I am where you are.
I want to hug you, and to hug me.
My 6 year old has health issues.
For years he has been relatively shielded from his fathers chaos.
I had A in my life, but I kept him away. He came and went, sure, but my son never identified him as "living with us" until this recent last 4 months, when RAH came out of rehab. He is sober, and my son was so gleeful.
The 4 months were hell. My son just got to play with his daddy, and that's all he saw. And from his perspective daddy is not mean, doesn't discipline, gives him big presents and surprises...
I made RAH move out, end of feb.
My son has been I'm surgery, recovering, stomach issues, meds, eye drops, bandaging...
And now his daddy is gone.
He was always a considerate angel, for the mist part.
He is now screaming, angry, kicking, everyday.
I know some of this is the stress of the last 3 weeks medical issues, and missed school, and being home w me in crappy weather, being poked and prodded, getting tests, seeing docs.
But he told his counselor with me present that he is mad at his mommy because his daddy left because all mommy did was be mad and yell at him.
My son says daddy did nothing wrong, not coming home. That people should do shat they want, and that's not something to get mad about or throw someone out about.
My son openly yells at me, cries.
I just want to go back 5 months and rechoose.
He is old enough now that he remembers things and I should have protected him.
My parenting nerves are frayed, and I lose my cool a lot these days. Intry to never bad mouth RAH, and that's hard. I try to follow counselors advice.
But I sometimes get truly petrified and immobilized by the fear that my son has a personality problem like his father.
I fight it off. I tell myself he us going to be angry for a while, but we will get back on our schedule, and he will respond well to that, and he will trust me and be affectionate with me again.
It's hard going thru periods where you feel like you kindof don't like your child that much. It's hard not to lash out at RAH, but if I share my frustration with him, it of course becomes his drama... All about him. More pity for his pot.
So it's thankless. And all I can hope is that this is a rough patch, and he and I will bounce back to our standard mana/ son dynamic.
He openly doubts my judgement. It is so hard.