It has been a year since I started this page. Not many posts or views or followers since then, but I find this space to be a bit of a security blanket for me. I always know it is here if I need to get the thoughts out.
I went back to read the few words I have left here, and I noticed a trend, I am struggling over one thing or another and then I get better and I write. Today is much different. I am struggling and not getting better. So I am here to put some words down, in the hopes it will lift my spirits up.
I find parenting to be unbearable right now. Mostly because I feel as though I am failing. Not in a negligent, we are here to take your kids kinda way, but failing none the less. I am not helping them reach their potential and I have no idea how to change things and the weight of the responsibility is unlike any other.
A steadfast rule in our parenting, one that has always proved to be very affective and that I credit to my husband, is that in order to teach them hot, you have to let them get a little burnt. Again, no need to send the authorities, the children are not being scorched over flames. However, we did let them get just close enough to the flames to feel the heat so they would truly understand.
So why then does our daughter continue to jump right into the flames ?
It is pretty easy to answer that one. Because she loves him. Because she is a teenage girl in a small town and everyone has someone and she gets bored and lonely. Because in this small town she is a minority and does not get noticed much by other than him. I get all that. I remember that age, those feelings. I don't expect that she will believe that I understand, after all I am the mom and I don't know anything. But I get it.
Another thing we have always tried to instill in our children is to be good. Not the hands on the lap kinda good - manners were never a strong point for us. But really good. In their heart, at their core. I have always said they could be gas station attendants if they wanted, as long as they are good to themselves and to others.
So why then is she attracted to, and more importantly trust, someone who can hurt her and her loved ones so easily ?
Not as easy to get. Of course I realize young love can hurt. And kids make mistakes when they are learning to be friends and lovers. But this is very different. This has been the typical, date and break up that comes with high school. But it is also, you made me angry - so I lashed out to hurt you back. It's cheating and lying. Repeatedly. It's reeling in and casting away. It's defiance toward the rest of the family. He actually told me once a year ago when I asked that he leave her be, that she is a big girl and can make her own decisions. He recently posted to facebook that he does not care who he upsets or makes angry when he tells the world that he loves her. Other teens find it romantic, I find it frightening. He has broken her spirit, and repeatedly disrupted all of our lives, and he does not even have the decency to apologize. Actually, he did recently apologize, only to me, not to my sons, my husband, her best friend, or any of the countless others that are involves. And it was lame. He did it because it is one of the things I told my daughter I am angry about. And it was far from heartfelt. And far from good.
The teen years have only swayed our parenting rules slightly. Years ago we swore there was no need for cell phones before 16. Only one of the three waited that long. But there are lots of new rules that need to be made and enforced and fine tuned. Curfews and the like. And I am thinking other rules just have not been harsh enough.
Should we have blocked him after the second or third or fourth indiscretion ?
It is fact that this destructive behavior continues to happen because we allow her to decide if she wants him in her life. We have not forbidden a relationship. And it is becoming clear to me as I watch CSI type television, that we should have. Although his parents are friends, we have not gone to them with all the details strictly because I feel it is very unnecessary to hurt another parent with painful details of their child's poor judgement. Probably another mistake. We have not confronted him enough. This I feel is still the right thing to do. I think if we expose our concerns he will be more likely to disguise his poor judgement in those areas.
I also think I am somewhat embarrassed about how things appear from the outside and yet I can't find a way to clarify my actions, and more importantly, I can't find my usual confidence that allows me to not give a shit what others think. Then again putting the words down has helped me see our mistakes and better yet reaffirmed my confidence in most of our decisions during this process.
At this point, I am mostly frightened. Maybe it's the dramatic cop show, but I am really scared that she could be at risk. Daddy has told her to protect herself. But does she know what we mean by that? I am not sure. That she should guard her heart and her future? I suppose mostly I am frighteded that this run, unlike the others that have a record of about 6 months, will last into marriage and kids before he hurts her again.
Oh boy was I that girl! There was a boy I dated for about 2 years in high school that I met in my auto mechanic class. As far as I was concerned, he was it. I even dumped my current bf of nearly a year for him. He was the hot bad boy who had an unyielding attitude and a general hatred for authority. I couldn't have been more "in love" with him. My parents, of course, hated him with every inch of their being right from the start. Especially when they found out he smoked.
ReplyDeleteAt first our relationship was great. He was kind and courteous to me and my parents and my friends. However, as time went on I started noticing little things here and there. He was rude to my friends, I was being blown off, lied to, and he was getting extremely possessive. Still, I didn't care. I loved him.
Once he got a car we started spending more time together...when he felt like it. He got to go out and do everything he wanted to do and if he wasn't there when I called, too bad. I could not do the same. I had to make sure when I said I would call, I called and godforbid I wasn't there when he called. If I went out anywhere, it was 20 questions which always ended up in a huge fight with me apologizing for absolutely nothing. I was constantly accused of cheating on him (which was simply due to his own cheating with a 14 year old nonetheless) and wasn't even allowed to talk to anyone in our class. He had me completely under his control. He was verbally, mentally, and physically abusive and I put up with it simply because I thought I deserved nothing better (whether it was from his abuse or my own rocky upbringing I'll never know. Maybe a combination of both), and I loved him.
As time went on, the fights got worse. We were fighting constantly which made me miserable which then turned into fights with my parents over why I was miserable and so on. Well, my parents on one occasion had "overheard" (and by overheard I mean they were spying on us while we were talking. And while it still upsets me my parents are like that for various reasons, I understand why they did it at that time) one of our fights where he was telling me basically what I could and couldn't wear. My parents got involved and he told them to mind their own business and told my mother to shut up. I've never seen my father run out of the house as fast as he did that day and I thought he was gonna beat the hell out of him right then and there. Instead he kicked him out and told both of us he couldn't come back unless he apologized to them.
I think it was a couple weeks, and a ton of begging from me, before he "apologized". It was the most insincere, rehearsed apology ever. And I'm sure they didn't completely buy it, but, they wanted to keep the peace between us for a little bit so they allowed him over.
I stuck it out for a while longer, he gave me a diamond ring for Christmas (much to my parent's horror) and things bounced between blissful and awful. He drove a wedge between my best friend and I (and while we are still friends and just recently had a blast together while we were home for leave, we just aren't at the level we were at before this boy) and I can actually remember a conversation we had where I was screaming at her and I was completely in the wrong. But I was too brainwashed to care...
So there I was, no friends, my parents were constantly upset with me, and I was beaten down, in every sense of the word. I was reaching the end of my rope. I finally broke up with him when he called me one night and we had a fight, of course, and in the midst of it I told him I couldn't do this anymore. This is when things got dangerous and he told me if I broke up with him I would be sorry. Now most people would just assume that he meant I would regret it but that isn't how he meant it. And it wasn't the first time he threatened my life. It was just the first time he didn't go into graphic detail.
ReplyDeleteI broke up with him that night. At first he started calling me obsessively, even at work, made me a beautiful mix tape and promised me on it that he would change and how I'm the girl for him and how he wants to marry me and have babies with me and how I was the only one he ever pictured doing any of these things with and we tried to work it out and get back together despite my mother telling me she would disown me.
But he didn't change. He was still the same jerk he was before. Just as always and one day he called me and asked if he was wasting his time and I simply told him yes. He was so disappointed that it broke my heart because despite everything, I knew he did have love for me and I for him.
So after that mini novel, my point is, no matter what you do, or what you did, this isn't your fault. Like you said, she's a teenager in love and right now nothing else matters. But give it time. I'm sure my parents thought the same as you right now but it all worked out for the best. And honestly, I am a little glad it happened. It helped make me who I am today. It helped me get out of a similar relationship years down the line a lot quicker than if this one had never happened. I don't know your daughter, but the way I saw it, he was the bad boy who didn't give a care about anyone in the world, but he wants ME. And of course we think we can tame them but it just never works out that way.
You're a good, caring person, and clearly a hell of a parent, but things just don't always go the way we hope them to. But, if your daughter is even the slightest bit like you, she'll wisen up and see what everyone else sees. It just may take some time. One day she'll get to the same point I did and realize it just isn't worth it to be happy some of the time and that this could be the type of situation that may end very badly. No one can say for sure when, or if, it will happen, but, I'm pretty sure it will.
You're not failing as a parent, you just raised a good, headstrong daughter.
So, again this is where I go to resolve struggle and I am just now seeing this. Thank you, for the sotry, the kind thoughts, and the confidence. That boy is still in our lives, and most days I still don't know how I feel about it. He is still fights back with, I am hurt so I will hurt you and that is my least favorite thing. Never physically hurts her, just looks to make her upset. Thank you again and hopefully this situation does not bring me back here, ever.
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