You have to figure out how to stop trying to make sense out of chaos. Your wife for now is not going to make rational sense and will take bad advice over good advice any chance she gets. We, the rational, cannot figure out why they, when given a good opportunity, will choose the bad one instead. Its irrational and cannot be corrected by us. I can offer my ex good things or solutions all the time and she will choose the hardest route she can to avoid accepting them. its in my nature to continue to offer when it is to the benefit of my daughters. I just have to have no expectations. You need to get to a place where you have no expectations of your wife or her behavior.
I am sorry that your daughter has chosen to seek attention from your wife in this way. I too have a fifteen year old who is seeking attention in a negative fashion. I also struggle with trying to help. I have to remind myself to just be there for her and let her know that she is important to me. I can't do anything about her actions to seek attention. I do put up boundaries when it goes too far. I expect as your daughter matures, she will grow out of this phase. Just be there for her and get her a comfortable situation with a counselor that she feels able to open up and share. Don't push yourself into the counseling as it will just push her away. If she or the counselor feels the need to share something they will. Just let the counselor know you are available.
Twisting on Life's Rope Me53 W53 M20 D21 D19 D16 BD 2-2013 D final 1-2015 _________________________ "Dream about tomorrow, Live for today, Learn from yesterday"
My EXW bombed the family when my daughter was 11 yrs old. She is now a fairly well rounded 16 yr old, soon to be 17.
This is what I can tell you from the conversations I had and continue to have with her. And understand most of this information has come out in the last year or so as our relationship continues to grow.
I chose to be there for her through everything, not knowing if it made a difference or not. You choose a path you think is right and you go with it. I think most times if your clear of mind you get the general direction correct.
She mentioned many times. Dad, I can count on you all the time. I can't count on Mom. Mom yells where you don't, you listen. Mom tells me what to do. You ask me what I think and then let me make my own decision.
Now, she still goes and stays with her Mom a couple days a week. Usually the comment when she returns is "why do I do that to myself". Only she can answer this. and she will get the answer when she is ready.
The reason I write this to you is this. They see a lot more than what you think they see. Your actions will make a difference. She might not say it. Like I said, I walked that path for 3 + yrs before my daughter every uttered a word that she said I made her feel safe through the divorce.
Life is learned through the hard decisions. Decisions you may not get answers to for long periods. I think these are the spiritual deserts we must walk through.
I am so sorry that your D15 is struggling big time with so many transitions: mother having MLC, moving away, changing schools, new set of friends, new environment. That's A LOT for a young teenager to take on.
Right now, it may feel like you're losing your D15...but truthfully you've already built bridges for her to return back to you later on in life. When I was 15, I didn't care to be around my parents too much. Thought they were "dumb" and didn't know squat about life. Ha! From my young adulthood years and on, I became much, much closer to my parents...especially my late father. Tight as a bug.
Hang in there....only way forward is through it, not around it.
Thank you Joe, LT, mirage and Wonka, I have come to a place where I really don't care what STBXW did to me or my life. Yes, it hurt and yes it was wrong and suks and all that but I'm a grown man who should be able to take care of myself in the end. It's that she can do these things to her own D's and still not see. My D15 let me really see her scars for the first time yesterday. They are deep and raised and will be there for most of her life. She won't be able to wear short sleeves for God knows how long without people noticing, something every teenager hates to begin with. All I could think was I wish I could take this away for her. I know there was nothing more I could have done. I tried to find ways to get my W involved in her life over the last few years but W just wouldn't do anything unless it was with her friends or father.
I feel like I should have fought harder when W first left to keep D15 closer to me, maybe put her in a different school. Thing is if I had done that things between her mother and her might even have been worse. I just don't understand how she can see the consequences of her actions so plainly in those scars and still not stop and reassess what she has been doing. It's easy to ignore when other people hurt inside but to see it right there forever etched into her own D's flesh and still be able to ignore or rationalize it away is mind boggling to me and makes me think W may just be so evil that she doesn't care.
What she has done is now going to stay with D15 for the rest of her life. She will always be reminded of the pain that was caused because her parents couldn't make a M work. That cuts me to the quick and I'm so very angry at my W and the people who told her what she was doing was "right".....basicly her father and his OW wife. Is it wrong to wish them ill because of what they did to my D? I know forgiveness is important and I may be able to forgive what was done to me, but I can't ever imagine forgiving what she/they did to my D. Especially when they are still doing it!
Not sure if your familiar with projection but we humans tend to project our movie onto the screen of life and live the movie with all the characters doing what they are supposed to. When they don't and the players in the movie don't meet our expectations we are mad, disenchanted etc, etc.
In a sense you are doing this as well. Your wife is doing the same thing. The choices my EXW made and continues to make I would never do but....that is her choice. She will continue to think they are the best for her, even know you may think WTF. Welcome to the MLC world.
This is what healing yourself does. It gets you out of judging, blaming, bringing negative energy onto yourself. If allows you to be positive and then lead by example. not get drawn into their life and their choices.
Believe me I know it stinks and it stinks for your daughter. you can change the dynamic here. is it easy.....NO, but it is doable...yes.
I have a great life just as many on here would say the same. It was not easy on them as well. I saw the struggles in their lives as LBS's with some batsh--, crazy behavior from their spouses but they healed themselves and made it through.
YOU CAN TOO, YOU GOT THIS, YOU HAVE THE TOOLS....Please use them
Mirage, I do understand what you are saying. My STBXW is free to make whatever choices she wants whether I "like" them or not. I actually expect her to make mostly ones that make me say "WTF?". But when those choices have the devastating consequences some of those choices have already had on my D15, THAT isn't just a choice I can ignore. Isn't it my job as a father to protect her from those things that can cause her the most harm? Even if that harm is from her mother?
I feel like I should be doing everything I can like go to court and try and get custody. But that could very well backfire and cause my D even more harm in the long run. When my 15 year old D told me that the way her mother acted out hurt her so badly she thought dying would be better I realized that my W's antics, as hurtful as they were to me, were even harder on her and her sister. I knew they were suffering, that they were as confused as I was, I just didn't know how bad it was. I was too focused on my own pain, my own problems. The failure of the business start-up, the lack of money, the lawyers, the IRS. I should have seen just how bad it was for her. I should have done more to help her and her sister. I shouldn't have tried so hard to "save" my M and instead focused on the more important things like making sure my D's were dealing with things in as healthy a way as they could.
The movie of my life has taken some weird turns. Things I have lost over the years, plot twists that I never saw coming, every time I was able to make it through, even turn what looked like something bad into something better than before. Now I feel like I'm living my worst nightmare. Until b-day my D15 was one of the most loving, together kids around. She had lots of friends but only a select few "close" ones. She was loved by her teachers and the parents of her friends. All it took to change all that was having a mother who is deep in MLC.
My W may have decided to throw away what should have been the best parts of her life. She may have been "destined" to be where she's at because of her sucky childhood. Anyone looking in from outside of her life may see it as tragic, a waste. What would truly be tragic would be to allow her to destroy her D's lives, my life as well. That can't be allowed to happen. Her MLC has proven to me that one person can destroy a M all on their own. I have to find a way to make sure that one parent can't destroy the soul of a child all on their own. That having one parent who truly cares about her can be enough to keep her from also wasting her life. Being 15 isn't easy under the best of circumstances. I need to find a way to make sure she knows that she is loved, wanted and that she matters while at the same time try and rebuild my own life as well. Hard stuff for sure but something I just can't fail at!
I actually expect her to make mostly ones that make me say "WTF?".
Matt,
You have to stop expecting. You will be disappointed no matter what you expect when it does not happen or does. You cannot have any expectations in regards to your W. You have to stop this for the sake of your daughters because it does affect how you act and what decisions you make.
To be the best father for your daughters as well as rebuild your life you need to become the rock solid foundation. You need to make rash logical decisions not based on emotions. This will only be possible when you find a way to stop allowing your wife's action, inaction, or your expectations affect you. Once you achieve this, your daughters will notice and maybe even your wife will. It will have profound results for you,your daughters and your future.
Twisting on Life's Rope Me53 W53 M20 D21 D19 D16 BD 2-2013 D final 1-2015 _________________________ "Dream about tomorrow, Live for today, Learn from yesterday"
The fallout of all this is so tough, especially for the kids, my 13 year old son has been suicidal, and through talking with him and the IC, like you, I had NO idea how bad it was while I was at work. There were two times I had to remove him from the house when I was there to intervene. But a lot more went on.
I have been reviewing the past, and questioning my path and choices through that time. People have helped me not beat myself up about my choices, because, we do the best we can with what we have and know at the time, it's already done, can't change it - rather learn from it and move forward.
And that learning and moving forward is critical, as LT said.
I recently read a great article, google: "For the Left Behind Spouse" that articulated things nicely and I liked how she closed it, it echoes what LT said, and my own experience:
Quote:
You stop being the person who something was done to. You start creating a life you love, piece by piece, and it's authentic and genuine and fortified with the strength of your experience and sheer will to transcend bitterness and disappointment -- to step into the world fully. You thought you could never risk losing again, but now you know you can handle anything; so you dare to be yourself, dare to try new things, dare to love again.
I'm never going to present divorce as some path to enlightenment or positively transformative process. It's just too damn hard, especially for the kids. But, life must go on and as with so many traumatic events, at some point it's critical to stop being defined by this. The shift is subtle but profound -- from passive victim to sovereign human being. The process of creating a life on your own terms, in your own time, with the resources you have and the tools you've acquired begins the moment you choose to shed your identity as the "left behind spouse."
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
Matt I wanted to let you know I have been reading and ache for your D. When our kids are little we hold them in our arms and promise them we will keep them from harm. We never would have imagined at that point that we would be protecting them from the other parent.
I too look back and regret some choices I made. I cannot believe I stayed so long trying to save my marriage. I can't believe I allowed s to stay in house with h drinking and raging. I am embarrassed by my weakness.
We can't dwell on or punish ourselves for choices we made. I believe that the choices you made were based on the information you had at tbe time and what you thought was best.
NOW you have new information. You move forward being there for d 100%. Being available to her therapists. Being available to her teachers and anyone else she comes into contact with.
Me 44 H 42 M 10 T 12 (at time of BD) Ss 20 16 S11 (special needs)
BD 9/13 H "unhappy for years" moves to seperate bedroom 10/13 EA/PA confirmed but denied S and I move out 3/15
Thank you so much LT, T2 and Julie, Your support means so much to me. This has just been the hardest few years of my life. Every time I turn around another new HUGE problem seems to be waiting for me. Tuesday night I came home from work (late as usual) and there was 2 inches of water on the kitchen floor! The water inlet tubing broke and just gushed all day. I've spent the last few nights cleaning up and tonight trying to fix the fridge.
I just never seem to get a break. Never a chance to relax. Like Monday when I hit a pot hole and blew another tire. I just replaced that tire and now I needed to spend the little money I have on that and the fridge.
Once I make it through this, nothing will ever be able to get to me again. All I need to do is hang in and get through all this and make sure my d does too.
