Duty, love, and attitude

[Crazy Eddie]

It's sad to read your posts about your relationship (or lack thereof) with your mother. I'm starting to realize just how important a boy's relationship with his mother is.

Yeah, me too. I never really wanted to acknowledge it, lest I be tempted to use it as an excuse. Or be accused of using it as an excuse. But trying to ignore the facts just makes things worse, and acknowledging them doesn't have to mean accusing her of ill intent or negligence.

I do see that, sad as it is to read of this relationship, it must have been almost unbearably sad for her to live through it.

I am the center of S4's world right now and it's quite amazing. I'm mindful of the fact that he is learning how to relate to women through his relationship with me.

It makes sense from a FOO standpoint that you would look to your GF or W to fulfill the maternal role that your own mother did not. It sounds like you've had a major breakthrough. How is your W responding to the changes?

Very positively. Fortunately, she can't say that she had to walk out or find someone else to get me to change. She did show more patience, love, and desire over the years than I had any right to expect, and I'll do my best to reward her in the ways that speak to her.

She is, to this day, the only person that has ever expressed a desire to sleep with me. What's so different about her? I can't say. It's not any sort of promiscuity; I'm the only person who has ever slept with her. She seemed to actually enjoy the maternal role for a while, until she had actual kids; then she was easily frustrated. But, oddly enough, she still wanted me from time to time. Now, not surprisingly, she wants me a lot more. Part of that may be the fact that she's been addressing some of her own issues recently.

Have you been searching for your birth family?

I've searched and signed up for a number of registries; thus far, they have not. I am strongly considering the use of a private investigator; I don't yet feel that the expense is justified, given our situation, but I've told my wife that I want it to be my next major purchase when we are ready.

Her reaction is "what if they don't want anything to do with you?" I've long wondered that myself, but in a situation like this, inevitably someone has to make the first move and it looks like it'll be me. I shouldn't seriously expect all of them to refuse to speak to me. If they do, at least I'll know for sure instead of wondering if I should have gone through with it. I'm feeling strong enough these days to generally prefer painful knowledge to ignorance.

[/quote]
Your feelings on the adoption and not having sibs are understandable. It's human nature to take for granted what we have and idealize what we do not have. I don't have a close R with my brother, but still I know he's there and I think I could rely on him if I was in serious trouble. But honestly, my friends have been more of a constant in my life. I remind myself of this fact when I worry about S4 being an only. [/quote]

For the record, I insisted on multiple kids, and ended up with three. Their interactions show me just how much I was idealizing sibling relationships. The older two do get along well, though, most of the time, and seem to be close friends. I hope for their sake that this continues throughout their lives, and I do my best to encourage it. The youngest one is not nearly as close to either of them, and probably wouldn't have much of a difference in his life if he were the only.

I have been known to tell them "y'all better appreciate each other!" and, once, even "just be glad you know each other... you wouldn't like it if y'all were separated and didn't even know each other's names!". Probably not the best thing to do, but they seemed to get the message.