Thanks Gwen and deju, you both made my day. D15 just no longer seems to have any passions anymore. She used to write poetry (she won a city wide contest against kids up to 12th grade when she was only 10 and her poem published and was invited to read it at a huge event) and has now lost interest. She used to be an excellent flute player and now has no interest in that. She took a photography class and started to like that but doesn't want to take it further. She quit gymnastics the same time her mom bombed me. I try and get her to be involved in things she likes but the only thing that interests her now seems to be music and the bands she likes (very 15 like). I really think she is feeling out of control. She feels like she has to choose between her mom or me. I am always there for her, she knows she can count on me. Her mom, not so much. She wants her mom's attention at the same time she wants her independence. Her mother was unable to give her the right kind of attention before she left, now it's even worse.
Here's an example....a few weeks ago when D15 was staying with me (on a Sunday) D15 asked me if I could take her and a couple friends she had spent the night with to the local outlet to go shopping. Me and 3 teenage girls clothes shopping...oh boy! But I know she doesn't get to see these friends often (from her old school). It was the happiest I've seen her in ages! In the end, I had fun because she was having fun. When my W found out what we had been doing she said "She asked you because she knows I'd NEVER take her". I couldn't believe it. She seemed PROUD of herself having that attitude! Why wouldn't she want to do that? Is taking 4 hours out on a Sunday afternoon to do something special for your teenage D so horrible? Is it not what all the "cool" MLC women do on their Sundays? I know she has spent at least 2 weekends away helping her friends "boyfriend" move into a place in a city fairly far away where he just got a new job. Hours of driving, having to pack and work helping someone she hardly knows and she doesn't hesitate to do that but ask her to do something for her own D and that's just not going to happen! And she wonders why D15 is so hurt she is harming herself and feels like a failure.
This morning I went and took her to school. She would have had to walk the 20 min's to get there if I hadn't because her mother had to be in work early. It put me out, made me 45 min's late for work (I only missed stuff crazy boss wants us to do that is supposed to "motivate" us, no big deal there) and took me 60 miles out of my way round trip but you know what? It was a chance to see her, to show her I'm there for her. I found out that she broke up with her latest "boyfriend" (crazy what 15 year old girls consider "boyfriend", they hardly saw each other outside of school) I talked about her meetings with her IC, just showed her that I care enough to put myself out a little to help her. She was grumpy, tired (all teens seem to be tired all the time!) but I got to see her. This weekend my D19 is going camping at a music fest with her boyfriend. She has asked me to take care of her over active, barely house trained puppy. She borrowed a tent from me, asked me to drive to her place to get the dog. She knows she is asking a lot but knows she can count on me. Tonight she texted asking for a blow up mattress. I told her her mom took it. What did she say? Well she said she was afraid to borrow it because if something happened and it got a hole or something, her mom would make her buy her a new one. She's afraid to ask her mom to just borrow something, how sad is that?
When my w left she said that D doesn't hurt kids, as long as we acted "right", they would be fine. She even said she would be a "better" mother because she would be so happy. i know we have all asked this question and there is not only no answer, you can drive yourself insane trying to make sense of it...but what is wrong with the MLC mind that they can be so uncaring about their own kids, the S who stood by them through thick and thin, so many people and things that they used to care so much about? The $60,000 question, right?
Even now, after her own D is cutting herself, she still isn't slowing down, still refuses to look at how her own actions and how they have hurt so many. Not the kind of person she used to be, for sure, but who she seems to be proud of being now. I think that's one of the hardest things to take about the MLCers, how they seem to relish being the "bad" boys and girls.Think they are being "sophisticated".
She left me when I needed her help with income the most. Left me with no money (negative actually as she over-drew our account before she left) and no real means to make enough to just live. Took the most valuable things we collected over the years. Went to a lawyer when she said she wasn't, left and rented a place for a year after saying that a "trial separation" was worth trying, lied about her plans, tried to get a lawyer and get what she wanted before I could get one of my own. Accused me of all sorts of crazy stuff that never happened except in her own mind. It isn't even that she left me that bothers me the most. It's the way she did, how she didn't (doesn't) care how badly she has hurt me, the stress she has put me under, how she has destroyed so much of everything we both worked so hard for. That is what bothers me. Not what but how. Not if but when she choose to do it. Not how what she did hurt me but how it has hurt her own kids and the total lack of caring. That she took away my best friend and the person who would have helped me through all the bad things that have happened since she left, even if most wouldn't have happened if not for her.
So, here I am. Swimming for my life as I watch my D's suffer and all I worked my whole life for fall away. As I try and start over, new job, new priorities, new everything and also try and get past the last of the bad things from the old (like the IRS mess). Not easy. Very hard in fact but my only choice at this point because if I don't succeed, if I let myself fail, I also fail my D's, I also guarantee tht their lives will forever be changed for worse. Failure is NOT an option!
