Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Prodigal son

While we were away on our vacation, my husband's son, my stepson, broke into our home. He lived with us for a little over three years. He moved in with us, when his mother decided she wanted some "me time". I had a 1 year old, and a 3 year old. The decision was not mine for him to move in with us. I was actually left out of the decision completely.It was told to me that it was happening by both my husband, and my husband's ex-wife. Even as I protested, already feeling overwhelmed taking care of two small children, it fell on deaf ears. The following years were awful. I don't speak of them at all, because it is simply too painful to write about. My unhappiness reached such an intolerable level. I could not escape. It was the worst period of my entire life. I lost a lot of time with my babies, due to my sadness and anger. It still makes me feel such resentment even writing about it.
In those years, we tried to help my husband's son. When he moved in with us, he was failing every subject, had no rules, had no bedtime, had no limits. We informed him that he was to follow the rules that all were expected to. Do well in school, go to bed at a set bedtime, do household chores, stay our of trouble, and you can pretty much expect to be rewarded with more freedoms, and earned privacy. This was something that my stepson could not tolerate. Life here was OK, for a short time. He did so well in school right way, he was on the Honor Roll, and he joined a team, and he did as he was supposed to, around the house.
Slowly, though, things changed. He started to not do his homework. He started failing classes. He was obviously lying to us, and then he began to get in trouble with drinking, and finally drugs. I don't mean to rush through this. It is just that the toll his behavior took on my girls, and my marriage, the quality of our home life, my family. It was unbearable. Our whole life became focused on one single person. I watched my husband ignore his other children, and focus solely on his son. Everyone else fell to the side. Even me.
His mother refused to participate parenting him in any way. She wanted nothing to do with him. She called him once a month, sometimes less. She refused to pay child support. I called her, and told her I couldn't do it anymore. I could not care for him. She told me, "I am humbled to say, either can I". I was trapped with this boy, living in my home, making each and every day, increasingly tense, and filled with anger. I had to endure his mother's criticism's of me, and my performance caring for him,at a job that she was unwilling to do. I had to watch my girls suffer, and I had to watch my marriage change into something that is still  damaged. All for the sake of this kid. I began to hate him. Even writing that makes me feel bad, but I did. I hated him.
My husband had a moment of clarity. I am not sure what finally made him see what was happening to our family. Maybe the pain in my eyes. Maybe the way his little girl starting wetting her bed. Maybe the high anxiety of Olivia. The way they seemed afraid, each and every day. The way Charlotte walked around in circles, in the livingroom, repeating over and over again, "they're fighting again". Maybe he saw that when I said I was going to be packing up the girls and my things, and leaving our home, it was no longer an empty threat, but the next step. My stepson went back to California, to live with his mother. Against both of their wishes.
My stepson has a mother who still has a lot of issues with my husband. Unfinished business. Anger. Resentment. I think that she is angry he moved on and found happiness, after a very unhappy marriage. Whatever the case may be, she has treated me and the girls like we broke up her happy home. She disregards us, and she does not have a kind word to say to David. She can't even speak on the phone about their child without bringing up issues from 1994. It is odd, and bizarre, and sad. She has bad mouthed, and flat out lied to her child about his father. She has transferred her anger and rage onto her son. My step son now says such awful, disgusting, and vile things to my husband. All hatred, feuled by his own mother. She sent him to Pennsylvania, to visit his girlfriend here, for two weeks. We found out he was coming by chance. She purchased him a plane ticket, and never informed David he was going to be in our neigborhood, with no adult supervision, for two weeks. She dumped him onto strangers, for two weeks, and in doing so, taught her son that it was OK to deceive his father. She would not tell us where he would be staying, and allowed her son to lie to his father.
After a relaxing day on the beach, with our girls, and a dinner on the ocean, we came home to our neighbor calling us, to inform us that our back sliding glass door was wide open. He came into our home. He urinated on my husband's car. He prank phone called us in the middle of the night.
It is not hate I feel anymore. There is no word for this feeling.

No comments:

Post a Comment