Ladybird579

and alone. My daughter came to visit me today. She brought me a birthday cake and a card with some money in for my birthday everyone else forgot about 2 weeks ago. My birthday was yet another non event in the scheme o f things. While here she mentioned my dad had many photos of her and her siblings from when they were babies and she had scanned a couple into her phone. She sent them to me via Whatsapp and I told her I had none and she asked why. The tale of exah coming round and taking all the pictures whilst throwing stuff at me and all over our attic came out. He broke all the light up Christmas villages during that spat and stamped on all their board games. She sat there stunned. She never knew.

She then told me when she finishes university her and her brother are moving away. She's going to be a Pathologist and there are no jobs around here. Originally she was going to have my boys live near her and her brother but this can't happen now. I'll miss her a lot and I feel like my last bit of support has been pulled from under me and my boys will be alone with no siblings they are close to nearby. It it me how disintegrated my once close family is. How life is changed forever and not all for the good.

Maudcat

Hi, Ladybird. Sorry you are feeling sad. No advice, just hugs.

dandylion

Ladybird....I understand how you feel. I think we get used to the family nest and want it to stay unchanged, forever.... And, for each change, we go through a passage of grieving...
Are you feeling like an "empty nester"?
I don't think there is a mother who doesn't shed some tears at the thought of one of her children moving from the family home.....

Ladybird579

Thanks for your replies. Having thought about this I realised I invested in my kids way too much. I home-schooled them all ( all 8 lol) throughout the car crash that was marriage to my exah. Nothing deterred me from them having the best and doing well. They were my focus when life was going down the pan. They all got to university and have independent lives now, except my youngest twins. I took it hard when I was rejected by some of them. I have abandonment issues I need to work on. These stem from my childhood when I was sent to live with my grandmother until I was useful.( my mother wanted a boy and once she got one when I was 12 months old I was discarded) It's like since splitting with exah I keep finding stuff I need to deal with as different situations arise.

dandylion

Ladybird....you must have do ne a lot of right things for your kids. For that y ou can be very proud.
Kids go through l ots pf phases...even as adults...and they can be shockingly insensitive, sometimes...and, because they have not fully matured (even as adults), they can be very ignorant of how much they can hurt our feelings. It all comes back around to them, before all is said and done.....It does for everyone...

I am sorry about your childhood. Still, you must be one strong person....
some people don't arrive at the insight you have....we just keep on learning and evolving, don't we?

Ladybird579

Thank you. I am very proud of them as individuals. Collectively they gang up on me lol and yes they are only very young adults and don't always show great maturity levels yet. I didn't really think how well it turned out until lately and do feel proud in how well things worked out and that, while life wasn't great, they still got a good education and got what they wanted from that. I take comfort that we were all close once and maybe one day we will have a different closeness. Yes.... it is all a learning curve.

amy55

Hi Ladybird,

I remember you from when you came here a few years ago. I have to admit that I am amazed at your strength and courage.

Your older children will start to come around more. They are really starting to figure out who they can trust.

How are the twins? Did they find things to do or participate in at your new place?

((((((((((((((((hugs, tans)))))))))))))
amy

honeypig

Ladybird, I had some very serious issues w/my mother a number of years ago, relating to childhood abuse from a stepfather--I was confronting some of my own problems stemming from that and was incredibly angry that she hadn't protected me or my siblings from the abuse. I eventually went no contact, and we didn't speak for probably 6 or 8 years.

You know how they say about recovery, that it's "in all our affairs"? Well, once I began my recovery for real, here at SR, I began to understand so much about her. She is an ACOA who has never sought help, and it seems so glaringly obvious to me now how much this affects who she is.

Everything is not rainbows and roses now, but I accept that she is the way she is and I do my best not to go looking for bread in this particular hardware store. She was supportive to me during my divorce from XAH and gave me a spinning wheel and some wool to spin, telling me that spinning and knitting had helped her through a lot of bad times over the years. That meant a lot to me.

So as far as your kids go, I guess we can never predict for sure, but I'd say there's a good chance you're raising the kind of young people who'll think for themselves and learn as time and experiences come their way. Ever heard the saying "the older I get, the smarter my parents get?" Your relationships w/them may change, and change again, as you all learn and grow.

Bekindalways

Big hugs Ladybird. I never had children and struggled with my mother a lot. Now she has alzheimers and I'm feeling my center of security shift.

I've been a stay at home aunt and so am pretty bonded with my nephews. I've started psyching myself up for when they are gone into the independent future world in which they belong.

hopeful4

Sending lots of hugs!

I read that the brain does not mature until age 25. I look at my 17 year old and think that she seems so mature, until she doesn't LOL. My two gang up on me sometimes too.

You are not alone friend. We are here!!!