Wife is not who I married...please help

[AndrewP]

LoneWlf

This might not help you and I have no specific advice for you but let me share with you a bit of my own story.

Sorry if it's a bit long. I am infamous around her for long rambling posts that may or may not have a point. Don't feel obliged to read / analyze.

In my own eyes I'm not a great Dad. I hope that I'm a reasonably good one but not great. I work a lot of hours and am not often around. This has been the case for pretty much my kids' whole lives. I left much of the day to day parenting up to my wife who wasn't great either. We loved our children but we weren't very engaged. Things like missed homework and such we would only find out about when reported by the school. Our kids were encouraged to lead fairly independent lives and did.

My daughter and I were always very close. In personality we are very similar. She was my "adventure buddy" and would usually accompany me on errands and help out with various household tasks. We would talk about all sort of things. About 6 years ago she got married and moved to the US. I'm grateful for the internet that allows us to interact almost daily and I go to visit her and her husband a couple of times a year for a few days.

My son, who is 2 years younger is very like his mother. He has a charming personality that he can turn on but is generally fairly selfish and reserved. He was never really close to either of us. I remember once asking him if he wanted to go to the hardware store with me when he was perhaps 8 and he responded with essentially "what's in it for me". His sister pointed out that adventures with Dad often involved ice cream and he just shrugged. He went off to university in Oshawa about 3 1/2 hours away about 5 years ago and while I would stop off to see him for dinner at least once a month we didn't really stay in touch. After 2 years he failed out in large part because he missed too many classes and spent 2 years sitting in his apartment essentially doing nothing. The last year of that was when my marriage fell apart.

I remember his mother pushing me to be firm with him and threaten to cut off his money if he didn't get a job or start another program at school. I refused. I don't abandon family. His mother of course did nothing herself.

One of the frustrating things about my son was that he would not answer texts or emails and hated talking on the phone. I just shrugged and accepted that. His mother would get quite angry at him for "ignoring her" and would refer to him as "that little sh!t" (true) until he responded.

I knew that his lease was coming up at the end of April 2017 and he didn't respond to repeated enquiries from me as to where he was moving, and did he need any help. At that time my ex had been moved out for about a year and I was unsure where she was living although I suspected. I did think that there was a good chance she had moved in with OM and thought as the clock counted down that my son was going to move in with them. It made sense. She's his mother after-all and I thought he was closer to her than he was with me. On the last week or so I contacted her via email breaking months of non-contact to see if she knew what he was going to do and feeling dread about the answer. She responded that she had no idea either and that our son should be responding to me because I was paying his bills (she and I have different ideas about reasons).

Now my son at the time was 22. In my mind a capable adult. At his age I had also been living on my own for 4 years and so I left his fate in his own hands. I also figured that if he needed help moving that he had lots of friends or his mother and OM (who has a fleet of trucks) would help him move.

Sometime in the last couple of days of April I was on the phone in a long call with a very dear and supportive friend enjoying an adult beverage when I got a text out of the blue from my son. It said that he had to be out of his apartment the next day and could he move home "for a short while". I said "of course". The next day I hooked up the trailer and headed down. We packed him up and drove home in pouring rain.

During the drive home I saw a text pop up on his screen from a contact labeled "Mom". It asked him where he was moving to. He responded "home with Dad".

As a slight aside story - my son lies. He lies like his Mother where she would often tell tales of how she felt the world should be rather than like it is. He doesn't have a passport. I gave him money for one once. He didn't get it. When I was visiting him once I gave him money again for one and actually drove him to the passport office and helped him fill out the forms. He was missing some information so couldn't do it right then but said that he would. We made plans to go visit his sister together in March who he hasn't seen in years. I was very excited. In December 2016 when bringing him home for Christmas he mentioned that his passport had come in. I booked the trip, got him travel insurance and bought him a suitcase. I dropped off the suitcase in I believe February 2017 when visiting him. He seemed stressed and after dinner before dropping him off at his apartment he had a full blown panic attack and tearfully told me that he couldn't go to see his sister with me. I presumed a conflict with his mother was involved and gave him a big hug and told him that it was OK. I recalled a similar panic attack shortly after his mother moved out when he refused to talk to her.

Getting back into the story - after he moved home, the next day there was a hiring fair at a local factory. He said that he was interested in going, I ironed a shirt for him, he read up on the company and got his resume freshly printed. The next morning, another panic attack and he said that he wasn't up to going. I said OK and that was fine.

We settled into a routine. I rarely saw him as he spent most of his time alone in his room. He had a very good friend who also moved back into the area and they started hanging out together. He had no job still (a number of people pushed me to threaten / push him) but I didn't. He did see his mother a couple of times after moving home but rarely (a trend that continues). Through friends of mine in the village I got him hooked up with the local penny ante poker game. He made new friends, reconnected with old ones. Through the poker game he got not one but two jobs. One working front-of-house at the local pub and another doing construction. For a while he was working 5 or 6 days a week.

We still don't interact much but have talked about the future in a completely non-threatening way. I've joked with him that he should plan on moving out before he turns 35 and that it may be awkward for me to date and have overnights with two guys with hairy backs wandering around the place. In many ways we're more like room-mates than father/son. I do still pay most of the bills but he's taken on a few of his personal ones himself. A relationship that I feel is healthy for us as both being adults. He has a lot of confidence in himself and the future I think even though he doesn't have it mapped out well. Recently we were talking and he said that he thought he would be here through this fall but expected to be on his own by the next. He knows that there's no pressure on him to either stay or leave.

One thing that is written a lot here is that we as the "behind spouse" need to be the "sane parent". I think I can manage that part. This is a safe place and I'm a safe person for both of my kids. In being a parent I've always felt that the hardest thing to be is a good example. I try my best but don't always succeed which occasionally is the source of some joking between me and the kids and also occasionally is the source of upset and anger with my son. He's gotten better at that though and I think his expectations of me in the last number of months has gotten a lot more realistic.

So - LoneWlf - I don't know if my story helped you or not. You're not alone here in struggling to figure out how to be a Dad when the Mom is missing-in-action. You can do it though. You and I and all the other single dads and somewhat single dads (and Moms) will struggle and fail. Being honest and open and truthful with our children both young and old and over-all and to me most importantly being the "safe" parent is key.

Good luck. This will be tough.