CHRISTIAN PARENTS of ESTRANGED ADULT CHILDREN Community Group
Estrangement makes it difficult to talk about with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Christians are NOT immune to broken families. Talk about your experiences with those who know how you feel and get positive support through your Christian faith...."In these last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self...disobedient to parents,...
I secretly refer to my MIL as Pollyanna! I guess the insinuation there is that she is a very positive person but naïve. I love her but she does look at life through rose colored glasses. My rose colored glasses fell off my head and got trampled on 12 years ago!
In a recent conversation my MIL said to me for the 1 millionth time "You can't give up hope in your kids coming back to you and the Lord. You always have to keep on hoping." She said she believes that they will all return to the Lord before she passes away. Which is a bit annoying to me because it sounds something like her saying that her life's length will be the reason the Lord will answer our prayers and bring our EC back - rather than maybe the heartache of her DIL and son. But she hasn't been in my position so she truly doesn't understand that what she is saying is hurtful. I can't tell you how refreshing it would be to hear her say "maybe you need to prepare yourself for the worst, that they will not return, but that you can keep on living the life the Lord has planned for you". Something like that.
So I finally let her have it a bit more realistically. I told her that my hope is in God alone. He never changes. He will not disappoint or leave me. I cannot hope every day that my kids will change because every possible little sign that they are always turns to disappointment and it is killing me.
It has been 9 years since our ED stopped speaking to me. She went for 3 years, living in our home, without answering me or talking to me at all. It was beyond crazy. She came out of it for a few months after 3 years but always returns to this pattern. She wins the award for the most passive aggressive person I have ever known. It is seriously clinical - we did have her in counseling. My MIL feels a little bit responsible for our ED behavior - it is a long story - so she keeps trying to get our ED to communicate with us. I can tell when ED has been put up to contacting us by my MIL. It is the same pattern. I always reply kindly to her but then she will always cut out and that will be the last we hear for months or a year or more.
Our ES1 is on a path of self-destruction that he began about 3 years ago. He was so angry that we didn't want him to move out of the house - we saw he was in a bad way and were afraid what he'd do out on his own. But then we discovered his detailed plans to "exercise his 2nd Amendment rights" and told him he was welcome to go. Since then he is on his way to becoming an alcoholic, driving legally intoxicated at least weekly and was in the ER for alcohol poisoning a few weeks ago. We look for any opportunity to tell him we love him and offer him help but he doesn't think he needs any help and doesn't want it from us or anybody. He replies rarely and sporadically to us. Nothing for MD.
Our ES2 is our sort-of estranged son. Basically he is driving us away with his rude and disrespectful attitude for the past few years. Lately it just got to be too much. We're watching our ES1 self-destruct and ES2 is just adding salt to our wounds. He's the one who can put on a very good Christian show to everyone else meanwhile he's chewing me out on the phone, telling us not to call him, saying we're bad parents etc, etc. That is the worst. The other two don't profess to be serving the Lord at all so we have different expectations for them. ES2 should know better and is just using the Lord to make himself look good but we only experience his other side most of the time.
I see and hear of many adults who are alcoholics into their 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. I know of Christians who do not speak to their elderly parents and parents who have passed on in that situation. For me, maybe because of my personality or life experiences, it is easier on a daily basis to expect the worst case scenario for our future. To expect that my EC will not change, may get worse, and may not be there for us in years to come. I think I would rather be pleasantly surprised if they were to truly repent than to hope every day in small signs and be disappointed every time that it wasn't a real change. I will still engage them (on healthy terms) if they want to communicate but the striving to fix this all is probably behind me.
I have told my MIL and DH to stop telling me to "keep on hoping!" because it is just salt on my wounds. My DH says it helps him to keep on hoping but now he understands that it just hurts me to hear that. I will always accept them when they return I just have to not expect them to in order to let my head move forward.
How do you all "hear" it when people say "You have to keep on hoping!"? I'm sure it does help some because my DH prefers that. I think I've just come to the conclusion that the flip side is an equally Godly way to think too.
In a recent conversation my MIL said to me for the 1 millionth time "You can't give up hope in your kids coming back to you and the Lord. You always have to keep on hoping." She said she believes that they will all return to the Lord before she passes away. Which is a bit annoying to me because it sounds something like her saying that her life's length will be the reason the Lord will answer our prayers and bring our EC back - rather than maybe the heartache of her DIL and son. But she hasn't been in my position so she truly doesn't understand that what she is saying is hurtful. I can't tell you how refreshing it would be to hear her say "maybe you need to prepare yourself for the worst, that they will not return, but that you can keep on living the life the Lord has planned for you". Something like that.
So I finally let her have it a bit more realistically. I told her that my hope is in God alone. He never changes. He will not disappoint or leave me. I cannot hope every day that my kids will change because every possible little sign that they are always turns to disappointment and it is killing me.
It has been 9 years since our ED stopped speaking to me. She went for 3 years, living in our home, without answering me or talking to me at all. It was beyond crazy. She came out of it for a few months after 3 years but always returns to this pattern. She wins the award for the most passive aggressive person I have ever known. It is seriously clinical - we did have her in counseling. My MIL feels a little bit responsible for our ED behavior - it is a long story - so she keeps trying to get our ED to communicate with us. I can tell when ED has been put up to contacting us by my MIL. It is the same pattern. I always reply kindly to her but then she will always cut out and that will be the last we hear for months or a year or more.
Our ES1 is on a path of self-destruction that he began about 3 years ago. He was so angry that we didn't want him to move out of the house - we saw he was in a bad way and were afraid what he'd do out on his own. But then we discovered his detailed plans to "exercise his 2nd Amendment rights" and told him he was welcome to go. Since then he is on his way to becoming an alcoholic, driving legally intoxicated at least weekly and was in the ER for alcohol poisoning a few weeks ago. We look for any opportunity to tell him we love him and offer him help but he doesn't think he needs any help and doesn't want it from us or anybody. He replies rarely and sporadically to us. Nothing for MD.
Our ES2 is our sort-of estranged son. Basically he is driving us away with his rude and disrespectful attitude for the past few years. Lately it just got to be too much. We're watching our ES1 self-destruct and ES2 is just adding salt to our wounds. He's the one who can put on a very good Christian show to everyone else meanwhile he's chewing me out on the phone, telling us not to call him, saying we're bad parents etc, etc. That is the worst. The other two don't profess to be serving the Lord at all so we have different expectations for them. ES2 should know better and is just using the Lord to make himself look good but we only experience his other side most of the time.
I see and hear of many adults who are alcoholics into their 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. I know of Christians who do not speak to their elderly parents and parents who have passed on in that situation. For me, maybe because of my personality or life experiences, it is easier on a daily basis to expect the worst case scenario for our future. To expect that my EC will not change, may get worse, and may not be there for us in years to come. I think I would rather be pleasantly surprised if they were to truly repent than to hope every day in small signs and be disappointed every time that it wasn't a real change. I will still engage them (on healthy terms) if they want to communicate but the striving to fix this all is probably behind me.
I have told my MIL and DH to stop telling me to "keep on hoping!" because it is just salt on my wounds. My DH says it helps him to keep on hoping but now he understands that it just hurts me to hear that. I will always accept them when they return I just have to not expect them to in order to let my head move forward.
How do you all "hear" it when people say "You have to keep on hoping!"? I'm sure it does help some because my DH prefers that. I think I've just come to the conclusion that the flip side is an equally Godly way to think too.
Only God knows the future. With that being said we must still pray for our EC. We must pray knowing that God can do all things although we do not know His plan. We must live each day the way God calls us to live without our EC. For me, the difficult word is ACCEPT.