerned.
For those who don't know? difficult child cut off communications with us when I told him he needed to stand up, that he had been raised better, that I did not feel badly for him, that I believed things would change for him when he wanted them to change, and that I wasn't sending any more money.
husband then sent him $700.
Like always, in the sickness husband and I got into around our difficult child kids, I knew he would.
And he knew I knew.
Everything, every single thing, gets so messed up around the issues we confront with our difficult child kids.
There is loss of respect for one another in a thousand ways.
But we have sent nothing since then.
And we are stronger, and are standing up more easily, since then.
husband spoke with difficult child on the phone re: $700. husband told difficult child that he'd had a chip on his shoulder since he started using drugs as a teen, and that he never, ever wanted to hear that difficult child had talked to his mother (me) like that, again.
So, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
****************
That kills me, too.
Or hearing all these other grandmothers prattling on about their grands. Or going to see their grands. Or that their grands are coming to see them.
Cheesh! Can't these people think of anything better to talk about?!?
Just kidding.
I get it that they never talk about their grandchildren to anyone else, and that they are only trying to make me miserable.
:O)
That's true, Recovering. It hits with such intensity that I can hardly swallow...or breathe.
NO! And how did you know that, Recovering?
No gifts since the addiction, no cards. Usually a phone call for birthdays and Mother's and Father's Days.
Ouch.
:O)
Ha! I remember that, Recovering!
Laughing over here.
Yep.
True, Recovering.
It is all so pointlessly, stupidly mean.
Big hurt for me, for husband, for the kids. What payoff in the world is worth what it costs us....
He makes it easy to let go.
Perhaps Recovering, we are the ones who got the payoff, this time.
I like this! That is what I will do.
Who cares what difficult child thinks.
Hard truth, Recovering.
Our difficult children strip so much of gratitude, so much of the joy of giving, from us.
Only when they can take it. That is the only way they seem to like it. Everything so sad and desperate and wrong ~ that seems to be what he wants.
Could this be some way to heal his own pain over my desertion of him when his sister acting out?
Over the whole ugliness of that whole thing, maybe.
difficult child will need to stand up in the face of that.
We did the best we knew.
We really did.
I do, Recovering. It's just the shock of the initial onslaught. I never really saw this coming.
I already have both cards.
But that's okay. I will send them in October.
Along with that shiny new drum set Tish was talking about, maybe.
Heh.
Remember that movie Caddyshack? Where Bill Murray is talking to the gopher? To the lady golfers?
Yeah.
That's me, sending that drum set.
:O)
HA!
:O)
I think our husbands do not reveal their pain over their children to us, Strength. husband showed me a picture in the Sunday paper of a father with twin girls and a son. Maybe you saw it. On the Parade cover, I think it was.
I knew then, when husband made a point of showing me that beautiful picture on the cover, how much it hurts him to...to be who we are, I guess.
I feel so fortunate to have each of you too, Strength.
I wonder if any of us could have come back from the pain of all this, without one another?
I think the answer there, at least for me, is no.
I still get blown up over the hurt in it, sometimes.
Thank you, Strength.
Janet! Ha!!!
:O)
True.
It may be that he hadn't checked his messages until Father's Day? Maybe, he has changed his Facebook name so I am not privy to anything to do with his children? (difficult child's SO posted pics of the boys for me one time last year.)
Maybe, he was going to post to husband for Father's Day and changed his mind?
I don't know.
I posted back that the reason I wanted to send anything was because I loved his children, of course. (That's just how I posted to him. "Of course", like it was the most normal thing in the world. Which it pretty much is.)
He may have meant that I missed SO birthday, which was in early May.
I am okay with everything now. It helps so much, doesn't it, to have one another to work these things through with.
Even when I felt that initial hit of hurt from difficult child?
I knew I would come here.
And because of each of you, I knew I would be okay.
Thanks, guys.
Cedar
