Pool lessons

[Zues126]

Thanks gang. I appreciate your concern for my son and the support for the family.

Haha, too late, I definitely used the dog analogy the other day. But overall I executed the plan very well. After we spoke I had him write for a while, then we looked over his answers. The part about how his life would change if he permanently injured his mother was really well thought out and I could tell it made an impact. Frankly, just as importantly, he knows that if he crosses this line again he'll answer to me. If next time he gets angry the thought of me tips the scales just a hair towards finding an alternative method of handling things rather than violence then I'm good with that.

Now...assuming that's handled or at least addressed for today...yes, the next focus is on getting him the support he needs.

He is seeing a counselor. He had a visit Thursday morning and will continue to see her. Probably once a week once school starts up again.

Tonight I spoke with him a bit, no longer about the physical part (I made it clear I'll never bring that up again if he never crosses that line again), but rather to try to help him out a bit. Since this last incident there were two minor things that came up that lead me to believe that he is picking fights with his mom every opportunity he gets. My personal take on it is that he's angry with his mom over the divorce and he feels like letting go of his anger is betraying me or himself somehow, like he's saying he's ok with it. No one asked him, he's not ok with it, and he might feel like if he lets the anger go then somehow his mom can get her way, namely that everyone cooperates happily with her choices. So he wants to stay angry at her, and he wants to show her he's angry, and he does things that lead to conflict and finds ways to make himself the victim so he can reinforce his belief that she's the bad guy.

This seems pretty arm chair psychologist, but I've seen a lot that leads me to these conclusions. For example he sent my mom a text. XW had told me that he was grounded and wasn't supposed to have electronics so I messaged her that "Not sure if S13 is supposed to be able to use the cell phone, but just in case wanted to let you know that he just sent a text". Note, I didn't say he sent ME a text, just that he sent a text. I wanted to leave my mom out of this based on prior experiences. Anyway, she must've gotten into a fight with him and asked S13 if he sent me a text, and he must've said no. Because she then followed up asking me for a screenshot and S13 sent my mom another text saying that his mom was now "accusing him of being a liar". All of this was clearly escalatory. Had he just told her "No, but I sent my grandma a text" this would've all been avoided. Instead he caught her in a technicality and was able to say "I never sent dad a text" and then start a big fight so he could be the noble truth telling son that is getting picked on by his unfair mean mom.

This is only one example. If we were hanging out I could tell a much, much better picture. But I've seen enough to get a pretty strong read.

So I told him that's how it looked to me. I also acknowledged that I might be off a bit, so he could either do the same thing and dismiss everything I was saying because I didn't have it 100% right, or he could take anything that I said that was relative and use it to help himself. Because at the end of the day he's the one that has to live his life, I'm just here to help teach him some ways he can not shoot himself in the foot, but he's the one that has to live with the life he creates for himself. We talked about this a bit and I explained that while it is very reasonable to feel this way and natural to do what he's doing, in the end it's not working all that well for him since he's living with a ton of poison in his heart and dealing with perpetual consequences of these conflicts 50% of the time (and growing now that it's including me).

Then I said that since we'd now talked about what didn't work so well (carrying a grudge and picking fights whenever possible to keep it going). This gets a little longer so let's go with the cliff notes. I asked him if he knew much about the lives of slaves in the 17-1800s. He talked a bit about it. He understands that they were bought and sold as property, that families were broken up, that they were beaten and treated horrendously at times. I asked him to think about how they could live their lives in the midst of that injustice.

The point I made was that there were THREE paths they could choose from. The first was to live with anger all day every day, the second was to choose to accept slavery and not let it anger them anymore. Clearly living with anger every day all day didn't seem appealing and what we were on this earth to do. But to shrug and say 'meh, slavery, whatev, no big deal, I'm good with it...', well, that's pretty messed up as well. I talked about the middle path, the third option. That is to be passionately angry about slavery and all of it's works, and to use that anger productively should they ever have opportunity to make an impact...but then, when there was nothing more that could be done with it, at some point to let it cool down so they could still appreciate the moments in their lives that were good.

I explained how I got through the last three years with my mantra of appreciation. How if I looked at the sky and told God that everything I had been given, my life, family, health, shelter, food, job, friends, hobbies, passions, gifts, everything...if I look at God and say that's not enough, if I can't keep the marriage I wanted together then the rest of this is all garbage and I hate it...if I was really THAT ungrateful...well, in that case I'm just being a whiny brat and I will never be happy, marriage or not. IMHO. So I use that to remind myself to turn my focus daily on appreciating what I do have.

Basically I told him that I don't like divorce, that I think he has every reason to feel any amount of anger that he feels, that I'm even glad he doesn't like it. I told him in 100 years I think people will look back at this era and think that what we did to each other, breaking up families and such, will look as horrible to them then as slavery looks to us now. And he's going to suffer the consequences of this world and that stinks, there is nothing he can do about it. Both now and when he's trying to find a partner in a world where nearly everyone has this same crazy view that this is all somehow ok and normal. But that at the end of the day he has a life he's been given, and he has choices to make. And that I would recommend that given the choice to either pick fights with his mom and be a victim so he could live in constant anger and conflict so he could make sure some other person knew that he didn't like something they did, or the choice to voice and act on your beliefs when you have the chance and then to turn the focus on appreciating what you have left to celebrate...I would recommend the second path.

I know his mom is a challenging person to live with. And there is no doubt that her boyfriend has done some things completely out of line, because even if he was absolutely provoked some of these things are unacceptable. But I also know that my son has been provoking and escalating as well. I just wanted to help him understand that there are different choices he can make that would reduce the conflict without betraying himself. And he knows that I love him and don't want to see him living in pain, it's not betraying me to appreciate the life he has.

I did most of the talking. I gave him chances to respond but he was pretty quiet and I was ok with that. I just wanted to give him some food for thought and show him that he wasn't alone.

The fact is that he is a very smart kid and I believe that he understood everything I said. I'm not pretending to proclaim him 'cured' because I gave him a lecture. This was just what I felt was appropriate today. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I'm keeping a close eye on what goes on at his mom's of course. His mom and her boyfriend. If things don't change there may come a time when I make a move for him to live with me. It's great to try to work things out, but there comes a point where if it's better for him to live with me then we have to do what's best for him. But right now I believe it's best for him that he learns to find that middle road and live with his mom and manage himself to avoid these conflicts more often. Part of life is managing through these situations. Now if I get the sense that he's doing everything a reasonable 13 year old can and it's just an unreasonable situation, then so help me I'll make a move to get him living with me.

Shoot, long, long post as always. I'm not pretending this was perfect, just me, the play dad, doing what I can to make it through another battle.

In the end we had a good day. We went out to celebrate my birthday (last week), I went to a mexican restaurant where they made me wear the sombrero (I took S13 there on his birthday and they made him wear the sombrero, he wanted his payback), then we came home and played a little 500, read together, and listened to some music. We watched the video for Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues which is pretty epic. D10 gave me a gift that she sewed, it was a heart pillow with "My dad is smart" and "my dad is funny" and "I love my dad" and things like that dangling from the heart. It was really sweet. She'll turn on me soon enough, but right now she just glows around me. I don't know. Just rambling now. Life over here is very warm and fun and exciting. No complaints gang. No complaints.

I'll let you know if anything further comes to light with S13. Thanks again guys.