H takes all the blame - why?

[angel61]

Hi Lorie,

My H does still value is relationship with D12, and I could see how he prioritizes her. I would say she is the reason why he is still here. With this happening he has been beside himself, calling and texting constantly.

That is why I have been mulling sending him a letter to explain what he is doing to her, and what she needs as far as I know, because I can see that he does not understand it.

I will share the letter I have been composing, and let me know if this is something I should send him, take out some parts, etc:

Dear H,
I want us to stop for a moment and think about what our situation right now is doing to our child. Forget our own pain, forget our goals, forget what we want for ourselves.

Focus on the life we created, and what we wanted for her, growing up. How we planned to prepare her for what life hands out, how we envisioned her as an adult. The life put in out hands to nurture, to take care until we can set her free to live her own life, armed with the guidance and teachings that we, as parents, have given her.

Maybe we could start with comparing her with our own childhood, as that is all we have knowledge of.

Imagine yourself at her age. At that time, life was good, all you had to worry about was where you were going to play, where you will meet your cousins. You were surrounded by the love of a big family. Your biggest problems where that Mama and Papa would get mad at you for playing hookey again, not doing your homework. Once in a while you knew that the adult had problems with money, and you left solving that to their own, maybe once in a while it affected you because you could not by what you needed. Of course that was a bummer, but money problems get solved, and you never bothered your head about it.

In essence, it was the same with me. My parents had a different dynamic, and I did have some insecurities, but nothing that upset the feeling of permanence in my life. Our values were firmly entrenched by the Christian way we all lived.

But for both of us, what was the most important thing? Was it school? Friends? Cousins? Pets? Of course not. It was being part of a family. The core family – mom, dad, siblings.

Now, imagine what goes on in D's mind at this point. She used to be so happy, living in a big house, being doted on as an only child by loving parents. True, she does not have much family nearby, but we made up for it in other ways – traveling, family activities together, no expense spared. Suddenly, things change. At first she tells herself “it will pass”. But as time goes by, she feels the changes in her life, and is slowly waking up to the reality of what is happening.

And what is the most important part of her life? It is family. Mom, Dad and herself, together. We play different roles in her life. I am the fun parent, you are disciplinarian. I am the one who takes care of the school needs, you take care of her home needs. She does not even have siblings and cousins in the picture.

And the sad thing is that the most important thing in her life at this point, her family, is cracking. Those are her words.

She observes, listens to us. She feels that we are no longer doing things together as a family. She senses your pulling away, she gets hurt that you are not paying her as much attention as before, she feels and knows that someone else outside the family occupies your mind. She sees my pain, my struggle to be strong, to regain my life. She afraid for me, for my ability to withstand this great stress. Too early in life, she has started taking on the role of the one to understand and make allowances for her parents’ mistakes and weaknesses.

She is losing her innocence at a time when she should first be learning to be idealistic. She is learning to be cynical before learning to be appreciative of the world. She is learning about broken promises before learning about truth and trust. She is starting to lose her belief in love, starting to build defenses around her heart. She has started questioning the meaning of loyalty and commitment. She will soon start having trust issues.

She always has been shy, and afraid of being hurt, as you have seen in her reluctance to make friends in a new school for fear of having to move away from them again. She is afraid of instability as evidenced by her wanting a structured environment. She is not the resilient type, preferring to hide her pain and her true self, not even opening up to us.

She now faces losing all of what she has valued so far in her short life. She has to face the fears she has when she is not yet fully equipped to do so.

Her crisis this week was only the start.

You are not hurting her directly, that is why she was puzzled by your question about hating you. She loves you and that is why she wants to keep the family together. The hurt comes from the situation we are in.

She has started to ask why we don’t do things as a family. She was not satisfied with the response she got, that we will be going on trips together in the near future, because that was not what she needed to hear. She wanted to hear that we will still be all together, not broken up. That is why she was even more disturbed the next day.

Remember though that it is not just at moments like this that she is in pain. It will always be there, and will only come up when her defenses are weak.

You may say that it is best for her to learn from our mistakes, to know what the world is really like, but without a foundation of knowing what is good and right, how will that work out? I she really equipped now to deal with it? She is at that time where her psyche is still fragile. It is hard to even say we will never know unless we try, because once she is damaged, there will be no turning back. And how do we know if the damage will be repairable? Are we equipped to control that damage ourselves? In my opinion, there will be plenty of time later to teach her where we have made mistakes so she will not repeat them them. You have seen how in many children, having too much stress and pain caused them to destroy themselves. Do you want that to happen to your child? We do not play with the lives of our patients, what more with that of our child?

Remember that our daughter only has herself when she grows up. She does not have siblings to rely on, and her cousins are far away. She has to be able to learn to build a strong relationship with her own family. How can she do that when she is scarred and damaged by her own family? When she knows that we did not even try to turn the situation around when we could? When only our own feelings and emotions were considered, and not hers?

I think it is not yet too late, but much of what she will learn will have to depend on our choices and our priorities. Do we choose her, or ourselves? Much as we would like to think that this is just between you and me, it is not.

......


I know this is not DBing but I feel like I cannot leave a stone unturned in protecting my daughter from further hurt. I love her so much, more than anything. But I am so afraid that this will make things worse.

Another option for me is to take this to heart and wait for a time I can talk about it. In the past we have discussed our daughter and he always has agreed that she is the priority. Maybe spoken words would be more gentle, rather than in writing.

As I write these I am in tears. Never in all these months that I have lived through this sitch have I felt so down and depressed. Oh Lord, carry me and my D12, open my H's heart to the Holy Spirit that he may see what he is doing to us!