ladyscribbler

So yesterday I let myself get sucked into a big ridiculous argument with my ex. He is irate that I filed for child support, doesn't understand why I left, blah, blah.
I was rehashing this conversation with my therapist today and she stopped me and said, "You sound like you're trying to justify something you had every right to do. Why do you think that is?"
So I've been thinking about this, and yes, my ex is trying to put me on the defensive so he can be the eternal victim. But why do I have such a massive insatiable need for his approval? Why do I still, after everything, feel the need to justify myself when I've done nothing wrong?
I've been thinking back to my dad, who is an alcoholic, and the way he used to be cutting and critical, always nitpicking every little thing. An A minus instead of an A, coming in third place in a spelling bee. Nasty digs, little barbs delivered with a smirk. It got worse after he remarried. His new wife is also an alcoholic and hugely codependent. She participated in tearing my brother and I down because we were reminders that he'd been married before. We didn't live there full time like her daughter so we were second class citizens.
I spent a long time being absolutely desperate for their approval, trying and failing to win them over time and again. Yet they carried on like they were a perfect couple.
By the time they'd been married a few months, they had both gained a lot of weight, probably due to drinking two thousand calories a day, and decided to do a couple's diet. They stopped eating solid food and got cans of powdered Slim Fast, mixing it with vodka and Irish cream liquor. They lived on this concoction for months.
They were so messed up, but I never saw that. I always thought I was the problem. I was always made to feel as though I was the problem.
I do not need the approval of people like them. I was never the problem. I do not have to justify myself.

Croissant

Slimfast and vodka...the stuff all healthy relationships are based on. :/

Your ex needs to contribute the the cost of raising his children. That is a fact. Your children will thank you one day for standing up for what was theirs.

suki44883

Your thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc. are as legitimate, relevant and important as anyone's. You need no one's approval if you are doing what you feel is right for you. It took me decades to finally realize that. If people have a problem with how you think or what you do, then that is their problem, not yours.

So far as filing for child support...well, he's just going to have to suck that up. He has a responsibility to support his children and the court will make sure that happens.

Your therapist sounds like someone who is on the ball. I like that she pointed out to you that you have a right to do what you feel is best for yourself and your children.

I have a feeling you are going to be just fine.

NWGRITS

Oh yes. The exhole could never handle raising our kids and yet I still feel like I need his approval. He's not an A, just an a-hole with mommy issues. I get it. And, like you, I wonder why the hell I feel like I need approval from someone who couldn't get his **** together if I handed him a bucket and a shovel. His cousin told me tonight that he really does live in some alternate universe, because his reality is totally different than the rest of the world's. Also like you, I'm starting to put my foot down and making sure my kids come first. We've all played second fiddle to his butt for far too long. Go get him!

happybeingme

I certainly understand the feeling that you need to justify yourself. When we dont get the validation as children that we are human and have needs, wants, and desires we are stuck repeating that approval seeking from other adults forever unless we validate ourselves.

I try to do that now but admit that sometimes I still long to be cuddled like a baby and told that I am special by some kind of parental figure. My inner child is certainly not completely healed yet.

Taking5

Exhole......my new favorite word.

ladyscribbler

I feel you Grits, my exhole (lol) is constantly having to rewrite history so that his reality can stay intact. According to him I left because I got in a fight with his mom and not at all because of his drinking- he told me that after I told him I left because of his drinking, because he asked me why I left. My dad was like that too. I haven't had any contact with him in about 15 years, since I was in college and he stole the Christmas and birthday money that I had been saving in a credit union account since I was little. He said he put it in a CD and pretended to look for the paperwork, but I could tell he was lying. He probably spent it on slim fast and vodka. They used to buy both by the case at sam's club. That was the last time I visited him. He later told my brother that he didn't understand why I quit visiting/talking to him. The eternal victim. Ugh.

happybeingme

Lady, that is terrible. I cant understand people stealing from their children

ladyscribbler

My dad had so many weird issues about money. He constantly complained about the $80 a month he had to pay my mom for child support. He was laid off when she left him, but even after he went back to work and was making six figures, we never heard the end of how she was living this extravagant lifestyle with his money. She was a postal worker who made just enough not to qualify for assistance.
When it came time for me to go to college, I didn't qualify for any grants because he was claiming me as a dependent on his income taxes. When I asked him for college money he said "What about all that money I gave your mom for child support, blah blah."
That was when the issue of the credit union account came up, because that money had been earmarked for my college. I had actually gone to the credit union to deposit a check I had received as a gift for my 18th birthday, and the teller told me the account had been closed earlier that week. She showed me the paperwork and I saw that my dad had signed it and recognized my stepmom's handwriting where she had forged my signature. It was one of those joint accounts for minors where parents are account holders until the child turns 18 and then the account reverts to the child. They had gone down there and closed it the day before my 18th birthday.

happybeingme

Jeez. How terrible

DoubleDragons

((((((((((Ladyscribbler))))))))))))

ladyscribbler

Thanks all. After tonight's Alanon meeting I am actually feeling grateful for this little mini drama. It's really led to a big breakthrough in my thinking. Even having all these old painful memories return has been good for me. I tend to keep that type of stuff locked up, now that it's been dragged out into the light I can see it for what it is and stop letting it influence my future choices.
And the college money took care of itself. I ran away and joined the Army and let Uncle Sam foot the bill, even paid off my student loans.

Croissant

Ladyscribbler...your post resonated with me. I actually felt tears when I saw they'd taken the money and closed your account.

I agree these memories, seen through a different light, can lead to a breakthrough. Even though it's painful to recall.

Recent events in my own family made me see how I'd become a commodity to my parents at times, mainly my Father, who actually wasn't the alcoholic. I have spent thousands over the years trying to assist him financially, and he would often take money from me, my savings also, when I was at home. Now I've pulled away completely.

That history when I was younger may have led to me avoiding those same kinds of discussions with my ex in our divorce settlement. I left with nothing, by choice, because I simply could not deal with discussions over money. I actually did the same thing with my second serious relationship. I see now that I must have been trying to be "the good girl".

That's not always the best thing to do. So yes, please don't feel bad about these discussions with your husband. But I see how it would make you feel uncomfortable if I relate it to my own story and fear about similar discussions.

ladyscribbler

Yeah, I think I finally understand why I avoided it for so long. The long lost memories of my dad's rants over child support, his folks egging him on, making my mom out to be this evil gold-digging schemer, when it was really just about his king baby ego and total selfishness.
My all-consuming need to be "the good girl" and not upset my ex because it would be like summoning my dad's rage all over again.

ladyscribbler

Had the hearing today. Everything went well for me. Mediator set an amount that was way more than I thought I'd get. Mediator also mentioned several places for my ex to go find a job, lol. On paper he has almost no expenses. His house is paid off and he scrapes by with bare minimum utilities, no phone/cable/extras. No car.
He called and left me a raging voicemail a couple hours later, after he had a chance to get good and drunk.
I am meditating on my Alanon reading for today. We had a meeting on slogans, and mine was: But for the grace of God.
It made me think of the similar circumstances and how easily I could have become an alcoholic. I tasted my first liquor at 4 or 5. I had a bad head cold and my dad gave me a shot of peppermint schnapps. NyQuil was too expensive, he said, but we always had booze in the house. My grandpa let me sip the foam off his beer when I was about 7. I didn't know what it would taste like, I thought it would be fizzy and sweet, like pop. We weren't allowed to have pop very often, because it was bad for you.
My ex's father started going to AA shortly after he was born. He attends his meeting every Saturday to this day.
We were both in the military, and deployed to Iraq together. He had been to Afghanistan before that. We both suffer from PTSD, but I went through special therapy for mine because I didn't want to be a weirdo basket case of a mom, popping pills and having panic attacks.
I've made plenty of bad choices, and had my share of bad luck, but right now I am grateful to have a good life.

NWGRITS

I'm glad to hear that things worked out better than you had expected. I think it's been a good day for a lot of people. Par for the course on the drunken raging, eh? Btdt. Except it was my mother expecting me to bail her out of her mess. House was auctioned off yesterday. Not my problem!