Just LR

How far along is she? Sometimes ultrasounds see stuff that isn't there. Medical professionals are not gods, they make mistakes all the time. Best wishes.

I have a Canadian friend who is a Master Herbalist who highly recommends probiotics for anxiety. Gut flora, properly balanced, causes serotonin produced in neurons surrounding the gut to be more properly active. My sister coincidentally saw this info on a morning talk show today! I just recommended this to your GG and now I am recommending it for your daughter. I will also tell MY pregnant anxiety prone daughter about it next time we talk!

Good refrigerated active probiotics ain't cheap, but they are cheaper than medical bills.
 
She is due in January.. mid to late January I believe. My impression is that the greatest concern at this point, is that the ultrasound not picking up all of the ventricles of the heart or the facial structure is what is getting her sent to the specialist, not whatever is blocking her cervix.

:(

I will tell her about the probiotics. I know she's taken them in the past. It's all just a whirlwind of stress at this point.
 
Hugs! I hate when you've been given horrible news, let you think the worst and then let you stew in fear for a month. If it was my kid, I think I'd call the Primary Dr. Office and say "WTF! You tell my daughter her baby has no face and defective heart, then refer her to a specialist that can't bother to see her for another month? Do you have any idea the amount of stress and anxiety this has added to what is now already a high risk pregnancy? What can you do to get her an initial appointment next week?"
 
Unfortunately-I already know well enough-that it's unlikely that they can get an earlier one. That's likely the only specialist in the state and they tend to travel through the state to cover everyone. :( But, yeah, I totally hear you.
 
Well-the puppy is doing better. That's a plus.

Spicy Pea is holding up. Not much more to do for now.

GG talked to his therapist briefly. They increased his ADD meds & started a workbook regarding procrastination. In working through that workbook he's begun to realize that there is a much bigger issue than he was considering. He's expressed to me that he was wrong, that the issues aren't "minor" and that he understands already why I was at my wits end.

I can only raise an eyebrow, because procrastination is just one piece of the puzzle. What's he going to see when he starts addressing the other issues?

Today I found out that a close friend, ex-lover, lost a very close loved one this month. He tends to be a loner who randomly gets almost manically social for short spurts and then returns to being unsocial for awhile. So I wasn't too worried that I hadn't heard from him in over a month.
But I noticed he was posting on FB today so I sent him a message.

He had been the caretaker for his cousin (whom he grew up with) the last couple of years. His cousin had a debilitating disease and was wheelchair bound. At any rate, he died in his sleep 2 weeks ago and my friend found him in the morning. He's struggling through his grief as would be expected.

I will go by his place the few days I will be home next month and check on him, give him a hug and remind him he's loved and not alone.

What a WEEK.

Tonight Maca and SourPea and I are going to a wedding reception for one of Maca's younger co-workers. That should be interesting. :rolleyes:
 
No shortage of stuff going on.

Don't know if you've been reading GG's thread ... So far he seems to be coming back to it and continuing to post, which I take as a hopeful sign. What really excited me was when I suggested he watch some Hoarders episodes -- and he did it! *And* he was somewhat blown away by what he saw, if his subsequent post was any indicator. He said he could really sympathize with both "sides of the argument," both the hoarder's point of view and the perspective of the hoarder's family, who, in GG's own words, were at their wit's end and about ready to quit. Sounds like he really paid attention when he watched the couple of episodes that he watched.

Anyway, in his thread it sounds like the wheels are slowly finally beginning to turn -- and I was hoping you were seeing a little of that as well, that he wasn't just blowing smoke. I'm glad he and his therapist have taken things up a notch. Hopefully they'll eventually take things up a bunch of notches. But, you know, one little miracle at a time, amirite?

Pulling for you and yours,
Kevin T.
 
I have been reading it, Kevin. I have opted not to post in it, because he needs viewpoints from outside perspectives right now, not me. But I have read it. I thought most of the advice was spot on helpful.

MightyMax is delusional and completely missing the point. I find that poster rather offensive, as does GG. We share all of our opinions in regards to stuff like that very freely with each other and we agreed that poster needs a reality check. It's my opinion that they think GG "misses" everyone, including the kids, because I took them away, thus advising legal moves.

But the reality is, that isn't what happened, as well you know! One kid is on vacation with his grandparents. The other is with Maca and me in Kodiak until the 6th, after a two week trip to California that GG COULD have joined us on if he hadn't blown off the invite months ago. GG understands that. He also knows that on the 12th Maca leaves to hunting camp with the kid who's presently on a road trip with Grandma, and the same day I go alone to Oklahoma to visit friends whose daughter died this past month. GG will have the youngest all to himself.

ANYWAY-I do see him making efforts. I hope that he sticks with it. I'm still unsure and untrusting of it, but trying hard to be encouraging from my end.

One thing that makes me VERY nervous is knowing that people with ADD tend to really struggle with failure and serious depression following failure. He's in shock about how significant the issues are around procrastination. He and the therapist haven't even delved into ANYTHING ELSE. I'm concerned how low he's going to get when he realizes that the procrastination is the icing on the cake and that the issues are much broader, deeper and intrinsic than just that one thing. :/

I'm hoping that he is being COMPLETELY forthright with the therapist (and continues to be) so that he doesn't end up derailing his progress on account of a feeling of hopelessness due to realizing how MUCH he has to work on. But that remains to be seen. In the meantime, he's trying. I did help him yesterday working through some paperwork for a vehicle loan and finding a vehicle with the money he took from his retirement as collateral for the loan (because he needs to do some loans to build up his credit, which isn't bad, it just doesn't exist). I paid off all of his debt years ago. But because he has no utility bills, no mortgage, no car loans, etc, he has no credit, which he will need if he plans to move when we do, which he says he is planning to do.

So anyway, I did help him through that process, because it's somewhat complicated. I didn't do it for him. I told him to go to the bank website and fill out the loan paperwork. Answered a few questions for him regarding it and left it to him to discuss with them. They came back with a very conservative offer that is also quite reasonable for him to get a reliable used vehicle & not screw himself over financially. Good interest rate, very low payments for a reasonably short amount of time.

Then I gave him some suggestions on which car dealerships in the greater area (not just our town but several in our area) have reliable used vehicles and can be browsed online. Hopefully he is digging through those to get some ideas.

He got a response back from unemployment yesterday on what they will pay him. So that is helpful for him to plan his move, as well.

One step at a time. Hopefully he will just keep making them. I lost almost 75 lbs by walking. Small steps in long repetition can work wonders. You just have to keep taking them.
 
Food for thought

Family:

In a family there are so many intricate moving parts, and each player has responsibilities. If any piece is left undone, the whole operation of the system begins to systematically fall apart.

So, say it falls apart. You have all of these pieces, you want to put it back together again. Well, this isn't so simple as reattaching pieces.

If parenting responsibilities were left undone, for example, the consequences can last a lifetime. Literally. Children whose primary caregiver don't uphold expectations for appropriate behavior, boundaries, respect of personal boundaries & honest ethical behavior, well, they create children who are problematic to care for and require EXTRA supervision. That means the people in the family now have additional problems to address in regards to time and energy and who can do what/when and for whom. That takes away available time to work, play, date. It damn sure reduces time for building connections/relationships or REbuilding them.

It also can negatively impact the rebuilding, because the person who's left doing the extra work may feel significant anger and resentment towards the person whose actions created the problem in the first place.

It Takes Two

Yes. It does. One has to give trust. The other may or may not follow through. So if person two didn't follow through with their part of any agreement, resulting in person one having to learn the hard way that they couldn't be trusted, can they reasonably be expected to NOT be angry and hurt and unwilling to continue "giving chances," when they have years of cleaning up the mess from prior chances?

What if financial irresponsibility results in major changes to the family's ability to meet one member's health needs?

How long does it take to repair the damage done? What steps does that entail?

Obviously bad parenting requires learning to parent. Financial ignorance requires learning financial management.

But in addition to learning the skills that would have avoided the problem in the first place, there is also NOW another problem, which is the clean-up of the messes created.

How to manage a problem child. How to reestablish trust. How to fix the additional health issues caused by not managing them to begin with because money was handled improperly. Of course, that is even more difficult because of the extra time and money involved in caring for the problem child too, meaning the $$ won't be available to move the member who needs to move for health reasons ANY TIME SOON.

And all of this exacerbated by the fact that focus may be on rebuilding your romantic relationship, but in fact you need to rebuild EACH individual relationship, and the group relationships. The whole poly tier falls apart if ANY ONE relationship isn't working. But what happens when your series of choices has resulted in fucking up ALL of your relationships, not just the romantic ones?

What about your time management sucks? So you fail to plan time to build a relationship at all and the ones that spontaneously bloomed, you haven't bothered to maintain?

As each detail get sewn into the fabric of your life it makes a beautiful quilt. But if you fail too many all you have are balls of colored of thread, generally all tangled and fucked up, needing cut.

So here we are: time management, money management, procrastination, epic parenting failure, conflict avoidance, hoarding, combined to create a clusterfuck disaster that now includes a medical disaster for at least one member, problem child, education difficulties for three members of the family, financial strain that will take 10+ years to overcome, lack of connection or bond with all but one (the youngest child) member, and lack of trust because of this all.

AND the other adults are putting their time and effort into minimizing permanent damage, fixing what can be fixed, providing extensive care for the medical issues and behavioral complications, and figuring out $$$$. They don't have any extra time and they are royally pissed off and resentful.

How hard is that shit to fix?

Seriously, I don't think it can be.
 
Maybe GG will just have to start his life over as a single man and hopefully make sure he'll do better on his next set of relationships.

I'm sure he'll have to see the full weight of the damage caused, sooner or later.
 
Yeah... I don't know. Having a rough day, can you tell? (sarcastic question)

It really bugs me that GG's focus is all about "proving it to me." In one way, that's ok. I want to finish college, I am doing it for me and for my family's benefit. But there IS a part of me that wants to finish so I can throw it in my dad's face, because he never believed I could do it. But that isn't WHY I am doing it. Does that make sense?

It has been GG's MO to do things "for me." He got his GED "for me," he cleaned his room "for me," he worked on getting a reliable job "for me," he quit a reliable job "for me." He uses me as the excuse/motivation for pretty much everything, and to be frank, I don't want that type of pressure on ME.

But that isn't the biggest issue I see. I'm not his therapist, I don't want to be, and I don't want to be involved in the therapy unless asked by the therapist. That said, from a personal point of view, I see where there are some serious RELATIONSHIP issues that exist, and without those being resolved, there won't be a "joined family" dynamic again. But he doesn't seem to see it. I don't even want to REALLY talk to him about it (or anything, for that matter) out of fear he will just jump on the "LR said XYZ, so I am going to do it." That makes me CRAZY.

He says "I miss my family," and he includes Maca in that list. But he makes no effort to actually show that to Maca or Sweet Pea or Spicy Pea or anyone except Sour Pea, and to a small degree me. He HAD relationships with Spicy Pea and Sweet Pea, but as they have grown he's left it to them to maintain the relationships, and in both cases they have just watched him fade into the edges of their lives, with the opinion (both have expressed this to me separately with no prompting) that the only reason he "really" was involved in their lives was because they were so important to me, and that wasn't enough to motivate them to "fight" for a relationship that was obviously not important to him.

Sweet Pea is less "cold" about it, I think partly because his nature is very much a "what will be will be." If GG started making an effort, he would accept that things had "changed again" and go with it comfortably.

Spicy Pea, not so much. He was a key player in her life before Maca, & it hurts her that he "faded" when she got older. She feels like he used her to get closer to me. She is also fully grown now, with a family of her own, and while she doesn't shut him out, she allows him to participate with her boys, etc., she doesn't feel like he REALLY cares about her, and she's got a grudge about it.

The other two boys, Split Pea and Salty Pea, they don't live with us. Split Pea is very attached to me (we had a relationship prior to me and Maca being a couple) and Salty Pea is Maca's son from a prior relationship. Salty only talks to Maca and Split Pea only talks to me. Both feel like GG is irrelevant. neither feels like he has any importance in their lives at all, even though both grew up with him as a major player in their lives.

Maca sees GG as being someone he knows. That's about it. He believes GG has "ridden my coat tails" and not made any effort of his own to show that he is sorry for the affair, much less bother to actually build a relationship. He's not driven TO build a relationship, but he finds it ironic that GG proclaims to have all of these feelings of "familyness" with him, when they never have anything to do with each other outside of existing in the same sphere.

I'm NOT saying any ONE person can make (or break) a relationship. But I have to admit that I see a theme in all of this & I can't help but think that if something is so important to one person, they will find a way to make it happen, regardless of the other person.

For example, my grandsons, I personally want a relationship with them, as does their other grandmother. However, I HAVE a relationship with them and she does not. The one and only reason is I make a concerted effort to call and visit and take them on a regular and consistent basis. Even with being gone SO MUCH since May, I have maintained more face to face contact with them in the last 3 months (by a LOT) and I have maintained more phone contact with them (by a LOT). Enough difference for Spicy Pea to comment on how confusing it is for her that the other grandmother whines and complains about it but doesn't DO anything about it.

I see GG as being like that other grandmother. He says he wants a relationship (with a variety of people) but he doesn't DO anything about it. He does occasionally reach out, but there's no consistency to the effort. Relationships can't be BUILT that way. It's all well and good to say that "real friends" can be out of contact for years and start right back up where they left off. But friends can't be MADE that way. Knowing someone doesn't build intimacy, and if you don't bother to BUILD it, it won't exist TO start back up.
 
And then there is the parenting issue. When we agreed to have Sweet Pea, the agreement was that we would coparent as three. But GG doesn't parent her. He does care for her, but he does it like a friend or uncle or something. He does the FUN stuff. Tucks her into bed, takes her to the park, reads her stories, colors with her, plays with her. Those are all important and meaningful things kids need.

But he absolutely does not discipline her. He will get angry and say something to her in the heat of a moment. But he doesn't put any time or effort into holding her accountable. I have to remind HIM "it's time to be done" when he goes past bedtime. To the "just let him learn" choir, he doesn't. I backed off and quit telling him, and the bedtime routine started going for over 2 hours of them talking, reading, playing, tickle fights-- past bedTIME.

When she gets in trouble, he will SAY, "That was not cool. You need to do what you are told." But then he's right back to playing and goofing off, as though the WORDS were said, so everything goes back to normal. In the meantime, her behavior hasn't changed and she's learned that HE doesn't care.

If I put my kids on restriction to deal with an out of control behavior, they aren't allowed contact with "friends," including extended family, until they get that behavior under control. But GG expects the privileges of a parent (see her as he wishes) with the responsibilities of a friend (not holding her accountable).

If Maca is out of town (or when he had his own place) and she was in trouble, he would back me up by discussing the issue with her, and upholding the punishment when she was with him, too. Likewise, if she got in trouble with him, I do the same. We create a united front, so that she knows if it's not ok with one of us, it's not ok at all. GG doesn't. He says the words, but his actions do not follow along.

She's been out of control with sneakiness and lying. Yesterday was a major issue and I kept him in the loop (as always). Evening comes and they are on the phone talking and bs'ing like best friends. He told her she shouldn't be doing those things, but he had a 45 minute conversation about whatever the hell she wanted to talk about. It didn't occur to him that by doing that he's SHOWING her that the problem isn't REALLY important to him. He reacted the same way a friend would. NOT parenting her.

Suffice it to say, it not only pisses off me and Maca, but it makes things harder, because she is big on trying to play everyone off each other. "GG says..." is a theme comment from her when she's in trouble. There's no united front.

Interestingly enough, he has no legal rights to her at all. It's only the moral stance Maca and I have that allows him contact with her. BUT if he's going to be a "friend" to her, he's going to only have FRIEND privileges, which means no contact when she's in trouble.

If he wants parent privileges he needs to be on board with the parenting duties.

If he's asked, he says he agrees with all of our rules and expectations. In fact he's more than willing to throw them up in the other kids' faces. But not with her. He is so caught up in what HE wants from their relationship that if her behavior results in a consequence that limits HIM, he ignores the consequence so he can do what he wants and have what he wants with her. That's BULLSHIT.

Not the least of which is because it teaches her a fucked-up lesson about lying and manipulating. But also it is unreasonable to make Maca and me the "bad cops" while he plays "good cop." He gets all of the enjoyment of the relationship and we get all of the dirt work. That's bullshit.
 
GG says that he still wants to move "as a family" when we leave Alaska.

To be frank, I can't see that it's possible to work through the issues: procrastination, time management, financial management, hoarding, personal accountability, building/maintaining relationships, responsible co-parenting... in 2 yrs 9 mths.

Let me restate that, because I do think it's possible, if the person in question is 100% committed to throwing their whole life into it, full-time focus on it, and they have access to the training and practice opportunities that will allow them to learn it, much like it is POSSIBLE to get a bachelor's degree in that amount of time, but it's not COMMON. Most people don't have the skill set to do that much work that quickly or to take in so much new information and transform it into long-term memory and usable information so quickly. Most people don't have the financial ability to throw themselves completely into the learning process, because they have to actually be splitting their time with a job to feed themselves and pay the bills etc.

And GG isn't extra gifted at the topics he needs to address. If he was, they wouldn't be issues. These are things he struggles with, that are going to take a LOT of time and effort to resolve. He doesn't even NOTICE when he's doing them and he doesn't have anyone that can be there to notice for him and call him on it daily, keep him on track. So... yeah. That's a lot of shit to work through in a short period of time.

I wonder, does he think that Maca is going to jump on the "Yep, totally would love to have you come with us" bandwagon? Has he asked Maca what Maca would need to be interested in having a relationship with him? Has he asked him how he feels about what's going on? Has he considered that while I am kicking him out, it requires ALL of us to be in agreement for him to come back? Nope. He hasn't asked any of that. He hasn't asked me, and he hasn't even spoken to Maca about any of it.

What the hell is he expecting to happen? Suddenly something magnificent is going to change, and without having had a single conversation about it, Maca is going to be onboard to bringing the potential drama BACK? Really?

Sigh.
 
Maca won't tell me who I can or can't date. But it's not about dating. It's about the household/family, and frankly, GG has done a fantastic job of deleting himself as a meaningful part of the family. It will require a lot for him to convince Maca that it's worth Maca's time to give him another chance. ESPECIALLY since Maca and I are left cleaning up the mess that has been left behind. Most especially the mess of his shitty parenting practices and the resulting financial burden.
 
Laisse Faire/Blithe

GG has a very laisse faire attitude about everything. He has blithe replies, because to him, "everything will work itself out in the end."

No. No it won't. In fact, if you don't actually put in the due effort, it will not resolve itself.

Every time we talk, it ends in me pissed off. I don't want to talk to him at all, because every single solitary time he responds to serious, major shit with blithe responses.
He doesn't express any SERIOUS concern.
He pointedly comes across as not giving a shit at all. Like he's "smiling and nodding" and waiting for the topic to change.
INFURIATING.

He wants to talk, he misses us, he wishes this and wants that, etc.

But WHY would I want to talk to someone who speaks as if there is nothing wrong and everything is happy-go-lucky while I am in the midst of a damn crisis?
 
Re (from LR):
"I'm *not* saying any *one* person can make (or break) a relationship. But I have to admit that I see a theme in all of this and I can't help but think that if something is so important to one person, they will find a way to make it happen regardless of the other person."
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Well if we're talking about relationships, I believe that each dyad needs the combined efforts of both individuals to keep itself afloat. Whichever individual puts forth the least amount of effort, that'll be the maximum amount of relationship that can exist between the two people.

You mentioned that GG doesn't seem to care about anything, and it's a hard for me to say this, but I think you're very close to the truth. Caring about stuff isn't GG's forte. His forte is remaining calm in the midst of a hurricane. So, he won't care about the wreckage that the hurricane leaves behind, and he won't be in any hurry to clean it up. In fact the only way he'll ever clean it up is if someone micromanages him into doing it. Otherwise he won't mind waiting his whole life long for the mess to magically clean itself.

So, if a relationship lies in ruins, he won't care about that. He'll be content waiting for it to fix itself. If a child's upbringing is getting screwed up, he won't care about that either. Essentially, he is a child. If someone doesn't tell him exactly what to do, and follow up for him to make sure he does it, he won't do it.

Somehow he manages to skate through life in spite of not caring, and I think his secret is lip service. He's noticed that it hardly takes any effort to open one's mouth and hand out assurances: "Oh sure, of course I care. Things are fine. Everything's under control. Don't worry, I'll do it." It takes considerable effort to take action that's in tune with those words, and putting that much effort into things isn't his cup of tea.

His complaints (about not having the relationships he says he wants) are part of that lip-service coping mechanism. He doesn't really miss those relationships, he just wants people (you especially) to think that he does. People who really care about something will be self-motivated to take action and correct the situation.

So you have three choices:

  • micromanage him,
  • join him in "just letting life happen,"
  • send him away.
If you send him away, there's a slight chance that he'll start to learn to do things on his own, without being hounded about it. But even if he hits bottom and finds that he's comfortable enough there, and least you (and the rest of the family) won't have to dwell on the bottom with him. That's why I think sending him away has to be your focus and priority at this time. It sounds cold of me to say that, but the other two options just aren't realistic.

I don't know if he's beginning to see the light, or if he's just ramping up his lip service a bit. And I don't think you can afford to gamble on that. Get your life -- your family's life -- separated from his. If he then learns to care about things while he's on his own, you can eventually consider reconnecting with him.

It can't be easy to sever yourself from someone you've cared about so much for so long. So I get the need to remind yourself of why you're doing it. And I'm saying, I agree. What you're doing is right. It's the right thing for you, for the family, and even for him. He needs to make his own decision about whether he will be his own boss and parent in life. He can't do that as long as anyone is following him, hovering over him, cleaning up after the hurricane he creates.

I'm sorry you have to deal with such an awful set of choices. :(
 
You mentioned that GG doesn't seem to care about anything, and it's a hard for me to say this, but I think you're very close to the truth. Caring about stuff isn't GG's forte. His forte is remaining calm in the midst of a hurricane. So, he won't care about the wreckage that the hurricane leaves behind, and he won't be in any hurry to clean it up. In fact the only way he'll ever clean it up is if someone micromanages him into doing it. Otherwise he won't mind waiting his whole life long for the mess to magically clean itself.
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I agree.
Essentially, he is a child. If someone doesn't tell him exactly what to do, and follow up for him to make sure he does it, he won't do it.
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Exactly, which is what I was doing. I started the process of stopping almost 2 years ago. In that time, what I've witnessed, is that it simply doesn't get done. Whatever it is that I stop doing, just goes without being done.

For a long time, people told me "If you want someone to learn to do it themselves, you have to not do it for them" (which makes sense logically) "and then they will start doing it" (which doesn't actually happen generally, because the reason someone else, including me, was doing it for them is because they aren't interested in doing it at all).
Somehow he manages to skate through life in spite of not caring, and I think his secret is lip service.
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That's exactly what happens. He says all the "right" things. Maybe he means them in the instant he's saying them. I don't know. But there's NO follow through, because he didn't MEAN them in the way a person means it when it matters to them. He means to make the other person feel better, which is TOTALLY different than personally giving a shit.

In fact, he's point blank told me that he doesn't care about a variety of things. and that's his excuse for "not noticing" those things. Like the shower that he "didn't notice" needed cleaned. *eyebrow raised* How to explain that it's not about noticing it needs cleaned, cause it should never noticeably need cleaned? Just clean the damn thing every damn week, for crying out loud.

His complaints (about not having the relationships he says he wants) are part of that lip-service coping mechanism. He doesn't really miss those relationships, he just wants people (you especially) to think that he does. People who really care about something will be self-motivated to take action and correct the situation.
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This is what I think/feel/believe, and it's why I made the choice to tell him he needs to move out. I'm not sure "how far" (have you heard that song? I think it's by Martina McBride) it's going to go. I'm still in the process of evaluating. But the more I see, the more I consider, the more thought I put into things, the more "clean up" I have to do of HIS shit, the more I think it's going to be a lot more than just moving out. I think it's going to be a whole lot closer to "get out of my life" then just "get out of my house."
If you send him away, there's a slight chance that he'll start to learn to do things on his own, without being hounded about it.
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Slight. Therein lies the catch that leaves me thinking it's going to have to be more like out of my life and less like out of my house. Because frankly, I don't want to live like that AND I don't want to deal with it, or raise my kids like that, AND I AM leaving this state and SourPea IS going with me. That's non-negotiable.

But there is a very slight chance he's going to be able to leave, and frankly, I'm not highly inclined to do the work to make it possible for her or me to come back and visit him.

I second guess myself for thinking it, but frankly, I feel like, if it's so bloody important to him, he'll figure out how to do it. I feel like I "put in my time" maintaining the relationship, and I'm ready for a good 10 years OFF DUTY.


It sounds cold of me to say that
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I don't think it sounds cold. I think it sounds realistic.

I don't know if he's beginning to see the light, or if he's just ramping up his lip service a bit.
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I don't either, and part of the problem is he's "cried wolf" for SO LONG that I don't even care to a large degree. I don't BELIEVE him. I don't trust him to DO it.
It can't be easy to sever yourself from someone you've cared about so much for so long. So I get the need to remind yourself of why you're doing it.
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Thanks for this, because I do feel like I'm portraying myself as completely self-centered and bitchy. But I think to a large degree, any sort of enforcing personal boundaries is going to look self-centered and bitchy after watching someone spend 20+ years NOT enforcing them. I'm trying to walk my through this process of stopping the enabling behavior.

To be perfectly frank, I've lost several close relationships over the last few years because I stopped enabling behaviors in those relationships. Of all of the relationships I had that were codependent (not all romantic, only this one is a romantic one), only two have survived.

One was with my oldest daughter, and I don't think it was actually a matter of changing from codependent, but changing from "child/parent" to "adult/adult," which we seem to have managed fairly well with little fall-out.

The other was my sister. There was a large span of time where we limited our interaction to text. But in the process we both reorganized our lives so that we are independent and can love each other, enjoy each other, even help each other out without feeling like we can't say "no" when we aren't available, or speaking our minds when there is an issue. We both figured out how to "grow up" and change our relationship.

But the others have all been terminated by either me or the other person, because I refused to continue enabling and they refused to stop expecting it.
:/
 
I think you basically have to assume that GG will be departing from your life (and home) for good. If he does pull himself together, that's great -- that's a bonus. But don't count on it. Assume he's a casualty, and move forward with your life. Let him contact you if/when he's ready to meet some of your terms.

It sounds ruthless of me to say that, and it sounds like I think GG's some kind of horrible person. I don't think that. I think he sincerely wants everyone to live happily together. He just doesn't have the umph within himself to make that happen. He doesn't understand the importance of the stuff you ask him to do. Things don't seem that important to him.

And ironically, I'm almost as nihilistic as that myself with my cold atheist outlook on things. No matter what we do and accomplish in this life, in the end we're just gonna be dead and have no consciousness of anything. Since there's nothing we can do to prevent that death, why should it matter for us to try to do anything?

I'm not quite that nihilistic; I want to feel like I did some good in my life and left the world a better place, even if in the end I won't get to hold on to that feeling. But I can see and appreciate the siren call of being lackadaisical about everything. It makes a kind of tempting sense.

I can appreciate your reluctance to essentially cut the ties with GG -- to take action that, combined with his inaction, will add up to cutting the ties. It isn't easy to lose a relationship with that much value and history. But, as we go through the stages of our life, sometimes we have to let some precious things go.

You don't sound self-centered and bitchy to me. You just sound like you've realized there are some healthy boundaries you need to start outlining in your life. Not every seeming kindness is a real kindness. Sometimes you have to let your child experience some of the real consequences of his/her actions. GG is all grown up now and one way or another, he can handle the consequences of his own actions in his own life.

Having said that, I hope he'll discover that he does care after all. We can only hope, right?
 
You don't sound self-centred or bitchy at all. You sound like you have done what we all do - you've changed. For a long time you were willing to work hard to keep GG on track and help him to maintain his position in your family.

You've now realised that doing so isn't good for you. I agree. I've seen the damage that being my dad's carer caused my mum. She took on that role because he couldn't care for himself due to having dementia so very different circumstances but still, it was hard on her and she is still not okay over 2 years since dad died.

I can't imagine the amount of work you've been doing to care for kids, study, keep a home and also keep GG on track. Not surprised you've reached an end point with it.

I feel for GG too. It's a massive change for him. He's been used to having somebody there to focus him, to keep him going. Now he has to do it himself - and there is a time limit on him learning skills that he doesn't have and hasn't needed for his entire adult life.

Not easy all round. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it all works out for you guys.

IP
 
Thanks, IP. It's not easy, and I FEEL like it's harsh, but really, it is harsh for me to have to do it, as well. And like you said, it's different if the other person CAN'T do it. It's STILL really hard, but it's more UNDERSTANDABLE. In this case, the issue isn't that he can't. It's that he won't.
 
LR, hugs. I haven't had to deal with a partner like GG, but my 19-year-old, due to mental illness and past trauma, is very much a "Take care of me, I don't know how, I'm just gonna suck my thumb while everyone else fixes things" type of person. It is HARD. Every time I tell her, "You're an adult, I'm not living your life for you," I feel like a raging bitch, especially when I know damn well that I helped create the situation by overcompensating, by trying too hard to make things better for her after her trauma, by trying to be the opposite of my "Don't give a shit, don't bug me" mother.

But I'm not a bitch, and neither are you. You're taking care of yourself and your kids, and unfortunately, GG is interfering with that. You're making tough choices, but it sounds like they're the *best* choices in the current situation.
 
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