the children always pay the highest price, even in parent/child warfare.

the 43 year old crackhead who called me toxic mom as we parted an uncounted number of years ago still reminds me of the sweet boy who used to love me. from my vast social distance, is getting easier for me to resist the urge to call him a kid, but i am not sure that is the reform he was looking for. daddy is still giving him money on demand. i don't care to do the research on which terms of endearment he reserves for daddy.

fast forward to the 5th year of my second parenting career and it is the shared celebration of the newly crowned 5 and 8 year olds. their birthdays are only a week apart, despite the new year countdown which separates their birthdays. little sis turned 5 on december 30. big sis gets to have her birthday today. little sis spent her birthday contented preparing for the celebration today.

i am in panic mode because hubby and i are sniping under pressure. the physical door between us is currently closed to resist those snipe urges. my panic is over whether we will be able to keep today's party childish.

sigh. . .
the children always pay the highest price for adult foolishness.

They do.It also happened with her older children. I was going to go but she texted and lied and said they were sick i know this is a lie as she posted a picture of herself where she dyed her hair. Not much i can do for her and actually i have started to seriously dislike her as a person...i am feeling that about all of them now. I blamed myself for too many years on our distance with each other. Now I don't care. Time for me Finally. The thinking about them all the time and wondering why they never call etc is done. I feel relieved i have moved on.

how ugly is it of me to feel like the good lord took my son and his wife to spare their children the marriage from hell? the children were already here in cps protective custody when the accident took them from us. is it a greater shame that i didn't bother looking for them when they didn't show for the weekly visitation? just another no show. . . fighting with one another was far more important than worrying about the children they both loved. i believe they really did love one another, but. . . insert ella fitzgerald's silky voice here. "isn't romantic, being so in love?" they were a very romantic duo.

sigh. . .

as hard as it was to take on 3 children at age 65, it felt easier than worrying where they were in the midst of all that romance. as i approach my 70th birthday, the days seem to getting any more wearisome, but i still prefer that exhaustion over the exhaustive worry. the weariness of hard work is less exhaustion of worrying.

butttttttttttttttaaaaaaa. . .

Oh, Shelda, I am sorry. My EC have excuses, also. I've given up or given in on them. A few years ago when they were love bombing me which then turned into another dumping, my one EC would set a visit date and then the kids were always sick, the whole family sick. I don't need the germs so I was okay but still.
I think what made it all fall apart is they were blaming me for being an awful person to another relative who told me because it was upsetting to them. For me, it was like relief because I suspected it. Relief is okay to feel. It is a reality based emotion to the situation.

I think, but don't have confirmation, that they wanted money thus I got love bombed. I mean this was so hurtful and so cruel, and if they don't like me why were they begging me to be closer? They didn't ask for money, they just did the love bombing and then another dumping. No arguments with me, no mean things said by me but I watched them carefully and they are not nice people.

I got to "done" or "enough" and I feel that may be where we get clarity of thinking.

We get to the point where we just don't trust them and we don't believe them. I think this is both natural and perhaps a method of self protection.

I have my 2 EC blocked on my phone and do not do social media with them. I am at done and if they need me, they can email me.

Acceptance is where we have to go. Most of us struggle with this concept. It doesn't feel natural and so many of the "experts" say parents must keep trying, must do the myth of the amends letter, must grovel, appease, and on and on. I think we parents want rules for how to fix the estrangement or dysfunctional family relationships. So we first try all this stuff because it gives us a sense of control or a road map we don't realize at first is usually false. Sometimes personalities are such that we end up not liking our adult children. This happens even in good families.

Arfie I think you would have rathered your children be around but enough is enough.You have to protect the children and more importantly yourself. Hasty I have struugled with wanting to block them out of my life and then i remember just because i do not have the realationship with them i wanedt doesnt aspire to me cutting them off completely.They have told me this is what they want and i am happy to abide as now i am focusing on just me and what i want. Don't know what that is yet but its up to me and me alone to figure it out not having those horrible feelings about my self helps tremedously. FREEDOM..Starrting to see who i am with better vision and not feel guilty about just being me. Hugs to you both (( HUGS))

I agree, Shelda, that learning to like yourself and not engage in all this hurtful self blame is a great idea.

My EC didn’t tell me anything just ghosted me again. Pattern after pattern of this stuff. Years of this. No arguments between us. Just dumped. So I decided I had to block them on my phone for my own peace of mind. I don’t look for text messages when they are blocked or fret all Christmas Day that they don’t contact me.

What I am saying is we each get to decide what actions we are going to take to support our healing. You deserve to do the work to value yourself as much as we value you on here.

I know I was the best parent i knew how to be and always gave to my children.Always placed them first.Wasn't good enough for them and now i rarely see or hear from them and for a while they would say rude things and i always felt like ..i resented myself. Actuallly i did ...resented who i am.I got to speaking with people and they said there is something wrong with them.,It has taken me years to get here but am seeing myself for who i am and what i was and am proud of who i am and how i have turned out. I would rather block them I was having a problem figuring out online schooling and no help even though a couple are computer programmers. I moved a block away from three of them and i sometimes do think if i did block them i would feel estactic.

Hugs to you, Shelda. This is such great insight. I love the insight into how you said you resented yourself and who you are inside. Wow, I am going to think about this word resentment, and resentment of self. Hope you are having a good week.

Its getting better day by day. Hope you as well ( Hugs)

Shelda -
Welcome. I am so glad that you landed here and can benefit from what Arfie and hasty have to share.
I am on my own, new journey with EC, and trying so hard to not internalize the accusations, allegations, and sometimes vitriol from one EC, who recently said, "I don't remember much from my childhood," with zero insight into her also having said within the past few months, "And I don't want to hear you say you're sorry that I feel like I was abused, I WAS ABUSED." The other EC is simply cut off, minimal communication (of both children she was the one who was coddled the most, btw).
So here I am, picking up the pieces and trying to radically accept the altered history of my children.
It's rough. *hugs* I feel you sister.

I have a daughter who says she doesnt remember her childhood either. I have asked her ourt to discuss our relationship and she said she doesnt see the point we just do not get along...this was around 10 years ago now. I have tried off and on and now whats the point.My other daughter said it was because i spoiled her...absoulety. She had a negative attitude about her self sometimes and i always boosted it. I am done. My youngest daughter texted me yesterday .I am not texting them anymore. I am human and made mistakes. But i feel its more important for me to have a relationship with myself and thats what i a focusing on now. ( Hugs)

I had a weird dream last night about my older ED. In that dream, we were together, I was invited to something because my ED said how important I was to her kids and her kids were hanging all over me to get love from me. This is what she said the last go round before she dumped me again.. I have forgotten most of this dream but the awful, wake me up sweating part was how she sat down next to be and just blasted me with all my faults. I was so stunned. And she had a male friend call me right then and yell at me for all my faults. So sitting next to her, with her friend on the phone yelling at me. I kept saying "that is not true" but this weird man wouldn't shut up. I finally hung up on him and turned to my daughter and said why would you have this guy do this to me? She just laughed and said you deserve it. I woke up and thought this is like a warning to me to never trust her again because I have been dumped due to not being someone they like and they are not comfortable with me. I can't do the begging for love nor the self esteem crushing visits where they show covert disdain. I can't be held hostage to wanting myself to be good enough for them. I have to be good enough for myself. And that dream, woo boy, enough is enough.

Trust is gone for me too.When i hear from her its because she wants something.Have to value yourself and am doing that.Baby steps but i feel it happening. She once said there is something wrong with me because i enjoyed spending time with my kids and etc etc and blah blah. My Aunt said one day she will regret the ways she and my other children are treating you. Thats assuming they have a conscience and i hope one day they gave one for themselves.I am trying to forgive myself for allowing them to treat me like garbage. Take care you are worth it (Hugs)