Interesting conversation last night...
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: Mich
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Interesting conversation last night...
So I had an interesting conversation last night. My AH looked at me and blurted out that he envied me. I asked him why, completely expecting something different than what I heard.
His parents are a walking disaster...and I mean DISASTER. So he told me that he wishes he had just 1 mom and 1 dad. (His mom is on marriage #3 and dad is on long term relationship #3 after 2 failed marriages). That it makes life so much less complicated and then he told me all about his conversation with his mom and how after hanging up with her, he wished he could just take both parents out of his life for good, that they are very selfish, needy people. (and he's right).
In the past, I would have probably made some comments that my life wasn't so perfect growing up, my parents had faults too and so on and so forth, thinking that I would have been making him feel better. How much I have learned over the years, I just looked at him and said yeah, I can understand how you feel. It does complicate things having step-this and step-that and so much walking drama around, I can see why you'd feel that way, but thankfully you can see the mistakes they have made and you know that's not how you want things for our family, I give you a lot of credit for learning from them and making better choices for you own family. AND I LEFT IT AT THAT!
For me, this was big and I think he was very surprised and may not have expected me to say that. He just said, I was just telling you that, you didn't have to say anything and I said, but it's true and you need to know you've made better choices and are being a very good dad to our son and when he's your age, he'll have these memories of time with you that you were denied.
While I realize that his drinking is his choice, I also realize I can make the choice to reinforce all of the good that he's done in the past with our family (and frankly, continues to do as he's not back to where he was....) and hope those things sink in and he decides he's ready to stop again.
Still working on how I'm going to talk to him....having a teenager around a lot makes it difficult to talk because we don't have a lot of just us time and when he's not around, yup, he is drinking and I won't discuss with him that when he is drinking.
Not sure I needed to do anything than to share my small positive step that I made again at not twisting something into a bigger situation but I did manage to acknowledge his feelings and tried to point out the positives he's done as a parent.
Thanks for reading.
His parents are a walking disaster...and I mean DISASTER. So he told me that he wishes he had just 1 mom and 1 dad. (His mom is on marriage #3 and dad is on long term relationship #3 after 2 failed marriages). That it makes life so much less complicated and then he told me all about his conversation with his mom and how after hanging up with her, he wished he could just take both parents out of his life for good, that they are very selfish, needy people. (and he's right).
In the past, I would have probably made some comments that my life wasn't so perfect growing up, my parents had faults too and so on and so forth, thinking that I would have been making him feel better. How much I have learned over the years, I just looked at him and said yeah, I can understand how you feel. It does complicate things having step-this and step-that and so much walking drama around, I can see why you'd feel that way, but thankfully you can see the mistakes they have made and you know that's not how you want things for our family, I give you a lot of credit for learning from them and making better choices for you own family. AND I LEFT IT AT THAT!
For me, this was big and I think he was very surprised and may not have expected me to say that. He just said, I was just telling you that, you didn't have to say anything and I said, but it's true and you need to know you've made better choices and are being a very good dad to our son and when he's your age, he'll have these memories of time with you that you were denied.
While I realize that his drinking is his choice, I also realize I can make the choice to reinforce all of the good that he's done in the past with our family (and frankly, continues to do as he's not back to where he was....) and hope those things sink in and he decides he's ready to stop again.
Still working on how I'm going to talk to him....having a teenager around a lot makes it difficult to talk because we don't have a lot of just us time and when he's not around, yup, he is drinking and I won't discuss with him that when he is drinking.
Not sure I needed to do anything than to share my small positive step that I made again at not twisting something into a bigger situation but I did manage to acknowledge his feelings and tried to point out the positives he's done as a parent.
Thanks for reading.
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