Why does this always make me crazy?

[Ref]

First of all, thanks for letting me take up this board lately. I don't know what my problem is. I have been dealing with this stuff for 13 years and I never seem to be able to let it roll off my back.

As you may or may not know, SD is in a downward spiral. She is doing drugs, drinking, skipping school and now failing. I didn't know what to do. She is refusing to come to see us this summer and her mom is looking the other way. BM has PASed SD pretty fully.

BM has told me that she only allows DH to contact SD because she has to but she doesn't HAVE to let me, so I am not allowed to call or write. Since then SD and I have had IMs that lasted hours. After BM found out that we were IMing, it suddenly stopped.

I decided last week to email SD. She gave us her email. I told her I would email her. She had no problem with it when she was with us. Now, she has opened the email and I am waiting on a response. It is making me nuts.

She has been so hostile to DH. My only guess is that BM and SD have been fighting and BM said more horrible lies about DH and me. SD doesn't even want to talk with us anymore (found that out after the email was sent).

Why does it still make me so anxious? At this point I am older, I have been through it for so long, you would think none of this would work me up. I am just waiting for BM to scream at our answering machine or send yet another email with three follow-up emails.

Ugh. I guess this was just my last effort to let SD know we love her and would like her with us this summer.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Ref

[MixedBag]

Love

[Ref]

That was perfect. Thanks.

SD wrote me back immediately. She was so rude I just wanted to write her back and say "this is the payback for me giving two craps about you and having to put up with your insane mom?"

I have never been anything but kind and patient with her. She is being such a jackass right now. I just want to tell her that I don't even want her here anymore and I want my damn happy life back, NOW. I know that wouldn't be right and it might keep her from coming back to DH in the long run, so I will chomp off another part of my tongue and say it in a super-dooper nice Ref way. Turn it into, "well, if you can't make it we will make plans to enjoy our summer without you". Then in my head I will flip her off.

Gugh. I guess I am getting paybacks for being a stupid PAS teen myself.

Thanks again for all of your support.

Ref

[Kitty C.]

And no, this is NOT payback............as a teen, you had no idea what you were doing (except what you were told) or what the impact of it would be.  Only age and maturity can give you that.  Now that you can look back and see it for what it really was, of course you feel bad.  But back then you had absolutely no control over it.

I think that your response 'well, if you can't make it we will make plans to enjoy our summer without you" is good, but I would add 'with OR without you'.  She can't deny remembering all the good times she DID have with you and your DH and by saying you'll have fun with or without her will just make her wonder exactly what you'll be doing and what she could be missing out on.  Who knows........the curiosity might eventually get to her and she might make an about-face at the last minute.......stranger things have happened!  :-)

[mango]

Hi,

We are having similar stuff with my SD, age 13. Her BM graciously bowed out after 9 years of her sueing for sole and losing, NOW that her daughter is FULLY PAS'd she sits back and watches the fruits of her work.

As SD stated (for no good reason) that she no longer wants to see us, and reduced our time from 50/50 shared to 1 day per month. And in April zero days. So I wonder what is coming next. She was never "allowed" to give us her e-mail address either. At least she plays dumb when we ask for her address, "I can't remember it". Doesnt return phone calls, and they have caller ID so they don't pick up, when it's us.

It hurts terrible, especially since we have never done anything to her, (except to fight back for half the time) plus she has 3 half-siblings that miss her greatly.

But we adjust, and move forward with our lives. I try to convince myslef, that as a teen, we wouldn't see much of her anyway. Plus if we did she would be "bored" as teens are. I figure let her go through this "ego" stage of life (not my favorite age), and let her BM deal with it–fulltime. She wanted it so bad, then she has it.

We try to think long-term, Only 4 years left of school and she "should" be free of the control of her mom (maybe sooner). Eventually she will dislike all the control of her mom, I would think. Deep down she has to know  she was dearly loved by us, and had a good-life with us.

We will send cards and hopes she gets them, so she knows we still care. (incase her mosm says we don't care, etc.). That is all we can do. I doubt fighting this in court would do much, if she doesn't want to be with us, she doens't want to be with us.

Look Long term, she will be back. Keep sending your love, either by cards, or mentally sending it. (It works too!). Deep down she knows where the unconditional love is.....

[wendl]

Because you CARE and are a loving parent that is way it is making you crazy, if you didn't love this child it wouldn't bug you so much.


**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[backwardsbike]

I don't know why it's still bothering you but I do know it bothered me for a long time.  I am a NC mom and my kids are being or perhaps have been successfully PAS'ed.  The double speak nearly drove me off my rocker.

I no longer see my kids and it was my choice after years of fighting over ever second of thier time.  They began making the same false accusations thier dad was making.  I found emails between dad and DD while she was here setting up the latest false accusation.  That was it.  I said - no more visits to the house.  You wanna see me- see me in the community.  Call when you want to see me.  Six weeks now and not only are they not calling- they aren't answering my calls anymore either.

For me, it became a choice between the family I have now- my Dh and two kids or the two NC kids.  I have gotten no support from the court over the last nine years.  Now I'm done.

I will continue to send letters. Who knows if the kids will get them or even read them.  But I have come to the conclusion that that is now out of my hands.  My position is not a popular one on these boards.  But it seems to me to be self preservation to know when you're licked.  I don't know how to win the "game", but I do know that I can't lose if I don't play.

Good luck to you.  Perhaps when she "hits bottom" your SD will turn to you and yur husband because she will know that that is where she will find stability and structure.

[lucky]

Hey, BWB, my dh did the same thing with my YSS.  He hasn't been to our house in two years.

He was horrible to all of us here when he came and his mother had done her best to not only alienate him from us, but to put my dh AND my OSS in jail when dh insisted on visitation.

Now, my OSD sees him in her town and is told that YSS is fine with dh and the other kids, it's just me - he's afraid I'm going to hurt him.  But two years ago it was dh and OSS that were the problems and were "hurting" him.  How can he be afraid of me now when he never was before and hasn't seen me for 2 years?

I told dh that with that attitude, he's not allowed in my home - it's a set-up and I'm not going to take the fall.  Dh agreed because it cost us a lot of time & money to save him and OSS from serious consequences that could have happened due to her and YSS's lies.

Now we hear thru the grapevine that she's approached OSD & my SIL to re-start visitation, but THEY'VE heard from mutual aquaintances that YSS has SERIOUS behavior issues (he always did in our opinion, but no one would listen to us - especially not during the custody eval that we requested during the custody fight 4 years ago) and she can't handle him anymore.  You reap what you sow, right?  I think that she's got him all screwed up, she wants to dump him on dh, but I won't allow that to happen.  I can't handle that.  I'm sure he isn't in counseling because she "doesn't believe in that".  The therapist would see thru her in a heartbeat, that's why she doesn't believe in it.

Anyway, I understand your choice, dh thought long and hard before making his decision and we talked about it a lot - pros & cons for both us, our kids here, and YSS and finally came to the conclusion that he had to do what was best for most instead of just the one.

[em]Lucky

Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
- Will Rogers[em]