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Post by AnneM on Jul 11, 2005 16:13:28 GMT -5
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Post by Amsmom on Jul 11, 2005 18:51:07 GMT -5
whew!!!! talk about going through every emotion!!!!  i'm sorry that you had to go through all this christy, and i hope that a decision is made that is as positive as possible for you. as for the effexor, you know your body and you know when you need help. i have been on anti-depressants for years and i absolutely believe in listening to the warning signs. don't feel bad about taking care of yourself!  |
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SKay
Member Emeritus
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Post by SKay on Jul 11, 2005 19:35:44 GMT -5
Mothercat hit on exactly what I was wondering while I was reading all the other posts. What is the mother's role in all this? What has she told the girl about Andy? Could she be trying consciously or subconsciously to keep them apart? I don't mean to accuse her because I have no idea what sort of person she is. I was just wondering if somehow she has had a negative influence on the relationship.
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Post by camismom on Jul 12, 2005 8:38:04 GMT -5
Well, the decision has been made and it's apparently sticking. She is not going. She is going to Daytona with her mother and sisters instead. Anyway, what we have realized is that Andy and her do indeed need some time together, but alone, just the two of them. They do need that bonding time, she was only two when Andy and his ex split, the recently departed stepdad moved in immediately after. They did have a nasty divorce and yes the mother has been a b over the years. According to the oldest (B) she (the ex) was the one that suggested to the youngest (J) that she call the step-dad daddy. The ex and the step-dad had an affair. Andy found out just a couple months after they moved into a new home they bought together. The down payemnt was made with money they got from the sell of their old mobile home and his mom's tiny old house. His mom moved in with them. The mother died a couple weeks after the affair was found out. Anyway, yeah, for a while Andy was bitter and he made threats to the new man.... but in time he calmed down... remember he was grieiving. S (the ex) on the other hand became a first class b. Even though she was the wrong doer, she treated Andy like the bad guy. They have had their ups and downs, but he has always been their for the kids, NEVER EVER been late on the $730.00 a month (yes, I typed $730.00) child support and never given her a hard time, except for the first few weeks after the divorce. As a matter of fact I get mad at him quite a bit for being too "wimpy". hehe When we married he was getting the kids every other weekend as is the norm. This continued for the first three years we were married. (Cami and J were both 3 when we married). The last time we got them regularly was Halloween of '98. The next time he was due to get them he found out they had moved to Duluth. Get this, he rec'd a letter in the mail AFTER THE FACT informing him of this and giving him the address where to send the child support to! He then began getting B but for some reason J would never come. He would drive halfway to Duluth to get them and J was always with them but would refuse to come. She never gave a reason, she wouldn't talk to him, she wouldn't even get out of the car. S would just tell him she didn't know what was wrong. This went on for over five years. Two years ago I sent an email to S and copied it to J and B. This got the ball runing and she came around. He got them that Thanksgiving and Christmas and then again Father's Day, but none in between. He didn't get them again until this past Father's Day. The funniest part about all this is they are supposed to be christians. After moving to Duluth they got real big in the church up there. S was one of the youth conselors! ;D B has a cross on her class ring yet tells us each time we see her of the keg parties she's been to. Last time she told us all about a recent party in which she had to climb out the window to avoid getting arrested! Big christians yet acting this way! HA!! Well, this past Christmas the step-dad up and took off to Idaho. Seems he had been having multiple affairs. ;D ;D ;D What goes around comes around. Since then Andy has had more contact from J. BUT, and it's a big BUT, the two of them have never had time to talk about the past. We agreed that what they need is time alone to do just that. He needs answers from her as to what made her turn his back on him. If it was the mother's influence, why wasn't it done with B? She also needs to hear his side. So, instead of the vacation Andy has decided to try to find some time to get up there a few weekends and get her and do just that. Then go from there... little by little. Meanwhile we will trek on with our vacation with the family we have had and forged together the last ten years.... him, his wife, and her daughter. His choose not to be a part for now. Maybe one day when they are grown and out from under their mom's wings they will. Thanks for the advice everyone. |
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mothercat
Member Emeritus
With a little luck and a lot of Gods help anything is possible!
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Post by mothercat on Jul 12, 2005 9:36:17 GMT -5
Good luck and have a nice vacation...it's a real shame that divorce has such effects on the children . I hope she comes around. (when we had Lisa her daddy complained loudly about paying 25.00 a month support..and her mother complained loudly cause BObo wouldn't let the check go to her instead of us. (he figured they were too lazy that even though it was a minor amount neither one needed it) ;D ;D
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Post by Linda on Jul 12, 2005 9:52:58 GMT -5
It is always a shame when kids are involved because IMHO they are the ones who suffer the most.... BEENTHERE  |
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Post by AnneM on Jul 12, 2005 14:53:26 GMT -5
Christy ... this sounds like a very good way forward ... i.e. for Andy and J to spend some time sorting out the "past" and from both sides trying to get it straight as to what happened and why it happened ... and ... SOOO many questions from both sides!!  My dh has two step-children (i.e. he brought two girls up after their mother (his first wife) died when there were aged 11 and 12 respectively) ... These girls are now in their 30's with children of their own..... but just recently one of them had a HUGE amount of questions for dh ... not about HIM particularly because fortunately she has never questioned the fact that he brought them up and loved them 100% even though they were not his "own" biologically ... but about her mother ... and she needed some answers ... They (dh and sd ) disappeared off on their own for a day ... had a big lunch etc. and did a LOT of 'talking' ... BOTH said they felt soooo much better afterwards ... A lot of questions were answered which had been kept "buried for years" .... and even after all this time as a grown up with children of her own sd NEEDED to know those answers .... because the majority of it she simply did not remember from when she was 11 and less than that !! ... She needed a lot of "gaps" filled in ... and that could never have been done if anyone else had been present ... So ... I personally wholeheartedly embrace the idea of Andy spending some time with his dd - it could sort out such a LOT ... from BOTH sides !! |
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SKay
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Post by SKay on Jul 12, 2005 19:17:13 GMT -5
Christy, I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. I hope Andy and J do get to have a good talk, air some things, and move on to have a closer relationship.
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Post by camismom on Jul 13, 2005 8:00:08 GMT -5
Thanks Anne and Sandy for the support. Anne, the recent "meeting" you speak of between your dh and his sd is exactly what I did with my dad many years ago. As I hsave talked about in the past, he and my mom divorced before I was born. He had already started living with my half-sis's mother by the time I was. I saw him off and on my first four years but really don't remember any of it. At 4 or 5 I was adopted by my other half-sis's dad and we went to Germany. I started k there. Anyway, dad then went on about his life raising W to have all the nice things I never did. When mom divorced the adopted dad we then moved in to the projects where we lived until I was in high school. I grew up listening to my mom, grandad, and several others in my family bad mouth my dad. I spent my teen years watching him put W thru cheering, gymnastics, softball, put braces on her teeth when she hardly needed them and I desperately did. Anyway, it was hard. When I graduated high school he had divorced W's mom and we began to get a little close. We began getting a lot closer as my marriage to Cam's dad was crumbling and I met and married Andy. Then about a year after me and Andy married we had a falling out and didn't speak for almost two years. I realized then I was harboring a lot of anger and questions and I couldn't truly ever forgive daddy for " Deserting" me until I got it out and got the answers. That's when our talk came. I knew there were two sides to every story so I spoke to mom, dad, and several others... pieced the similarities of their stories together and realized it wasn't all dad's doing. I forgave and we got back together and we couldn't be closer today!!! In fact, I would rather spend time at my dad's with family I wasn't raised with then at my grandmother's with mom's side.
I have pointed this out to Andy many times in telling him when J gets old enough to think completely on her own she will come around. In the meantime, they need to begin their talks now. Though I have a lot of resentment and uneasy feeling myself with J being in our lives, I know it isn't all her fault and I know she is my husband's child and deserves a place in his life. I am a part of that life too so we have to learn to coexist until we can be more. For his sake, for his happiness, I hope it all works out. He has been a wonderful dad to my child for over ten years now.... he deserves a chance to be dad to his own.
sorry so long!
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Post by AnneM on Jul 13, 2005 12:36:46 GMT -5
Christy !! I am reading everything you are saying here about your own relationship with your father and needing "answers" and adding this to my own dh and his sd ... and adding it again to J and Andy .... and then adding everything else everyone else is saying and once again it is SO CLEAR how our pasts are SOO important to us .... and how we as individuals and humans "need" to unravel that past and figure out just what REALLY happened and where WE fit into it !! ...  Also I think what is essential to remember is that during our younger years (pre-12) we don't remember a lot ... and APPARENTLY before this age we are incapable of "sequencing events" ... i.e. we might remember odd occasions but we cannot say that then this happened and then that happened in "this" order etc.etc.... and we might remember " Dad and Mum splitting" but we don't remember the circumstances surrounding that ... and at some point we need to "get the answers to that!" ... Hopefully, hopefully J will give Andy the chance to fill "those gaps" in for her ... it will most probably be along the lines of "Hey your mother and I should NEVER have got together ... " or "We so much didn't get on - it was a BIG error from both sides" ... etc.etc. but that's fine ... the important thing IMHO is that it WILL fill in those gaps which J needs now or in the future ... (Hey!! And you thought YOUR post was long !! ... I am setting up in competition!! ;D ;D) |
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Post by camismom on Jul 13, 2005 14:05:27 GMT -5
(Hey!! And you thought YOUR post was long !! ... I am setting up in competition!! ;D ;D) Maybe, but you are making good points in doing so! ;D |
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Post by finnmom on Jul 14, 2005 3:29:57 GMT -5
Christy These thing´s are always hard, sometime´s even impossible to solve. I think you´re getting there, dont rush, give some time to you all to adjust to this "new" phase i.e. she getting interested about knowing her dad properly. First; I think she´s playing a little power play in here....the " Daddy" has left her, Andy is keen to be with her and she sees the opportunity to a nice vacation....O´kay...I dont know her and I might misjugde her a bit, but.... Just dont let her to get between you and Andy, you love him, he love´s you still he can love her too....teenage is hard time to deal with these thing´s.... Second; Yeah,, she´s supposed to spend some time with your dh, obviously she´s his daughter and all.... but what you´ve told, sound´s like she hasnt been interested of that previously.... mayby in time being, when you make it clear to her that she can always turn to Andy and that she´s welcome to spend some daughter-father time with her...she´l eventually take the opportunity and do that. I think that´ll take a lot of time to happend, she has to get past of these teenage struggle´s (and mayby a little evictive plans to get HER dad just for HER, out of Cami´s reach too..as I said I dont know her but that´s the feeling I´am getting out of this) AND LAST; I think you´re doing nothing wrong, you love and support Andy, you dont keep him out of his girl´s live´s. You´re acting like and adult in here  OOOP`S. sorry, I high-jacked your thread  Lot´s of to you my friend. |
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