The story of Spork.

Hm. I'm covering a discussion group for one of the friends who was involved (and hurt by) the recent triangulation episode and subsequent fallouts, and she just told me she may not ever make it back. I don't honestly know what to say to that. I want to be there for her, yet I feel that I made a mess of things, or at least made a tense situation a lot worse though I wanted to help. And today I have so much going on that I can't wrap my brain around figuring out what might be the "right" thing to say here. I've told her that I care, and that I want her around. I know she is going through stuff. I feel for her. But it's just like...my desire to help has not brought about anything good, so I don't know what to do or say now. :confused:

I'm mostly concerning myself today with stuff going on with my kids. I got a call from Ninja, in Montana, letting me know he was doing well. He wants me to buy him a printer. Says he needs one. So I need to look into that. I wonder if they make printer/scanner/copiers in a reasonably compact size...

And Q apparently is the sort of human who does a lot better under pressure than not. His nearly full time employment at Taco Bell has not compromised his ability to keep up his grades. He had an issue in his gym class but other than that, he's doing very well. His attitude has been better than ever. It could be that in the past he's had too much time on his hands, too much freedom, and not enough purpose and structure and stuff to make him feel productive and busy. I did some reconfiguring of his high school graduation requirements and class scheduling plans, and despite failing a lot of credits last year, we should be able to get him through school with just a couple of online credits both summers, before and after his senior year. Which would mean he would not participate in the graduation ceremony, but he would still get his diploma without having to go back for an extra semester as a "Super Senior" (god that sounds ridiculous.)

My older son, Ninja, had to make up a couple of courses I think during the summer after his senior year, to get his diploma, too. So he is getting what will look to him, like an equivalent amount of extra time and support from home, as what his brother got. These kinds of things matter to Q sometimes. But we should have him all squared away by the end of summer, 2020. And then where he goes from there will be up to him...to a point. He is strongly considering enlisting in the military. He turns 17 in just a few days! I will be an empty nester before too much longer.

And my job has been piling on stuff, and I've got my things at the club, and I make sure to protect my ability to spend time with Zen, in my schedule. But my calendar is pretty chaotic looking. At some point I want to wedge in some fall/Halloween activities with my kid, but damned if I know where.
 
Fucking hell.

I just emailed the plan for getting Q through high school to his father, because it's part of my co-parenting obligation to keep him in the loop about such things, even though it's infuriatingly pointless.

Every time I try to tell him what our options are for getting Q graduated, he says he knows of some totally free credit recovery thing that will let him graduate early and he's going to send me links. But then he never does. Probably because a free credit recovery option that will actually work for us, does not actually EXIST. I've looked. There are some options out there but none of them really fit in our life schedules. We've got the ability to get the kid into online classes to the tune of 2 credits in the summertime, and that's it, and it costs $200, but I'm doing that. Otherwise...no. And this won't allow him to graduate on time, let alone early, but he'll only be late by a matter of a couple months, so that doesn't suck given he failed nearly everything last year.

So anyways. I send the plan to Ex. Ex emails me back and says, "Fair enough but I have a hunch he'll graduate on time. Just me." There are days I fantasize about throwing objects, solid, material objects, at this man, until he relents and comes into alignment with the real actual physical real world that the rest of us humans inhabit. I wanted to say, "OH that's great! Tell you what, how about you email his school administration, a copy of your HUNCH so that they can add it to Q's transcript and count it toward his graduation requirements, you fucking idiot!"

I did not say that. :) *serenity...serenity...* But I thought it.

What I did say was that, to the best of my knowledge, unless he is hatching plots and schemes of which I know nothing, I am the only one trying to come up with any sort of actual PLAN to get Q through high school. And while I would sure welcome it, if someone else decided they wanted to jump in here and implement a better plan, so long as I'm the one doing it, THIS IS THE PLAN. And that under the circumstances, it does not really seem like a bad one.

The man makes me crazy. Some days I wonder if it's on purpose.

On the bright side, he's got an interview with the post office, and another one scheduled for tomorrow. He's been trying to get a post office job for years. It would be a good gig for him because he's got over 10 years in the military, so full retirement would (unless they change the rules on this, because this administration IS changing all sorts of shit) come in under 10 years if he could just get in there. Of course given that he is a well armed gun nut and prone to extreme emotional instability at times, there are many "going postal" jokes to be made. But I'm just...not in the mood at the moment to think of any good ones.
 
So this last weekend, in addition to a few other things going on kink-scene wise, I spoke on a "Panel" about consent that was sponsored or promoted (??) by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and some other mental health and educational orgs. Turnout was not as good as I could have hoped, but it was ok I guess. We had a mix of club regulars and sex/relationship therapist types show up. This, sadly, means that as is often the case when you hold such an event, we were preaching to the choir for the most part. You don't get a room full of ignorant regular-folk who need schooling on what consent means and how to avoid violating it, when you host a thing like this. A number of us were definitely thinking about how to get this information "out" more broadly. I talk to a lot of muggles on the internet about such things, but I wonder if maybe we could create consent literature and get it out into the world...

Timely to this thing, I saw a post on Facebook that very morning that only 8 states in the US require sex ed classes to even so much as MENTION consent. I know I wasn't taught anything about it, I'm not sure the word even featured in my vocabulary much when I was a teenager. Which is why I violated the consent of a friend, why I wasn't sure if my own sexual assault experience even qualified as a rape, and why my friend did not learn the right things from me, and he went on to be involved in a much more traumatic rape of another person later. We just didn't know jack shit about what proper consent should even look like. So here we are now, trying to educate. Each other if no one else.

The stories I had to share were not easy to tell, but I believe that it's for the best that I do speak about these things. I always say that thankfully, ignorance is a curable condition, so I'm doing what I can to help do that.

But then, ya know, there are some people who...just...I don't even know.

There we were, about 6 of us, 5 women and one man, sharing our stories about consent violation, making ourselves vulnerable to people, for the greater good.

And halfway through the event, your standard issue fetlife rando comes wandering in and finds a seat. I've not met him before. Afterwards, I overhear him making the rounds, talking to several of the women, saying the same thing he later said to me... "Thank you for sharing your story and being a part of this. What's your fetlife name?"

I asked him if he was new to the area, or to kink, and he says he just moved here with his "Mistress" from California. Mmkay. He was a large (tall and broad) older fellow with bad teeth and an overgrown and undergroomed white beard, flecks of dry skin all over his shirt front. And he is putting off a big vibe of "I'm looking for women to engage with right now." That kind of thirsty feel you just get. I told him my fetname though, even though my gut was telling me not to and that I wanted nothing to do with him. I'm caught a little between that feeling and a feeling that I want to represent my club and my community, and to do that I've got to be ok with connection even with people I am not interested in... Well, to a point at least. Wait and see.

So I got home and he'd commented something mildly suggestive on one of my photos. The photo was actually a Monty Python joke, he turned it into an opportunity to say something about manual stimulation of female bits. *sigh* Erm. Right. And a message that reiterated his appreciation for me being there and sharing my story...and...

OK break a sec, one of the things I'd said in the second half (while he was there) was that I am kind of switchy, but most of my "Left side" activity (Domme/Top/Sadist) was when I was a teenager and unfortunately during that time, I did not have an ethical framework to operate in, so much of what I was doing...was not really ethically done. I was pretty feral. So I feel that a big part of my hesitation to engage in Left-side play is a fear of that side of myself, due to that history. I'm working on untangling that, but it's a process and I'm really not there yet.

I said that.

He took that as an opportunity and an invitation perhaps. Because in his message on fet, was "The fact that you said you want to do more Left side things was not lost on me, and maybe we can start communicating with that as a goal and I can help you work past your hesitation and build your confidence."

So I'm having a bit of trouble parsing out my feelings about this today. Like big news, some randy rando wants to engage me on fetlife, doesn't this happen every 10 minutes to most women there? And I should be compassionate, he is doing what my beloved Zen might call "buying a lottery ticket." You will never get close to what you want, if you don't ask, right? And he definitely tried to phrase his request in a nice way.

But I guess it rubs me a bit the wrong way that I went to this thing and made myself vulnerable and shared, and some strange man decided that meant my doors were open so he could come barging right in, throwing his needs and wants all over the place. I was not there for that. And the feeling that my message was taken in by this person, not at the educational level that I wanted it to convey, but a "how can I turn this to my advantage?? Where is the opportunity for me to get some action here?" It just was not that kind of an event. If you show up to a thing where people are sharing traumatic stories about their experiences with rape basically, and trying to make something educational of it, the last thing on your mind should be trying to pick up a partner. That's just...that's just how I feel about it. I dunno.

I have not responded to his message or his friend request yet. I don't know if I will, I might just let it go silent. Every time I think about saying, "Thank you but no" or "I appreciate your...." or "I'm so sorry but I..." I get mad at myself for feeling like if I say no, I have to say it gently and softly. And then I get mad at myself for not being nice. And then I ask myself if I should have to be nice. And round it goes. If I say anything to him it will probably be along the lines of, "I am sorry that you interpreted my comments as an invitation. They were not intended that way. My hesitations to play as a Top are not for lack of willing bottoms, as I have had many volunteers. They are personal, and I need to work though this myself. If I were seeking help to do so, I would be looking to my friends of many years, and probably a woman, to fill that role. Not a man I just met yesterday. Best of luck."

I think what bugs me so much, is the presumption to too high a level of intimacy, too fast, when I'm not really fishing for it. Like, "I just met you, but I like you so you are going to let me ALL UP IN YOUR BUSINESS IN EVERY WAY RIGHT?? Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!" With the end goal always having nothing whatsoever to do, really, with being a good friend or helping me "gain confidence" or whatever these guys are offering to try and make me want to engage with them, but all too transparently the real goal they are NOT saying is to get their own kinks satisfied. I think that in a way, this is why I'm really not into subby men usually, and I cringe when I think about what the Domme women I know deal with. These guys, so many of them, so often, they will spot a woman, decide she is attractive, and just like that without knowing a single thing more they are ready to "worship" her and it's gross to me. They are wanting to worship an ideal in their minds, and just want a woman to play the role they envision. Who she is, what she wants...not really relevant except insofar as how it relates to that role. It is amazing how pushy supposedly submissive guys can be, in pursuit of what they want. Well. Not really THAT amazing given how some guys in general can be.

Anyhow. I remind myself how many wonderful and non-pushy guys I know, it is the majority, really that I interact quite comfortably with. Just once in a while I get a vibe from someone that makes me throw up the walls. The fact that I encountered that following an educational panel on consent just makes me feel a bit like, "Fucking seriously??"
 
In other news, I am about to change my signature here to reflect the fact that my younger son just turned 17 yesterday! Big life milestone, man! Just one year to go and he'll be an adult. I still expect he will continue to live with me a while until he's done with high school and ready to move on into his adult life and all, but hey. It's a step in a future-ly sort of direction.

We went to breakfast before he had to work, and then after his shift we went to the mall and got him a few things he wanted and wandered about and spent some time together, then we went and did some driving practice.

He's still juggling work and school pretty well, and seems to be finding his groove with the whole Taco Bell job thing. I'm very proud of him!
 
So today and yesterday I've been doing a fun thing. I'm preparing for a Halloween themed party we're doing at the club on the 13th. I am bringing music...because holy fuck do I ever have a TON of Halloween music. All kinds. From my old school Cleopatra compilation goth tunes, to your standard classics like "Werewolf of London" to themes from TV, movies, theater and even video games. I've got a TON of music.

And I've thought of more that I want to investigate and maybe buy. This and that. Y'know. Like ya do.

So you guys, that song from the Lost Boys soundtrack, the oiled, bare chested guy with the saxophone. "I Still Believe." You know the one? I'm wavering a bit. It isn't spooky, but it's sort of iconic. You know what's got me just flabbergasted right now, is that there are at least 2 other versions of this song out there, but...get this...they are SAXLESS. Like I'm not the biggest saxophone enthusiast in the world, but for that song, how on earth can anyone think that you can do it without the sax? I mean...it's just...not even saxy without the sax...it's...it's wrong...

I have strong feelings about this. Also, I believe that no one should sing the song, "My Favorite Things" except for Julie Andrews. Her version of it was definitive, and we really need to learn to just leave perfection alone. Why did they remake Willy Wonka? No one knows. I mean are we gonna get Johnny Depp to pose for a remake of Michelangelo's "David" next? Seriously.
 
So today and yesterday I've been doing a fun thing. I'm preparing for a Halloween themed party we're doing at the club on the 13th. I am bringing music...because holy fuck do I ever have a TON of Halloween music. All kinds. From my old school Cleopatra compilation goth tunes, to your standard classics like "Werewolf of London" to themes from TV, movies, theater and even video games. I've got a TON of music.

And I've thought of more that I want to investigate and maybe buy. This and that. Y'know. Like ya do.

So you guys, that song from the Lost Boys soundtrack, the oiled, bare chested guy with the saxophone. "I Still Believe." You know the one? I'm wavering a bit. It isn't spooky, but it's sort of iconic. You know what's got me just flabbergasted right now, is that there are at least 2 other versions of this song out there, but...get this...they are SAXLESS. Like I'm not the biggest saxophone enthusiast in the world, but for that song, how on earth can anyone think that you can do it without the sax? I mean...it's just...not even saxy without the sax...it's...it's wrong...

I have strong feelings about this. Also, I believe that no one should sing the song, "My Favorite Things" except for Julie Andrews. Her version of it was definitive, and we really need to learn to just leave perfection alone. Why did they remake Willy Wonka? No one knows. I mean are we gonna get Johnny Depp to pose for a remake of Michelangelo's "David" next? Seriously.
 
I mean are we gonna get Johnny Depp to pose for a remake of Michelangelo's "David" next? Seriously.

Yes, please! :p
 
Ugh. I've been having some minor technical issues with the site on this computer, and I just realized I accidentally double posted yesterday. Oops. Crud. Oh well.

My life as a Mom has been...erm...interesting?

Last night Q had an orchestra concert. First he wanted me to go pick up his bow which we've had re-strung (his other one; he has one to use right now) but there was not going to be time, then he wanted to go to Einstein Bagels before the concert, but there was not going to be time, then he tells me that the whole orchestra is getting together at Village Inn afterwards. So even though I really wanted to high-tail it home after the concert and spend time with Zen, I was like...*sigh*...fine...I'll do the Mom thing and take you to hang with your friends. So we went. I kept asking if he wanted to go hang out with his friends, I brought a book, I'm perfectly fine to sit by myself it's no big deal. I got us a table and reiterated that if he wanted to get up and go say hi to people, he could.

Instead he sat at our booth, just us two, and he stared at his phone the whole time. He didn't say a word to me, he didn't say a word to anyone else. I was like "why in the hell are we here, doing this?"

When we left, he kept giving me attitude every time I tried to talk to him. I finally said, "You seem kinda hostile right now. What's wrong?" And he was trying to say that the way I talk is stupid and embarrassing and that he's socially awkward and it's my fault. ...what? "You can't just talk like a normal person!!" Um. Like how am I supposed to talk? "Like you're talking to me right now!" I have no idea what he was on about. But we continued to discuss until we got down a few layers into why he was feeling all prickly and fussy. Basically he was full of confusion and feelings and he was pretty sure it was my fault. Well. Mine and his father's, but mostly mine. He just wants to be a normal kid with a normal life but his parents like metal and D&D, and he NEVER HAD A CHANCE and he doesn't know how to talk to girls and it's our fault that he's awkward and even though he does have friends, he has no friends because he can't be accepted into any group at school and it's our fault for being weird parents who like weird things. He feels like he is finally a pretty good looking dude and women find him attractive but he still isn't getting laid because he doesn't know how to talk to girls because no one taught him how to socialize. And he hates us both (his Dad and I) and can't wait to move out and not give us his address and never speak to us again.

Wow. "With the lights out, it's less dangerous...here we are now...entertain us...I feel stupid...and contagious...here we are now...entertain us..." It was that kind of an evening.

I informed him that as soon as he felt he had the means to move out, by all means, move out. No one is gonna stop him. The room and board I provide is not something I am IMPOSING on you, it's offered, not demanded. Christ on a bike.

Ya know, I could almost have my feelings hurt, because this kid was my sweet baby once upon a time and all, but it's just too ridiculous to take seriously or personally. It really is.

He's all "I feel like you're never around and you're not there for me" and then "I just want you to leave me alone." And "I'm glad I'm learning a lot about independence and how to take care of myself" then "I need you to make me eat nutritious food and make my lunches."

I want to be all grown up!
I want to be a little boy!
Nothing makes sense!
Nothing is fair!

Good god. You know, I don't recall being QUITE this insufferable at 17, I really do not. I mean, I was doing worse things, I was up to my eyeballs in sex, drugs and rock & roll, but I don't remember this much whining and bitching though.

Oh. And last night I kept hearing weird noises, which I figured were the cat...got up at one point like, "Nimbus? Cat? Cat?" Didn't see the cat. Figured he'd run off downstairs. Went back to bed. In the morning, more weird noises. Finally got to investigating properly and discovered that Q had accidentally shut him in the linen closet last night. He'd been trapped in there all night. Poor kitty! I should have known something was up when he didn't join me in bed like he usually does. He was happy to be rescued. Much purring and head rubs.

And then Q missed his bus this morning, so I had to run him to school, which made me late for work. So my day is already a bit wonky. I hope I remembered to turn the coffee pot off, but I intend to run home on my lunch regardless because I've got to get a box ready to send to Ninja, so I'll check then. Life. Life life life life... See, this is why I don't poly anymore you guys, my shit is already complicated and hard enough to manage, I swear!
 
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LOL I misread one sentence of your post and thought that Q had shut HIMSELF in the linen closet! Then I thought maybe Q was your cat's name, not your son...but now I see that your son Q shut the cat in the linen closet, that makes more sense.

RE: your son Q getting mad at you after the concert. What I think happened is that he wanted to hang out with the classmates who said they were going to be there, but when you and he arrived there, he felt too awkward to approach the group or felt like he wasn't really invited/welcome. So, not knowing how to handle his feelings about that, he lashed out at you.

I totally remember being like that as a teenager, and it sucked! I was so lonely.
 
... You know, I don't recall being QUITE this insufferable at 17, I really do not. I mean, I was doing worse things, I was up to my eyeballs in sex, drugs and rock & roll, but I don't remember this much whining and bitching though.

THIS is why I am glad that I am not a parent (now, although a few years ago I wanted to have a baby in the worst way). I was a "bad" kid...but I was smart about it. Straight A's, got myself on birth control AND insisted on condoms, tried stuff in safe environments, etc. I had a blast in HS/college! but so many kids seem to be "doing it wrong" - how did we (as a society) fail them?!?
 
Just a quick question, Spork; did Q even APOLOGIZE for missing the bus, or THANK YOU for driving him to school?

Inquiring minds want to know! LOL. I feel your pain. My oldest is sitting in jail right now for violating his probation. Things could definitely be worse!
 
Just a quick question, Spork; did Q even APOLOGIZE for missing the bus, or THANK YOU for driving him to school?

Inquiring minds want to know! LOL. I feel your pain. My oldest is sitting in jail right now for violating his probation. Things could definitely be worse!

Yes, things could be MUCH worse. I have known boys who got to this age, where they are physically bigger than a single Mom who is trying to parent them, and actually became violently abusive. I've known plenty of kids who were getting up to far worse trouble than either of mine have, and who were far harder to deal with day to day.

I am aware that I'm actually pretty fortunate all in all. But then, I think I'm always somewhat aware of that on some level, I was just talking to Zen about this last night...it's sort of who I am. A "glass half full" person if you will. If I complain, it's mostly in a humorous sort of tone. I find life's challenges to be pretty absurd.

In a way though, that's part of my frustration. My ex husband did not see the glass as half full ever, and my younger son seems to have picked some of this up from him. Nothing is ever really good, there's always something terrible to complain about, other people have it better than him, and if only things were this way or that way, his life would be great. But they're not. Woe and melodrama. I'm over here like, dude you have it pretty good, why make it bad? I dunno. Whatever. It won't be long before whatever mindset they've chosen to live will no longer be my problem at all. That's the only way I know how to see it.

Q did apologize for missing his bus. He was probably like 2 minutes too late, and I'd yelled at him to get out of bed several times, he was just struggling to get rolling yesterday. He didn't thank me for driving him to school, because I think he'd have preferred I just called him in and let him stay home if it came right down to it, but when we arrived he told me "You don't have to park or anything, just stop and let me dash out, it'll be faster." He was aware that he was inconveniencing me.

We also keep running into situations where for some reason (talking to his Dad too much?) he expects I'm going to yell at him or be mad at him...but I'm not. He told me the other night during our (ridiculous) talk that he wants to try certain drugs at some point and he "knows I'll be mad about it or tell him not to" but he "just wants to experience life." I laughed, and I said, "OK look. Here's how to do drugs. Smoke pot OCCASIONALLY but try to avoid letting it be an every day habit. That's where it can fuck up your mind and your life, if you let it. And if you ever have the opportunity to drop acid, do it. It's a ton of fun. Just make sure that you are in a totally safe environment, with nothing and no one there who can freak you out. Stay away from coke, crack, meth, and absolutely definitely never ever touch heroin. That stuff has killed people I know. It's a death sentence. Just don't." I had nothing to offer regarding peyote or shrooms, having never tried those myself, but I wouldn't be mad at him for doing them. I mean...I'm not going to go out of my way to facilitate him having sex or doing drugs, like I would not buy him drugs, and I'm not going to avoid being home so he can have privacy with girls. I AM his Mom for crying out loud. But I remember being young and wanting to live a little (or a lot) and I'm not going to treat him like an infant, and I'm somewhat realistic about my ability to prevent a teenager from doing certain things. So I'll tell him what I know and hope he makes smart choices. Last night, he showed me some cool knives he bought on Amazon, since he's got his own money now...again he half-expected for some reason I'd be mad or something. I don't get why he thinks that. I had cool looking knives as a teenager. I was just like, don't take them to school and try not to cut yourself. I'd rather not have to spend a night sitting in the ER. Easy.

So when it came to taking him to school, his demeanor was somewhat contrite, as though he expected me to be pissed off, but I really wasn't. He's been doing relatively good this year, and sometimes shit just happens.

I dunno, I knew that at some point he and the ex would be talking shit about me. That isn't something I can control. I just figure, I'll be over here walking MY talk and doing my best, and if that's not good enough...oh well. Eventually he'll be a grown adult, he's getting there, and if the worst case scenario is that he distances himself from me and hates me, well he'd better not come asking me for anything when life gets tough then. You wanna be all thick as thieves with your Dad, you can turn to his loser ass when things get hard, for all the good it'll do ya. Or, the alternative, that I hope for, where he becomes a more balanced adult, does the thing I think most people have to do if they're going to move on and life a decent life, and realize his parents are human, forgive us both, and have at least an ok relationship with me, or a good one, who knows.

Dealing with his Dad prepared me to be pretty chill about all this. I mean, the ex just lost his last job for supposedly making comments his coworkers took as threats to "kill his ex wife" (me) and my reaction wasn't one of alarm, it was "You're an idiot. How can you be 50 years old and not know, that you can't just say stupid things like that to normal people and expect to keep a job. God. How was I married to your dumb ass so long?" :rolleyes:
 
I haven't posted for a little while, because things have been tougher than usual and my life has been chaos. Long story short, Q was in a mental health facility for 5 days. He lost his virginity to a girl the night I was at a GWAR show in Denver, which would have been Wednesday the 10th. Thursday he apparently talked to her and assumed she was his girlfriend, and she said she really was not "emotionally available" enough to be anyone's girlfriend, and he lost it and told her he was going to kill himself. I really thought, after last year when he reacted to his "girlfriends" (the two of them at the time) breaking up with him, by talking suicide, and had to get assessed, but not held, at a facility...that he'd learned something. Apparently not. So he was committed, involuntarily, for 5 days on Friday. He said, all along, and after being released, that he wasn't depressed or suicidal really, he was just really upset.

I am so torn about all of this. I take it seriously, because that's what you do, and I certainly am very concerned if my son has genuine thoughts of self-harm. I love my kid. But I'm well aware of the fact, too, that he saw his father yank me around for a couple of years by threatening to kill himself. Hell, he told THE KIDS he was going to kill himself. Then after his mood blew over, it was all, "Well you should have known I didn't really mean that, I can't follow through with it, never could." But hey, in the heat of big feelings we can say whatever shit we want, and other than doing whatever we want people to do, nothing bad should come of it, right? No one should see us as overly dramatic or unacceptable or toxic or have us locked up or whatever...because we didn't MEAN what we said, right?

And yet I had to toe a line of 100% perfect accountability for not only every word that passed my lips but every made-up interpretation that the Ex ever spun out. HE could spout off crazy, but I couldn't even have feelings that mattered. Well anyhow Q saw all that shit going down, so I feel like this whole mess is one part teen angst, one part parental BS, one part him being stretched thin with school and work, and very little true depression. Nevertheless, he's out now and he's got therapy today. I did find a therapist who does what many do not, which is hold patients accountable and give actionable life advice to improve things, rather than sitting there asking, "And how did that make you feel?" and scribbling who-knows-what in a notebook that you'll never see. Maybe it helps. I can only hope.

Meanwhile, as if the whole situation were not stressful enough, the Ex was being a total asshole the whole time, and I HAD to deal with him a lot because he was there visiting and working with me on Q's stuff. Nothing quite like sitting in a waiting room with respectable looking parents and family of committed people, while your crazy ex sits there tearing you apart in a loud whisper over how you broke him and he'll never be whole again and he's not surprised the kid is a mess because of "the environment" he lives in and on and on. I was like, "What environment? Why don't you tell me what exactly it is I'm exposing him to that is so harmful, please? I'd love to know." Really the Ex was harping on how I destroyed our perfect family and clearly it is because his mother is a betraying Jezebel that the kid has issues. So that was fun.

A revelation however has come of this latest round of BS, for my Ex. I told him that he betrayed me, at least as much as I ever betrayed him. Sure, I interacted with other men in ways he considered to be inappropriate and I lied to him about it (didn't have actual sex with anyone else, until after we'd broken up, but it doesn't matter really as far as he's concerned. He's also counting the fact that after our breakup he was interrogating me about every man I slept with and I did not tell him the full truth then, which frankly since we were no longer together, I didn't feel obligated to disclose every detail of my love life.) But in my world-view, him abusing our kids, betraying my trust that he was a safe person to share a home and a family with, was a far greater wrong than had he actually slept with someone else and lied to me. He looked a bit shocked about that and said, "Fair enough." Which is his code for "I don't agree with you but I'm done arguing."

He was legitimately surprised that I found angry temper tantrums, hitting and throwing stuff at the kids, telling them he was going to kill himself, me, or burn the house down, was worse than me kissing another man once and lying about it, or later not telling him about one of my sex partners after we were broken up, when he was grilling me and demanding details so he could shame me. Yes, dude. I consider violence worse than sex, and even lies. I'm sorry we don't agree and you think violence is fine (so long as you can excuse it with anger--anything is ok if you're justifiably angry enough!) We're never going to see eye to eye on this one. Guess he's lucky though, the kid has forgiven him, and may never forgive me. I can only hope that once Q emerges from the chaos of the teenage hormone tempest he's in, that he doesn't follow in his father's behavioral and ideological footsteps.

Ugh. Fuck all this. So anyhow the worst of that shit storm has blown past, on to the next!

My mother is visiting.

I love my Mom, and I'm thrilled to see her and cannot wait to spend time with her, truly. But I am terrified, also, because she's the #1 relative I have to maintain safe boundaries with. For most of my adult life, my Ex stood between me and her, preventing her from seeing me as a resource to exploit, because he hated her and she hated him. Now though? Well let's say I'm on guard. She's got a lifetime habit of latching onto whatever family members she can, in the name of helping them with their problems, and draining them of everything they've got, bringing tons of animals, bugs, random foreign boyfriends, whatever...chaos. At this time, my immediate fears are that either she gets here and then says she doesn't have the money for gas to go back home, or she gets here and has car problems and needs expensive repairs to get home (which I cannot afford of course) or that this is a scouting expedition to see what kind of space I've got that she could talk me into letting her move into if her life falls apart, which it forever does and could at any time. Long story short, I adore her but I don't trust her. I hope against hope that this can just be a pleasant family visit. I want that more than anything. Please, please Mom...bring love and not crisis. I can't handle any more crisis, really I can't.

*sigh*

Meanwhile now that he is out as of last Wednesday, Q is thick with this girl, who has sketchy people she's involved with, and he's quit his job at Taco Bell and is going to work at the same McDonald's where she works, which is quite a bit longer of a walk from our house with winter coming on. What could possibly go wrong? And he had the nerve to ask me if she could move into our house. Seriously. I told him no, that NO ONE is moving into our house. Period. It's not happening. Not her, not my own Mother, not anyone. Don't take it personally, but it's my home and that's my rule. It is a thing I will not do, not even temporarily. I have learned hard lessons about taking in human "strays." It was a mark of how bad and crazy shit was at the end of my marriage, that I allowed that to happen then. I knew better but I wasn't functional enough to say no. I am now. No.

No, no, no.

During all this wackiness, I also had a party I'd agreed to be manager on duty for, Saturday the 13th. It was Friday when Q was institutionalized, and I felt it was too late to find someone else to cover it, and I'd already made a lot of plans...so I was like "fuck it. I'll go through with this." I decorated up the club for Halloween, I'd already come up with a fantastic playlist of Halloween music, and I brought lots of snacks. And Zen was in Phoenix visiting his father (oh yeah, I was dealing with all that shit without the loving support of my man at the time, too...thanks, Universe) and so I'd planned a solo scene. That was pretty cool. I had a sheet on the floor with a pentagram painted on it, and I cut off my clothing and dripped wax all over myself. Pretty neat stuff. I tried to enjoy myself, but the Ex was blowing up my phone, when staff from the mental hospital weren't, so I was intermittently dealing with all that. Thank the gods for the awesome club volunteers who pretty much had everything in hand. I was just not in the most capable of head-spaces that night. But I tried. And everyone seemed to have fun, there were no complaints as far as I know.

So anyhow. Bracing for my Mom's visit. Hope that goes ok. I really need life to get just...boring and quiet and peaceful. Please, Universe? For a while? *sigh*
 
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it's such a shame Q learned to threaten suicide (while not meaning it) as a tactic to "keep a girl"! Ugh. I hope the therapist can drill into him how inappropriate this is and he'll learn to not do that, no matter how upset he is.

My kids also learned weird things about being in relationships from my ex. And attitudes towards life in general. I also take responsibility, since i stayed with the guy for such a long time. But in general, I, like you, was the more responsible parent. And they spent lots more time with me than him. Unfortunately, his attitudes also stuck to them, to an extent.

My first serious bf, when I was getting ready to break up with him, threatened to kill himself. He was depressed and once I came into his bedroom and he was playing around with the idea with a rifle barrel in his mouth! And here I was, only 17, and he was 24. But I left him anyway, because... gross! I needed to get away from some fool who'd do that. It was on him, not me.

A few years later I saw him on the street in Philadelphia where I went to college. He was from PA, from the Pocono area. So there he was, large as life, walking down the street with a young woman on either side of him. La di dah.

You were very strong to deal with Q needing to be hospitalized. But now he's chasing this girl? Quitting his good Taco Bell gig and looking to get hired to be near her? Wanting to move her in with you? Good old NRE. :rolleyes::mad:
 
it's such a shame Q learned to threaten suicide (while not meaning it) as a tactic to "keep a girl"! Ugh. I hope the therapist can drill into him how inappropriate this is and he'll learn to not do that, no matter how upset he is.

My kids also learned weird things about being in relationships from my ex. And attitudes towards life in general. I also take responsibility, since i stayed with the guy for such a long time. But in general, I, like you, was the more responsible parent. And they spent lots more time with me than him. Unfortunately, his attitudes also stuck to them, to an extent.

My first serious bf, when I was getting ready to break up with him, threatened to kill himself. He was depressed and once I came into his bedroom and he was playing around with the idea with a rifle barrel in his mouth! And here I was, only 17, and he was 24. But I left him anyway, because... gross! I needed to get away from some fool who'd do that. It was on him, not me.

A few years later I saw him on the street in Philadelphia where I went to college. He was from PA, from the Pocono area. So there he was, large as life, walking down the street with a young woman on either side of him. La di dah.

You were very strong to deal with Q needing to be hospitalized. But now he's chasing this girl? Quitting his good Taco Bell gig and looking to get hired to be near her? Wanting to move her in with you? Good old NRE. :rolleyes::mad:

Thank you Magdlyn, and yeah...it's been a struggle. I'm deeply afraid, deeply saddened and afraid, that my precious little child he once was, has been twisted into narcissism by his father's influence, and mine as well for my role in things. Not only for staying with him so long, but for rewarding his behavior with constant maintenance, management, attention...what is that called, narcissistic "supply" or "source?" Whatever. I was the codependent enabler. He saw, modeled, the woman doing all the relationship and family work and the guy being a paycheck and a provider maybe, but not emotionally healthy. I thought I was giving the kids such a solid illusion of a happy, healthy family, just by keeping my ex away from them, and by trying to give the kids everything they needed and nearly everything they wanted, protecting them from all sorts of problems, but this means they didn't learn things they needed to, I think, and that they learned things I didn't intend. I'm afraid of my son becoming an abuser, a user, or used, or any of it. And I can no longer protect him as I once could.

His counselor is very promising, but we've only seen him once, and he'll see him again on Monday. The guy is not one of these, "and how did that make you feel?" types. He is wise and interactive and has a lot to contribute to the discussion. I hope that Q will see him as a male figure of authority and actually listen to him, as he won't with me right now (and I don't take that personally given the dynamics of our lives.)

But this morning we had an argument. So as Q was getting together with this girl, and one of the reasons he ended up institutionalized, is that he wasn't the only guy she was sleeping with. There is an older guy (she is 17, and a senior in HS, the other boy is 18 or 19 and just graduated last year) and this guy was paying her phone bill and offered to move her into his apartment. She says her parents abuse her, and I don't know if that is true (I can assume it might be) or if she is simply 17 and convinced that her parents are the worst, which 17 year olds sometimes are. Desperate to fly the nest. But unlike a 17 year old boy, she has the option of using sex to get a new provider to take her in. Which this guy was trying to do. However, his attitude was that she was bought and paid for, and he could do anything he wanted to her. He drugged and raped her once, and expected her to have no problems with such things, as he was paying her expenses. Q of course, was utterly distraught about her involvement with this man, and told her he would love to be her boyfriend, but would only do so if she broke up with dude and stopped talking to him. (This was after he got out of the hospital that he made that ultimatum.) She agreed, but now she is looking to Q to provide for her, and I've had to say no to her moving in, and this morning we argued because he wanted me to put her on our phone plan! Hell no, I won't do any such thing! He said she could pay for it out of her paycheck, and I was like, then she can get her own phone out of her paycheck and she doesn't need my help with it.

Thing is, the very moment she turns 18, which can't be far off since she's a senior, she will have the option to get on online dating sites and such and find an older guy with a job and relative stability who will be thrilled to pay for all of her expenses in exchange for sex with an 18 year old girl. This is a town with 5 active military installations. There are an ABUNDANCE of men happy to make such a bargain. As for Q, he's just desperate to help her, and yes, he's in NRE, and this is his first sexual relationship.

So we argued about the cell phone thing. And he did not want to go to school today, and said his head hurt and he didn't think he could cope. I said, "I really think you need to go to school" and he said, "Do you want me to end up back in the mental hospital?" Because he knows it was costly to me, now he thinks he can use it as leverage. I said, "I don't know, do you feel like you need to go back? Do you want to go back?" He said no. I told him, "You want to be an adult and take all of these adult responsibilities and have me let you make adult choices and do adult things, but THIS is not how you behave and act like an adult. Being an adult means getting up, facing problems you don't know how to solve, and stress that feels overwhelming, and going to work or school or whatever you've got to do, even though you do not want to. It means not flaking out when people are counting on you, and not expecting others to cover your obligations." He said, "It's just one day." And I said, "No, it's not. It's one MORE day because you've already missed a bunch and there will be more days in the future that you don't want to go."

So he went, but he was definitely not happy about it.

He is now failing 2 classes, and while they are not core classes, he needs every single credit. In fact if he passed every class this year and next year, he'd still need 4 credits he's got to make up in summer classes to graduate. So he's just getting even more behind. Meanwhile his father won't hear anything of alternate solutions like GED or Job Corps, and keeps filling Q's head with unrealistic bullshit about graduating early (!?) and going to a good college and going into the Air Force as a Cyber Security person. Which uh...he almost certainly won't be able to do. He's got to freakin' graduate first, for one thing, and trying to bring up that this seems to be a struggle, to Old Wolf, just makes him get angry and yell at me. Everybody is pissed at me for being realistic and practical, they just want to smoke weed together and be all pie in the sky fantasy la la land. Even if the kid managed to graduate with a best case scenario right now, his GPA sucks and he won't get into a great school, won't get into the Air Force, and won't get in anywhere as Cyber Security.

Oh, and the ex is talking about, "when he gets his post office job" (which he's been trying to do for at least 2, if not closer to 3 years now) he is going to rent a house and move a friend in, said friend is a train wreck of course with major health problems, can't hold a job, sketchy exes and friends, and two kids...and he's offering that Q can also rent a room there, too. Fan-fucking-tastic. Well. I do not think that Q will go for this...he really wants his own place, even though he hasn't the means to do it...but I might end up being wrong.

I'm just so tired of dealing with people who are reality impaired, and expect me to backstop their bullshit all the time with my money and my time and my energy. I am fed the hell right up. If Job Corps were not a completely voluntary program (the kids have to consent to be there, not just up front but for the duration; if they say they want to quit, they're sent home)...if it could be an involuntary thing, I would totally put Q into it. But I have no faith he'd go along with it or see it through. As it is, he's going to step out of my place and walk right into traffic, metaphorically speaking, and there will not be a damn thing I can do about that without letting my own life get wrecked, and I have been doing my damnedest to work on having healthy relationships and boundaries for myself. So either I let the kid be a massive problem to me for years to come, or I let him fall and walk away and let the world think of me what they will, that I am a terrible mother or whatever, that I ruined his life. Which I probably will do, because even if I try to help, there will come a point that it's only enabling, and he'll have to figure it out anyways. And even if I help, it doesn't make it any likelier that anyone will ever appreciate it. So as much as it all sucks I'm probably just going to have to save myself and walk away, eventually. I'll give him a certain amount of time to do what he can, but beyond that...he's on his own. Let's just hope he doesn't wind up institutionalized or incarcerated between now and then, I guess.
 
I don't think you should be so hard on yourself. You did the best you could in a bad situation with the knowlwege you had. The boys may put themselves and you through some tough times but there's a good chance that once their brains finish developing and their hormones settle down they will start sorting themselves out. They are still learning and you are still teaching. You seem to me to be giving Q just the sort of limit setting he needs to learn adulting.

Leetah
 
I agree with Leetah. Don't beat yourself up, you did the best you could with what you had. My marriage was codependent and highly dysfunctional. Like you, I thought I was doing the best thing for my children. Now I know differently. Just like we learned through our experiences and failures, so too, must our children. You're modeling healthier behaviors and relationship dynamics now...that will have an impact on your children at some point. I'm going through a bit of this with one of my kids (and my niece and nephew.) It's not bad parenting to let our kids sink or swim...it's the only way they can learn to swim, imo.
 
Thanks. I'm trying, but it's hard.

And sometimes as I've gone through the world, seeing people turn out better or worse no matter what kind of parents and home life they had...I just don't feel like there is a formula for this. It's frustrating to know you can do things as "right" as you know how, but your kid could still end up kind of a mess.

Oh well. One foot in front of the other.

I'm getting a lot of "She thinks you hate her, why do you hate her" about the girlfriend and she is trying to get sweet with me. I keep telling Q I don't hate her in the slightest. I like her just fine. And he's like, "well her parents are abusing her and you could just move her in here" and I'm like NO. I keep having to explain that there are many people I like in my world, even people I love, and that doesn't mean any of them are allowed to live in my house. I am at the stage of my life where I'm trying to move people OUT, not IN. So sorry. That's how it is and has nothing to do with whether I like her or not. And he got all fussy and said, "You don't have to be such an asshole about it, always rubbing it in my face." LOL what? Just like this morning when he wanted to skip another day of school later this week, and I reminded him that he's still failing one class and has D's in another couple, and he was like, "You yelling at me isn't making that any better." I wasn't yelling at all.

He's just getting an attitude about the fact that I tell him things he doesn't want to hear. Well. That's just tough. If I'm a jerk for not letting him do whatever he wants, giving him whatever he wants, and not giving him a single reality check ever about the consequences of his actions (or enabling a fantasy world where his actions have no consequences at all) then hey...where's my jerk hat. I'll own it. And laugh about it.
 
A few years ago my son declared that I am “an Epic Level Fun Spoiler” which he now regrets as I use it as an answer to “why won’t you let me....” questions.

You are in good company wondering at how kids turn out. Socrates had a discussion about “can virtue be taught?” Wherein he pointed out that notably virtuous people don’t reliably produce vituous offspring.

Leetah
 
I went through similar situation with my oldest.

When he turned 18 he decided he didn't want to go to school, have a curfew, or listen to my rules. Long story short I ended up taking his phone which I paid for and kicked him out of my house. I took the stance of you are an adult and if you want to act stupid you better be tough.

He got his GED. Got a full time job. Rose up to management in that company. Pays all his own bills. Now is going to college around his schedule. Just bought a brand new car. He is doing well for himself.

He says while he hated me for a bit he now appreciates the fact I didn't save him because he would have never figured it out for himself.
 
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