I have to confess I haven't read all of your postings, but I have to write to you. Please listen to me. You sound so much like my husband that you scare me.
These kids need both of you. And you think it is more important to be right than to be a good parent and husband.
Your w if a flawed woman, as am I. Look in the mirror, Phil. You are a flawed man, as is my h.
You have such a hard and fast definition of what a father is and does that you are willing to reject the kids and the w and anything else that gets in the way of your way being the only right way.
DAM, are the kids really screwed up? If they are then it is because of the interplay between you AND your w. Your w doesn't get the crown for the most screwed up parent and neither do you.
You sound like a martyr that has had to endure the awful parenting of your w. Its far too easy to blame all the problems of your children on her. Just how hard have you tried to see things from her perspective?
And, what kind of a relationship have you cultivated with your children? They will remember standing on a square of carpet and being disciplined by you, sure, but what else with they remember?
My h also thinks that the mother is supposed to love and coddle and the father is supposed to be the disciplinarian and kick them in the backside.
Do you know what his style of parenting has brought about? We have a 19 year old s that will not even come home right now that doesn't care to see or speak to his father. He never felt he measured up or was good enough for his father. I won't say he hates him, but he's a very long way from liking him in any way.
And my h is now holding this up as an example of how I drove a wedge between them. When the actual truth is that he was so busy disciplining that he never told his son he was proud of him except when he graduated from high school. He can't remember the times when he was younger that his dad would do fun stuff with him, because all he can remember as far back as his memory stretches is his dad being awful to him.
You have a real chance to lose everything here, Phil. You can choose to be alone and angry and RIGHT, and lose everything. You need to seek some kind of help. IC or spiritual guidance or something is absolutely necessary here.
I hope my words touch you, Phil. I hope something that I have said has gotten through, because if it hasn't and you think I'm full of it then you have a very long, sad road ahead of you.
Your wife deserves to be loved. Your children need and deserve your love. No one needs to walk on eggshells every day of their lives and feel they don't measure up.
Do you hear me, Phil?
Me 45, H 46, S 23, M 26, Together 30, Bomb 6-2-08, S 6-19-08; H left 12-29-08. H home 12-09, Still MLC in 2012! Me- I have my big girl panties on. Bring it.
