Sorry I let that last thread lock up - have been going through a little thing with H and think he's been reading my thread, so didn't really know what to post.
BUT - I just had to post this funny link today. I was on a professional site, and clicked on a link that was outdated, got one of those 404 error pages - but the cutest one you ever saw! It says, basically "I have no idea where that page is, but here's a picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head". Too cute - check it out:
How are things with the non-so-little one? Is he heading back to Berkeley soon? Sitting here in the humidity of Florida, I'm fondly thinking about that cool fog that rolls into the SF Bay Area nearly every summer night. Ahhhh....!
I've often wondered about your opinion regarding the consequences for kids of an MLCer. I worry about my S6 and the possible effect on his self-image when he experiences her wackiness or her self-focus.
Do yours comment on their father's struggle or do teens/young adults get too busy with their own stuff to really bother with that? Just curious.
Yeah, I'm around. Had a busy weekend doing stuff around the house. H had offered our house to a colleague for the week we're on vacation, and I pointed out to him that maybe it wasn't appropriate to leave them with all the broken/unfinished projects around the house (like, 3/4 of bathroom faucet handles broken, etc.) so he embarked on a massive fix-it weekend and I was the Home Repo runner. It's nice to be married to a handy guy
Gabe, you asked about S19 - yes, I think he can't wait to get back to Berkeley, he and S14 have been bickering all summer (mostly due to S14 resenting S19 sharing a room with him again.) S19 got a great paid internship this summer - a local biotech is paying him $10 an hour while they teach him to do cell cultures! He's now spending his summer growing and freezing a library of cell lines. Good basic lab skills for him to acquire, and a real bonus to get paid while doing it.
I think he's anxious to go back to Berkeley, though. Mid-August he goes back. Has a roommate all lined up.
You asked about the effects on the kids - mine were older, teens and preteens. A lot of the damage was hidden at first (although no coincidence I think that S19 got his only C grade ever that semester). My kids never had to deal with H being out of the house, only met OW once when they had no idea anything was going on - but still, they suffered from that shattering of the pedestal they had their dad on. I think it leaves them with a great feeling of insecurity, too - if that "great marriage" their parents seemed to have could suddenly fall apart without warning (so far as they knew) then what else that they trusted in is actually suspect too??? S19 (who was 15 att) had the toughest time, I think, even though he showed it least, because he was in that age of puberty where they start challenging their dad anyway - I think he struggled with the respect issue.
I imagine their issues are somewhat different than a six-year-old's, though. The six year old mostly needs your attention, and to know that he wasn't the cause (cause most kids that age think they caused it somehow).
And, one caveat - I'm sure that a lot of the teen issues my kids have had would have happened anyway - just as products of who they are, or because of inherited genetic tendencies to depression, rather than due to the actual events with my H, which were really quite mild compared to most here.
Thanks for sharing about your sons. I worry about mine a lot. They try to be stoic and strong but sometimes I see the hurt in their eyes and it tears me up. I have found that as long as they see me happy and upbeat, they can go about their lives. I have had a couple convos. with the two older ones that I now regret having had. Not because I was bashing STBX or anything like that, but just discussing the issue brought so much hurt flooding out of them. They care more than they let on.
So now, I do not bring up my H to my boys at all. They all have cell phones and H can contact them directly. I figure if they want to talk to me about something, they will tell me.
I will never believe, however, that my boys have not been damaged by what has happened here and how it was handled. It is so sad to me.
Your post gives me hope that they can move forward and get on with their lives.
Spitfire
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest. Mark Twain
Hi Ellie, sorry to hijack your stich, but i need to ask you a few questions please. We have still been trying to figure out what is going on with my daughter, now she has developed an on going headach and has formed a fat hump on her neck along with purple stretch marks on her thighs. He doc was going on vacation and told her to go to the urgent clinic for the headachs. She has ordered blood work and a MRI for her, she has suggested that she might have Crushings disease. I have read some about it, but unsure what kind of a doc to take her to so she will get the right kind of help. I am worried sick that this is what it is. Thanks again, Sonni
"Buffalo hump" and purple stretch marks certainly sounds like classic symptoms of Cushing's disease. Here's a link to a good patient-information site and organization: http://www.cushings-help.com/toc.htm
She may need to see an endocrinologist and/or a neurosurgeon (if she has it and it is the type due to a pituitary tumor). If her initial bloodwork is clearly abnormal and makes the diagnosis, great - if it comes back normal, you may need to see an endocrinologist and push for further testing - sometimes the diagnosis of Cushing's can be difficult to make. Of course, if the MRI shows something obvious like a pituitary growth, that may help clinch the diagnosis.
Too cute - check it out:
