bluebelle

I think the best is that you are open with them about your feelings and you allow them to share their feelings. For me growing up in an addict/alcoholic home, the worst thing was when people would act weird, but the family would act like nothing was wrong. That made me think that somehow I was the one with the problem. It also made me confused. It is a sad situation for them. As long as they realize it is her and not them, that will help. It's one of those things where life is not fair, and it is upsetting. On the good side, they will be stronger if they can learn healthy coping skills for dealing with disappointment and sadness.

Willybluedog

Bluebelle & kialua yes I think you are right, when I was growing up we did not share feelings, my dad thought that any feelings other than anger inappropriate and feminine, there was no crying, there was only yelling and beating.

If someone in the family had a "issue" it was ignored, questions were never answered, there were hints of incest on both sides of the family, spousal abuse was fairly common, but even when our aunt showed up at the door in the middle of the night with a black eye and in her pajamas we were shooed away and told to mind our own business.

We have raised our kids with the understanding that nothing is off limits and that there is nothing wrong with discussing your feelings or showing your emotions.

They know that grammy has health issues, both mental and physical and it is not their fault.

Thanks again, everytime I post I learn so much about myself and how to deal with these complicated issues.

Bless you all.

Suffocating

Is your own fear of abandonment playing a part in this? I mean, do you think your dad would honestly stop being a good grandpa to your children if you set boundaries with your mom?

Also, do you fear that he will abandon you if you set the boundaries?

Much wisdom in that indeed, but something tells me because he is affected by the family disease just as much being that he is her enabler, is he really qualified to advise you on how your relationship with your mother should go? Meaning, because he is so directly affected by her sickness, do you think that statement is only one-sided--like he forgot to tell you about the part where you should never put up with any form of abuse?

Just some questions to ask yourself and explore.

I think it's great that the family you've created is so close, built on trust, honesty, and vulnerability. Your kids are going to grow up successful and distinguished. What a great father you are! Kudos to you in breaking the cycle!!

Glad you are feeling better today. It's great that we get to be actors nowadays rather than reactors, isn't it?

Suffocating

Oh my God, I wish I had known about al-teen at that age. I thought I was the only one on the planet going through what I went through!


My boyfriend grew up in St. Louis. He's from an Italian family. His family lives there and in northern Italy. They also have a family farm, but it's in Illinois.

Well, it sounds like you are doing a great job. Has your wife read the part in our ACOA book, "So you love an acoa"? My boyfriend just recently started reading that to try and understand what I've been through. I felt really vulnerable when he told me that he did, but I recommend it to anyone who is in a relationship.

It's not a small matter. You are doing what you're supposed to do and that is standing up for your children; protecting their feelings. That's never a small matter. You be you. Pay attention to the guilt/shame pull the disease has you on right now.

Thank you for being there for me too. I LOVE this place and I'm so thankful to have found it.

Suffocating

Hey Bill, one more thing, wow that's so great that you and your wife have taught your children that it's okay to share their feelings.

Sorry that you didn't get that growing up.

Would it be okay to also teach them that it's okay to say to grammy, "Hey grammy, I have more to tell you about. Can you give me another 5 minutes?" You know, stuff like that so that they are at least standing up for their feelings even if she doesn't give them the response that they should get, it's still a good way to teach them to be assertive. Just a thought.

I know nothing about raising children so forgive me if I keep giving unsolicited advice.

Willybluedog

Suffocating, I think that is excellent advice, what you usually here with my kids on the phone with grammy

"Hi grammy, love you, yes I'm fine, I'm doing, but-but-but, ok love you to" the only way to past this is to ram past it and then she is the victim.

With my dad, it is more complicated, my sister went to some new age church a few years ago and had all these "repressed memories" about severe beatings and draconian conditions, which is total crap because she was daddy's princess and got damn near everything she wanted from him, he never laid a finger on her ever. She cut off contact with him for almost a year, he got shingles, got so sick and so depressed I thought it was going to kill him.

If I cut them off I am afraid he would have a complete breakdown. I have made my position about mom clear to him, and told him she needs to treat the kids better, and he talks to her, and it gets a little better for a little while and back down the tracks we go.

So I grumble alot, I come here, I go to therapy, I do the ACOA step workbook, and keep hoping that I will learn better coping skills.

Thank you again, I appreciate the kind words and insight,

Big hugs to you.

GingerM

If your kids are happy and well adjusted, then they are extremely lucky kids! It also means they will learn a way to deal with one 'outlier' person in their lives. And learning that now (instead of, say, in their 30s) isn't such a bad thing.

I was also fairly isolated, both from family and friends. We moved every 12-18 months. Never enough time to put down roots. So it was just me, my parents and my sister. Mom was mentally ill, dad had his own problems, my sister and I relied on each other as best we could, but it's not like we had anyone modeling healthy behaviors for us.

If your kids have parents willing to model healthy behaviors, willing to talk about the elephant in the living room? That's HUGE. You're willing to help them make some sense of an otherwise senseless situation. That's HUGE. You're giving them skills they can use the rest of their lives (because, let's be real, your mom won't be the only dysfunctional person they run into in their lives).

Be kind to yourself Bill. You didn't choose your parents, you didn't ask your mom to be this way. Do what you can to help your kids figure this out and learn some coping skills. And remember your own teenage years: learning is a painful process. You can't insulate your kids from being hurt - if it isn't your mother, it will be other kids, the first boyfriend, the friend who didn't invite them to the party, etc. And as they get further into the teen years, even those "minor" slights will take on epic emotional proportions (having a teen on the verge of 20 now, trust me on this! Oh, the times spent with the tears!)

Learning how to deal with people who treat one poorly is a lifelong skill and one that can't be learned too early IMO (age-appropriate, obviously, but I know people who are working on boundary-setting with 3 year olds, so.)

I do feel for your kids. But beware the coming of the full on teen years - there will be many hurts (and many joys - the highs are higher and the lows? hoooboy!)

You're being a great dad. Trust that if you can, and if you can't trust that, then listen to us as we remind you of that.

akrasia

Will,

With respect, your dad is not being a good grandpa, in fact, if he is insisting that your kids have an active alcoholic in their lives.

It's great that you're looking at Ala-Teen, but if you're that concerned about how your mom is treating them, then step one is removing them from the toxic behaviour. While some grandparents enrich a kid's life, kids don't really NEED grandparents the way they need parents. Kids can just sort of not see one set of grandparents all that much, and they won't feel it as a lack. Probably when they're older they'll cotton on to what was going on, but it's not fair to make this their problem whilst they're small.

Your kids come before your dad.

akrasia

My friend, may I gently point out that being "daddy's princess" can go hand-in-hand with being abused. I'm not saying your sister was or wasn't abused, we don't know. But abuse can take place in a matrix of denial.

dbh

Hey Bill,

Thought about your post for most of the day yesterday.

Our family is sort of weak in the grandparent department too. Both of our mother's are remarried, so before my father died last year our children actually had SIX grandparents. Out of these six, only two are choosing or able to be an active part of our children's live.

Both of our fathers are/were alcoholics and my mom and stepfather have gotten to the point where they have isolated themselves in Florida because they can't handle anymore stress.

As much as I sometimes long to have that Norman Rockwell extended family, it just wasn't in the cards for me nor my children. However, I can't control the type of grandparent they choose to be anymore than I can choose the type of parents that I got.

My kids are only a little younger than yours, they are 9 and 11. I have always been extremely honest with them about how sometimes people make bad decisions in life. They know that my father was a smoker, alcoholic, and basically not a good father. He lived four hours away and they only met him a handful of times before his death. I've basically used him as an example of how people can really mess up their lives.

I don't think my kids look at it as something to be sad about or something that they are missing. If anything, I think we treat it as our parents' loss. As in, "Too bad they're sick and missing out on all the fun of being with us." :-)

I do think it's up to each individual to decide who to have or not have in their life. Sometimes you can detach and not take another person's behavior personally. Other times, relationships are just too toxic and no contact is the only solution. I don't look at "no contact" as a punitive action. It's a means of protecting yourself and it's natural consequences of the way that some people choose to act.

Lastly, I sometimes struggle with separating how I'm feeling about a person/situation vs. how my children are feeling. An example, I volunteer in my daughter's girl scout troop and her leader is a control freak. During a camping trip last year, she got upset about something and basically yelled at me and a couple of the girls. I was livid! How could she treat us like this?!? I thought about pulling my daughter from the troop because I didn't want her to be around such a toxic person. I stewed in my anger for this leader for a couple of days. My daughter seemed to have forgotten it immediately. It didn't affect her the way that it had affected me.

The thing is, our children are going to have to learn to deal with difficult people their entire life and as appealing as it seems, it's impossible to cut every difficult person out of your life. I think the secret to living a life of serenity is detaching and knowing that the way that these people act HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! It's something that I continue to work on. My children seem more adept at it then me.

Lead in the school play, track starting soon, new boyfriend, and very caring father. IMHO, your daughter has a lot of be happy about :-)

Thank you for sharing and for letting me share.

Hugs,

db

hope2be

Bill:
You are way ahead of the game. Just the fact that you are talking to your kids about alcoholism and trying to unravel your own dysfunction is great!

At 57, I am just beginning to really buckle down and do all of this. I was too involved in my own codependency while raising my kids to do this. What a wonderful gift you are giving to your children..your recovery, which helps them in theirs.

Keep up the good work.
Huggs,
Hope

Willybluedog

Ginger,

My wife does an excellent job of teaching the kids life lessons, she sits them down when they are struggling with a kid at school, a teacher, or a coach and says, "this is real life, there are people you are not going to like and people that are not going to like you, you have to find a way to make this work as long as they are not saying or doing anything inappropriate, this will be how it is for the rest of your life, spouse, co-workers, bosses, there are limits to how much you can control things around you, you have to decide how to react and how to respond to these people."

The big problem with grammy is explaining why someone who is supposed to love you sometimes treats you so badly, I think the inconsistency is also a struggle, if she is at grammy's during the day or early evening it is that "norman rockwell grammy" any other time it is anyones guess who grammy is going to be.

We recently went through the first boyfriend issue, he goes to another school so rather than telling her he was seeing someone else he just dodged her, we sat down and I told her "You are letting him mistreat you, he cannot mistreat you without your permission because you don't have to take this crap from some boy who supposedly likes you, don't give him that power, take that power back" she is working through it, but she learned alot, I hope the next time she will be more assertive, we will have to see.

Thank you for your good advice, I appreciate it very much.

Hugs,

Bill

Willybluedog

Akrasia,

Thank you for the insight, dad and I have been round and round about "fairness", "duty to parents" etc.

I know my parents both have a twisted version of love and duty, I have told my dad we have to step back and he has gone along with that for the most part, my kids don't normally talk to my mother, but it was her birthday and I had hoped to get to her early enough in the evening that she was still functional but it's always a crapshoot.

As to the abuse issue, she had claimed to have been beaten and raised in a too strict environment, she never claimed any sexual or even verbal abuse, I can tell you I know the beatings did not happen, because while I got either the belt, the boot, or the hand, she got grounded for a day or two, I saw her manifesto of accusations and there was nothing about any of that in there.

Thank you for the good advice and kind words, I appreciate the insight.

Big hugs,

Bill

Willybluedog

dbh,

I think you are so right about the feelings issue, they get bent over things that blow by me and the things that bother me they wonder why I am upset.

I try not to react until I can check their mood and temp. on these types of things, my daughter got of the phone and said "why doesn't grammy want to talk to me?" It takes so much just not to cry for my kids right then and there, I told my wife later, "I just feel like driving to florida and kicking my mothers ass", and she said "is she doing anything different than she always has?"

I know the other day the basketball coach was screaming at a kid on my sons team, 6 inches from his face and I could hear what he was saying across the court. I asked my son later, "did that bother you when coach was screaming" he said "nope, that's just basketball" so I let it go even though I was really not happy about it.

Thanks so much for the kind words and good ideas, I really appreciate it.

Big hugs,

Bill

dbh

My husband will say similar things to me. I'll get off the phone feeling angry over something my mother/sister said and he'll ask me "How did you expect her behave?" or "Are you surprised that she did this?"

It quickly takes the wind out of my indignation sail.

Inconsistent behavior is difficult to process. Boy do I know that from experience. I think so many of my ACA issues come from the inconsistency in both my mother and father's behavior when I was growing up. It was impossible for me (as a child) to understand why I could do the same exact thing and get two completely different responses based on their mood and/or my dad's alcohol consumption. Since I couldn't figure out the pattern, I just assumed there must be something wrong with me.

db

bluebelle

I think you are doing a great job. The best you can do is model the behavior that you want from them. By taking care of yourself, you are teaching them about boundaries and self-care. If they learn a little bit of that now while they are young, they will be far ahead of a lot of us!!

wicked

Bill,

You have a farm in Missouri? Wow! That is my dream. A small place, with a few barnyard animals, ducks, chickens, maybe a goat or two.
I am stuck at what and where to look for it. Hmmm

Anyway, I think you are doing a great job with your kids, being open and honest is the only way to go. I wish there was an AlAnon or AlaTeen when I was a kid. Just talking or knowing there are others with dysfunction and pain from a parent would be heaven.
I am not alone.

Beth

Willybluedog

Yes Beth, we found a lovely little spot, 6 acres and a pond, out here they call it a "city boy special", we left downtown St. Louis, we loved it there but the schools were terrible.

There is a real estate company called United Country Real Estate, I would also recommend both Backwoods Home Magazine and also Countryside and Small Stock Journal.

If you go to my photobucket you can see some pictures of the animals.