OK, I need to do something about this. I'm under a lot of pressure at work, I'm extremely frustrated with my M, and I am raising my son and taking care of everything at home on my own. I don't have much of a life outside of work and home and everytime I take an opportunity to play, it puts me farther behind and in more of a time crunch.
My son is turning five in a couple months and he is having horrible fits of wining, screaming frustration, usually about his clothes in the morning, making us late and just plain making my life more of a hell. His daycare also notes how little emotional control he has at times.
Of course, he is modeling my behavior. He may be prone to frustrated melt-downs to begin with. But I often react to his frustrated melt-downs by screaming louder than he can and threatening spankings. I feel like I'm going to go insane. When I hear him start to wine my whole body tenses up and when he starts into the screaming I know I'm either going to explode, or have enough strength to stay still and pray for a deep hole to swallow me up forever.
I am so angry at my whole situation and I know it is overflowing onto my son. We've had two horrible mornings in a row where I just wanted to give him away. And yesterday I cried between dropping him off at daycare and getting into work because I realized that I was wishing I'd never had a child. I know all parents have moments when they wish someone would come take their kids away, and I was just having one of those moments. But shouldn't my first wish to be to get rid of my job or my R problems? I have to have the money and I'm powerless to control my H, so I guess I was just reacting to what was screaming in my face at that moment-my kid. And, of course, I HAVE already wished to get rid of my job and my R problems.
I've talked to a therapist before about my problems with my son. But for some reason, total rationality comes over me when I'm sitting with a counselor and I appear totally sane and in control of my life. I can't summon that anger in a counseling session and I just sit there thinking, why am I here? Maybe I'm just a hypochondriac and am looking for the magic bullet to make my life one big, continuous orgasm. My problems are just everyday life situations, everyone has. This is as good as it gets, to coin a phrase.
But then I have mornings like this morning with my son and know that I am doing long-term damage to him and our relationship by losing my temper, screaming and spanking. When I was a kid I hated how much my mom yelled at us and called us names. I may be better at controlling the name calling than her, but I still am letting my frustration with my situation in life spill all over my son. He's going to remember me as an angry, screaming woman.
I have worked so hard to show so much patience with my H. And he is an adult. I have stuffed my anger at him so deep that sometimes I think it's gone. But then it comes out and my little boy gets it instead. And that's so I can spare my R with my grown husband? The man who left us and still can not show any enthusiasm about living with us again? This is just making me angry all over again.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to release this anger without blowing it with my H. And I've waited 3 years to have the chance to start over with H. I also don't know how to release the anger without letting it explode all over someone who doesn't deserve it, like my son. I could make another appt with the counselor, but I don't know how to get beyond my automated response once I walk into the therapist's room. For some reason, I'm almost physically unable to show anger to anyone but my four and a half year old son. Because apparently, I take that R for granted more than any other R in my life.
This is just wrong and I don't feel good about it. But I don't know what to do about it. Other than just gripping tighter and trying harder not to lose control in front of my son.
There is a option coming up for me to go to half-time when my son goes to kindergarten in the fall. My son is turning 5 just before the cut off, and may not necessarily be ready. But I would ONLY be able to cut to half time if he did go to kindergarten, and I think if I was able to spend more quality time with him, a lot of the screaming and wining would not start in the first place. The down side of going half-time is that I could end up even more financially dependent on H. I do think the M has a descent chance of working out, but I don't like the idea of being more dependent on H or doing anything that might slow my progress toward having a real career again.
