In Pain
I posted earlier about my older SS. Little background. I met my husband in 95, he received custody of 4 children in 97. We started living together a couple months after he received custody. His two older child (not his biologically) were 5 and 7. Two younger are his were 1 and 3. The 3 younger are boys, oldest is girl. In 2001, oldest SD went back to live with mom because biological father did not want to pay support. This was very very hard on me. The birth mom (BM) could have taken oldest son but really didn't want either. He stayed for another 2 years and then BM decided to take him. I still paid for all medical, school supplies, clothes, etc for older two while living with mom and still do help them out. The third son (the one that I talked about in an earlier post) is now 17 and totally wild. So now we are down to the youngest, he was 3 months the first time I meant him. My husband brought him to me and handed me a bottle the BM had given him - it had spoiled milk in it and was completely filthy. I took it, cleaned and gave him milk. I raised this child, I bonded with him - mom didn't. When I started living with my husband, this child would wake up in the night screaming and I would go to him and he would be limp when I tried to comfort him. It took time, but he came around and we were bonded. He is now 14 years old. Last year my husband made a mistake, he had an affair, it is now over, but it did its damage. My SS doesn't respect him and stopped going to school. We have tried everything and to no avail. My husband decided to give my SS to his BM yesterday. I am broken hearted. I cried all night. I know part of this is me being selfish, but I just don't want him to turn out like the others, no high school education, running wild, not knowing where he is, drinking, doing drugs. I don't know what to do.
I have been there, as far as
I have been there, as far as spending years raising and nurturing someone else's children and then losing them overnight with no say in the matter. SKIDS BM left them when they were 3 and 6. I met DH when they were 5 and 8, and he was raising them with no word from BM since she'd left. I have no children of my own, but as the 7th child in a family of 9, I grew up wanting nothing but to be a mother myself. DH was fixed when he was with BM, so we can't have any children together. I am a very nurturing person and took well to helping him raise his kids. Granted, things were difficult between SS8 at the time, but we did grow to develop a decent respectable relationship. When BM realized I was in the picture she came back around trying to reconcile with their father and fall right back into her "mother" role in their home and was livid when it didn't go her way. Long story short, she had talked with the kids about coming to live with her. The day before they were to start back to school with us, DH went to pick them up from BM, yet showed back up at home without them. Evidently, when he showed up to get them, BM and the kids cried to him about BM dying from cancer with 8 months to live and the kids wanted to spend those 8 months with her because she'd been out of their lives for 4 years. Without a call to myself or his mother or anyone else, he made the choice to let them stay with her. Not to say I feel like he needed my permission to let his kids be with their mother for what he thought were her last few months of life (turns out the cancer was a story), but I did feel hurt that he didn't think of my role in their life as being important enough to even make a phone call and mention it to me. During that day, he went to child support services to close their case because they were going to put her jail for arrears she hadn't paid, and he went to the school with them to register the kids in her district...all without a word to me. It broke me. I loved them with my whole heart and was commited to them as a mother is to her own children. I still feel that way. We haven't seen them in months, as BM has done a job of making them feel like they only need her and each other (what I'm recently discovering has become a serious case of PAS). Some people have told me I'm obsessive with it, and letting it affect me too much for them not being my own. I understand I'm limited in my rights because I'm not their mother, but as someone who loves them deeply, I am doing everything I can...trying to learn everything I can to try to help them cope with regrets and pain that they will most certainly have when they reach adulthood. Now, they haven't asked for my help, and if I offered it, I'm certain they would push me away. But, I will have whatever information I can get on hand for them if they ever do ask me for help or support in coping in the future. In my heart, I know I have loved them as a mother loves her own children, and I know that BM loves their company and she loves the fact that she has been able to break DH down. I hope that one day they will see the differences between BM and myself and that they will respect me for it.
I know how it is to worry and have no say. I know how it is to invest those years and so much of your heart and then feel like you've lost it all. I'm so sorry that you're having to deal with it, and I hope that things will get better for you.
I don't think you're being
I don't think you're being selfish at all. It seems to me your husband is. He seems to be the type to either step out when things are rough for him or he just totally gets rid of anything that is giving him a problem. That poor kid. He must feel pretty disposible right now.
I think you should make an appointment with a counselor just for you. You are grieving and you deserve to be heard.
Thank you for your support.
Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it because not everyone understands what it truly means to be a step parent. Its like we are the disposable parent. A couple of weeks ago my SS asked his BM "what was my first word" - of course she didn't know because back then she couldn't even remember one of her children's birthdates! I found this out because he then asked dad who couldn't remember either, but when he told me I remembered "of course - it was Da Da". At least he let me tell SS what his first word was and it was very nice.
You just said exactly the
You just said exactly the words that I have been searching for: disposable parent. It's so true. Sometimes I get fearful that I'll wake up one day and it'll all be gone. I bitch about my situation a lot but in all reality, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
I'm sorry that this is happening with your SS. It sounds like you're a wonderful mother
Keep loving and nurturing SS and with any (I hate to say) luck, he'll be able to turn his life around. I think counseling is a great idea. How would you feel about counseling with you and SS together so that you can work past your feelings on the affair together? You were both affected so to me it makes sense that you work together to move forward.
"There are two things over which you have complete dominion, authority, and control over - your mind and your mouth".
Thank you, I will talk to BM
Thank you, I will talk to BM and ask her if she will let me take him to counseling - I think he needs it. He went into a great depression, i.e., started sleeping 24 hours, locking himself in his room alone, wouldn't leave the house, etc. I tried to get him into counseling but he wouldn't leave his room. I love your thought at the bottom. I am going to print that out and keep it at my desk.