Thanks Gwen, I needed to hear that right now. Yesterday I worked a chili cook off sponsored by the company I just started working for. It was actually enjoyable. I spoke with one of the people I work with. He asked about my W and the D. He asked if it was my idea. I was honest and I told him that it wasn't. If I had my way my family wouldn't be going thru all that we are. He told me that when he was 13 his father left his mother after 25 years of M. That neither of them were ever the same after and in the end, his mother ended up killing herself and his father drinking himself to death. He told me that if there was one thing that he would say it was don't let it destroy you. He watched his father end up leaving the woman he left his mom for. Saw how much he hurt and how he regretted what he had done. How his mother was never the same, never able to trust anyone again. How they became trapped by the choices his father made. He ended up being raised by his grand parents who, even though his GF had just had surgery, came out because he cooked the red chili and they wanted to support him. His chili won 3rd place by the way.
How much do you want to bet that his father was in MLC? I think more and more men and women are ending up in crises. How do they live with themselves after all the hurt they cause? How can they be so blind to or un caring about the pain their journey causes those that actually love them? How is it that anyone can truly believe that the answer to their inner pain is to cause so much pain to those that have loved them for who they are? These are the questions that haunt me not just in my own sitch but in so many of the sitchs of those on this board I've come to know (and in many cases like and admire). So many really good people who get their lives turned upside down by weak minded, scared, damaged people.
My D15 was so far from the kind of person who would hurt herself until her mother moved her out of the only home she had ever known, separated her from her sister and took her father away from her for 1/2 the time. Until her mother's choices took her away from all her friends and threw her into a sitch where she was totally alone in a school that was as different from what she knew all her life until that point as possible. Watched her mother act like a child and be so selfish. Watched her let her father who has treated her mother, father, sister and her with distain all her life tell her that being a wife and mother was "beneath" her and a waste of her life....and her mother Agree with him!
When my D15 was 12 and her sister 15, one day we were all together hanging out one Sunday morning. This was when my W was really starting going into her MLC. The girls had been talking about whether their mom had a "favorite" and they both agreed that my oldest was their mom's favorite and told her so. My W said that wasn't true that she loved them both equally, blah, blah. Then my W told a story. She said that the moment our oldest was born she felt this total love like she had never felt before. How it was so profound and like nothing she had ever felt before.....or since. So, my youngest asked what about when she was born? Didn't she feel it for her, too? So my W says to all of us that unlike with our oldest, she not only didn't feel the same, but that she "didn't even like her". That it took "..a long time..." for her to "..warm up.." to her. You should have seen the look on my D's faces...both of them. Even my oldest couldn't believe that her mother could say something like that to her sister! When my W saw how hurt my younger D was, she quickly added "But I did warm up to you and I love you just the same as your sister now". By then the damage was done. All my D heard her say was that she loved her sister and didn't even like her. To this day my W treats my oldest differently than my younger D. This is the kind of thing that causes kids to self-harm. Now my W thinks that she can keep me out of my D's IC, that she has a right to tell me that I can't meet with her counselor like she does? The he!! with that!
I pick up my D from my W today. I am going to tell my W that she needs to email me the names of the people she has spoken to at my D's school and the name and contact info for the counselor she is going to see. I am going to contact these people and let them know that my W does not have the legal authority to stop me from having access to any and all info regarding my D15. That she is NOT her guardian or custodial parent, we BOTH are, and they have to keep me informed and I WILL meet with her IC as often as her mother does and if they don't want to do this I will have my lawyer contact them. My W and her selfish crap is the biggest cause of the problems my D15 is having. I will not allow her to make things worse by pushing me out of her treatment!
