The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am prefacing this post with some background. It's my first time here and I'm grateful this is here. I love Al-Anon and all the people in it.
I've been in Al-Anon for over 2 years and it has been my saving grace and my key to peace. I'm learning to depend on my HP more. I'm working my program more. The most, I've been working on me. There is a lot going on in my family. My AH is on the verge of layoff because of no work in our area. His 2 boys, 11 and 9, are great kids but I have a hard time with them and their issues at times. We also are in the middle of redoing the roof on our mobile home and last week it rained. We've been working on this sucker since May. I'm in a re-lapse of depression but I'm working on it. Again, going to meetings and reading literature have been great for my serenity. Having friends in the program I can call is even better. Getting to finding a sponsor so that's still a work in progress. But all in all, Al-Anon is a great program.
So my MIL used to have the boys when they were younger when their dad had to go to jail. I've been with my AH since 2010 about a year after he left prison. We got the boys part time together with MIL. A year later we got them full time and its year 3 with them. MIL has been a blessing to care for them on weekends when she can. She is a generous person. She's a good mom and grandmother. MIL and I get along well. I know she's crazy but I know she means well.
She is an enabling person. I see this with her son and he's been enabling him his whole life. It's been a stressful time for us all and she sees it in my eyes. This past weekend I had the boys stay with her because their dad was stinkin' drunk. In that help, I am grateful but yes she's an enabler.
So check out this text she sent to me (not my husband):
I think we need to talk. I have been thinking heavily about the boys. I believe the home life for them may be not a good situation. I am willing to have them come and live with me. My son and you may not be suitable to raise them at this point. I am sorry to step my bounds, but I see a serious problem going on. Please do the right thing for the boys. My son needs rehab and you may not be up to mothering right now. Believe me, this is not what I really want to do, but the boys deserve a chance.
I really want to share my response to her. I am proud of what I wrote. I said what I meant but I didn't say it mean. Like I say to her in my reply, if I didn't have Al-Anon, I would have taken this as an insult but I'm not going to that place. I want to share this with you because I'm proud of the way I handled this. The text definitely through me off but I slept on how to react to it and now I have something to state what is on my mind and heart. Much of what I said I learned in Al-Anon and counseling. I'm not looking for praise for this letter but I am looking to share what this program has done for me. Hopefully you read this and you can get something out of it. If not, no big deal. I just wanted to share and share my basking in glory of being proud of myself for putting down my boundaries.
As for the home life she's talking about, yes dad gets drunk and high. Yes we all fight at times and yell and scream. There isn't any issues of safety for we punish the boys with noses to the wall or not getting dessert or work or the long list of punishments even though we want to shake out the defiance and forgetfulness out of them. Yes, dad and I have flown off the handle and spanked or hit them but there isn't physical abuse of bumps and bruises. Yes dad calls them names and the oldest is starting to do it back. Yes, we tend to spend our time in separate rooms. We are fed. We bathed. We get to school and work. You know typical alcoholic family life - be mad, don't say anything, keep moving on in life. Just wanted to paint the picture of the home life I know and what MIL has alluded to.
Dear MIL,
I got your text last night. I think if didn't have my Alanon program I probably would not have taken this well but what I do have to say is important so I am going to say it and I'm not going to take it as an insult. You can read on if you want. But really you need to talk to your son for that is not my decision to make about the boys. I have influence on the decision but ultimately it is his for they are his kids.
My first reaction to this text is that I applaud you for your courage and boldness to stand up and say what you think is right. Not all people can do that. I also see your point of view for you are coming at this issue from love and from a mother and grandmother. I too applaud your feeling to put this option out there for that is the option that you think would work best.
My second thought is yeah, you're right. Your son does need rehab and I may not be up to mothering right now. You're ready for your son to go to rehab and you are ready to jump in with the mothering. That part is the key... you're ready... not the other way around. I think your son is ready for rehab and everybody else in this world does too but if he's not ready it's not going to happen. I've been doing my part of being supportive yet taking care of myself by reminding him of how his addictions affect himself, the boys, me and the family. But he's not ready and he is the one that needs to make the change. If you think that by caring for the boys for him is going to be motivation enough for him to go to rehab, it's not. It's enabling him to continue on his way of what he is doing and it gives him an easy out. So if you really want your son to go to rehab, talk to him and see if he's ready.
As for mothering, I realize that you are a mother of four and a grandmother so yes, you have been there and done that. I acknowledge the experience you have in mothering. You have raised successful kids in that those kids don't live with you and they have their own lives for the most part. Yes my mothering does look different than your mothering. Perhaps I'm looking too much into it so I could have taken this as an insult in that you don't think that I am a fit mother. I'm not going there but I did have a glimpse into that. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. Yes, I am in depression and I'm figuring my way out of it when all that is going around me and the things I do to cope just put me back in it. At least I'm working on my illness and yes I'm working on me but I have been able to take care of boys' needs that I deem are important. I'm taking care of them and this family the way I know how and with what I have.
MIL, perhaps you could have presented this option with more tact. First, I wouldn't have put it in a text. This is a loaded text and this email is my response to your text. It is longer and I'm looking for choice words to get my point across. Also, I would put out suggestions instead of presenting this option as the option to end all the hurt. Maybe you could ask what you can do to help. Maybe you could have suggested to pray on what has to be done. I would have perhaps warmed up to this option instead of just dropping it like the way you did, like a bomb. Again, this is just the way I see it and hopefully you're open to suggestion.
Here is my last point. Yes you are overstepping your boundaries. First, this is our home life. It is what it is and it is what we have created. It may not be ideal but having a blended family is not easy as you have experienced. But this is our family. Putting this option out there does make it feel like what we have isn't good enough and what you are offering is better. It almost makes me feel inadequate as a parent and wife and that's just the take on me but I'm not letting myself get to that place. I know what I am doing is right for me and my family. As for your son, I feel this option your are presenting also would make him feel inadequate and again it is enabling behavior.
Enabling: doing for others what they can do for themselves.
I'm not sure what your son would think of this option if you presented it to him but I do not think this is a viable option. The boys need stability and being with their dad and I does that. Unless you want to take them until their grown, the moving between households is unstable and what we have established so far as family would be thrown away. Also, I came into this marriage knowing I would have these kids. I'm still figuring out how to be a mother to them but that is what I signed up for. You having them would throw me off. Think about it MIL. Think about the long run. Think about the repercussions. Think about the marriage between your son and I. In all honesty if he took this option it would really affect the way I looked at your son as a man. This would tear my marriage apart. Is our home life really that bad? It would be worse if we took this option. Also, the relationship you and I have would be severely hurt for I would resent you. I would forgive you but I don't think I would be able to look at you the same. I would be civil and kind to you but I wouldn't go beyond that.
Like I said at the beginning, this would be a decision between you and your son so you need to talk to your son. I'm going to consider this matter closed and never talk about it again with you for I said my piece. If this comes up with your son, I will talk to my husband and let him know what I think for I am his wife and I have a say in our lives and I have influence in his decisions.
I love you very much. I respect you. I hope you have learned something about me from what I have said and do not cross this boundary with me ever again.
Sincerely,
alwaysLP13
Again, I just wanted to share the experience, strength and hope I have because of Al-Anon. Any comments are welcome. I do wish you all peace and hopefully your comment will bring that too =)
Always, I know you want what's best for the kids, as well as for your AH. And I applaud you for using your Al-Anon tools to respond not react, and for being calm in the face of what many would have reacted to.
I don't know what exactly your MIL meant, of course, but I did understand one phrase differently than you did. Where she said your A "needs rehab," I didn't understand that to mean that he should or will go into rehab right away. I understood it to mean "his addiction are at such a point where it's not a matter of cutting back, they're now serious enough that for him to be healthy he'd need to go into rehab. And since he's not doing that, other things might be necessary to keep the kids well."
Now of course I have no idea which of these meanings she really meant. Just throwing it out there because I know words are often ambiguous.
I know that when I was with my A, I lost perspective on what normal behavior was. I also grew up in an off-kilter family, so that even though I didn't grow up with addiction, I accepted some things as normal that weren't really. I think many or most of us may have that happen. I remember a friend saying, "You know, a lot of families don't have anyone pass out at the dinner table at all! Did you know that?" It's so easy to see the loss of perspective in other people, but often hard in ourselves.
With that in mind, I'd submit that the chaos of addiction might have moved into your house so stealthily that some of that perspective has been lost. The dad of the family being drunk or high is not healthy for kids to be around. Yelling and screaming is all too common, but also not healthy for people. Hitting through flying off the handle is harmful even if visible bumps and bruises do not appear. Name-calling is spreading so that the 11-year-old is picking up on his dad's habits. They are seeing and feeling the chaos and the pain. And the only way they see their dad and role model handling it is through physical violence, name-calling, and getting drunk and high. That's what they'll begin doing to cope if that's the model they've lived with. It sounds like all the pain and chaos and damage of alcoholism is pretty strong in your household, I' m afraid that's how it seems to me. I'm not real sure it's the best situation for those boys, much as you care for them.
I hope you will not be upset to hear these things. When people tried to tell me how bizarre my A's behavior was, I was quick to defend him and deny how bad it was. I had lost perspective myself. That's what the insanity does to us.
Do you have a sponsor? That might be someone who can shed additional light on these questions. The fact that you're reacting so calmly to your MIL suggests you are making great strides forward. Those boys are relying on you as the sane person in the household. Take good care.
Dear always P13 welcome to Miracles in Progress. I'm happy that you have found Al-Anon meetings and have been attending. I found that breaking the isolation caused by living with this dreadful disease was extremely important to my mental and physical health. In reading your response to your mother-in-law I agree it was courteous and to the point.
Not being emotionally involved in the situation, and from a detached perspective, I read your mother-in-law's email as being one filled with honesty and genuine concern for the welfare of the children.
I would process the suggestion, decide how I felt about it and then discuss it with the children's father. After all living with mother-in-law might be an alternate solution once again.
Please keep coming back here and sharing the journey
I will consider the matter closed and never talk with you about it again. I'm sorry to say this always p13, but that to me sounds like the good old lounge living elephant which everyone sees and isn't allowed to talk about.
Hi, Always. Welcome to MIP. I ditto both Mattie's and Betty's shares. I don't know what the answer is to what is best for the boys. I do see your MIL's option a solution if you see a need to accept her offer in the future especially since you see her to be both a good mother and a good grandmother. Kudos to you for relocating the boys to their grandmother's house when their Dad was drunk. It is apparent that you are very interested in the boys' wellbeing. What a good thing for them. Based on my own experience with children of divorce, they don't respond well to being disciplined by their parent's spouse. My x remarried and my kids fought his wife until she stepped out of the role of being their second Mom and then they loved her. Anything she asked (other than call her Mom), they did. All of them got along very well. Even after my x walked out on her, my kids still stayed connected to her who became a very good friend to them and them to her and their step sister.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Thursday 2nd of October 2014 05:33:42 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Thursday 2nd of October 2014 05:34:51 PM
P13, I have been in your place as a stepmother with two boys. I am ashamed to say that I did a lot of things wrong with them, was too hard on them and just did not understand the behavior and intellectual levels of kids at that age. I leaned so heavily on my own mom at that time for advice .
I also think that your MIL was trying to help save the boys from what appears to be a chaotic situation with a deeply addicted father and a stepmother who is floundering trying to save her marriage, save herself and mother two children who are not her's. You are in a terrible situation and dealing with your husband should be enough for you at this time. More than enough really from your description of your husband.
Your MIL sounds as if she could give the children a stable and loving home without the drama of living with an alcoholic father. Because name calling, loud arguments, and long silences are not good for young children. I know you fear that separating them from their father at this time will be detrimental at a later date but they are learning lessons that they do not and should not learn. Already they are copying your husband's bad behavior and that will escalate and make your life much harder.
Not only for the boy's sake but for your's, why don't you let them go to their grandmother's until your husband has got himself into rehab and you have regained your own health
Ok. This may not be easy to hear...based on what you shared, in my opinion, the boys are not living in a healthy,safe environment with you and your husband. You may not be living in a safe environment. If I were your mother in law, I, too, would want the boys to live with me. I hope you are able to find a sponsor to help you work your program. Prayers for your family.
