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Family Forum / Marriage / Divorce / January 2007Why am I missing the point!
My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. My councelor, parents, and everyone else says that I should encourage the boys to accept her choice and that our separation is between me and her. Now can someone explain how there are NOT issues between her and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and > my kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > her and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks > her choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. Your boys are justifiably angry. Asking them to accept her choice is the equivilent of telling them to condone her abandonment of them, which is something no child should be expected to do. IMO, they should be encouraged to voice their anger, not hold it in, in silence. To me, that's much worse, as it will adversely affect them for the rest of their lives. But in one sense, these folk do have a point, the kids need to understand that it had nothing to do with them, it was not their fault, and there was nothing they could have done differently that would have changed a thing. I urge you to find them a child counsellor who will respect and honor their feelings. =R= Rog put it well. You want them to acknowledge and vent their feelings because they are honest and appropriate feelings for the situation. You do not want them to blame themselves for their mother leaving though. Thats the point i think they are trying to make. If the kids feel she left because of them, that will make it a whole lot more difficult for them to deal with. You need to tell them it wasn't their fault. Their mom made a choice to leave and that was her choice and responsibility and it is ok for them to be angry about her choice. Not only that but you have a right to feel angry about her choice too. Hope that helps make things a little clearer. Bob my commercial website newlifeafterdivorce.com On Jan 28, 9:43 pm, jrpu...@yahoo.com wrote: > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my > kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. Rog put it well. You want them to acknowledge and vent their feelings because they are honest and appropriate feelings for the situation. You do not want them to blame themselves for their mother leaving though. Thats the point i think they are trying to make. If the kids feel she left because of them, that will make it a whole lot more difficult for them to deal with. You need to tell them it wasn't their fault. Their mom made a choice to leave and that was her choice and responsibility and it is ok for them to be angry about her choice. Not only that but you have a right to feel angry about her choice too. Hope that helps make things a little clearer. Bob my commercial website http://newlifeafterdivorce.com On Jan 28, 9:43 pm, jrpu...@yahoo.com wrote: > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my > kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. > Rog put it well. You want them to acknowledge and vent their feelings > because they are honest and appropriate feelings for the situation. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > fault. Their mom made a choice to leave and that was her choice and > responsibility and it is ok for them to be angry about her choice. I'd at least try to "explain" a bit more than that. I think the kids need more "protection" than that from such a traumatic event. How? Well, perhaps by explaining that you don't know why she did it, and/or that maybe she's ill, or she is going thru some midlife crisis (or something - that has nothing to do with them!). And that - who knows, this may not be forever, if and when she gets thru it (thereby offering at least some ray of hope for them, so they don't feel permanently abandoned, and continuing to blame themselves for her leaving). > Not only that but you have a right to feel angry about her choice too. > Hope that helps make things a little clearer. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >> and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her >> choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. I see where you are coming from, Bill and I agree in principle. However I wouldn't do it quite that way. Im my opinion, its best to be honest but age appropriate in the information you give kids. Rather than suggesting that she might return which may never happen, it might be better to emphasize that she's still their mother and they can keep in touch with her. Telling them something that may or may not be true can backfire. The kids are angry and it doesnt take much for that anger to backfire. If they think their dad is not telling them the truth, they will get angry at him. If their dad tells them that she might return and she doesn't then they feel betrayed by both their mom and their dad. The best protection in my opinion is to continue their routine and keep things as normal as possible. Let them talk and vent when they need to. Reassure them that its not their fault. Give them opportunities to help out and take charge where you can so they feel a little more in control and that they are doing something constructive. Bob http://newlifeafterdivorce.com my commercial website On Jan 29, 2:57 am, "Bill in Co." <surly_curmudg...@earthlink.net> wrote: > > Rog put it well. You want them to acknowledge and vent their feelings > > because they are honest and appropriate feelings for the situation. [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > >> and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > >> choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused.- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text - Two really good "sound bites" here... "honest but age appropriate" and "so they feel a little more in control" It's important to realize that they do not have all of the tools that an adult has to understand things like this, so you need to keep things at a level that they can understand, there's enough here that is confusing. Feeling in control is the first thing that flies out of the window when something like this happens... they see the world falling apart and they have no say, no input, no way to stop it and they feel helpless. I let my kids pick all of the new colors in the house (a great way to get your ghosts vanquished too) and they got a vote in most of the new decorating that we did. (it was good for me to change things and they got to be in control and somewhat distracted) -j > I see where you are coming from, Bill and I agree in principle. > However I wouldn't do it quite that way. Im my opinion, its best to be [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] >>>> and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her >>>> choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused.- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text - > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my > kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. Used to your advantage and the advantage of your boys. No 50:50 custody Main custody should be yours. jrpuddu@yahoo.com says... >and her. Now can someone explain how there are NOT issues between her >and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her My mother made a few decisions that I did not like when I was 5. It took me a couple decades to figure out that she made the best decisions that she could at the time and was not a fortune teller. And I've even come to realize that my parents were about as mismatched as you can get. There was no way that marriage would have worked out. On the other hand, my fiancee walked out on her husband and left two children behind. But then she finally got fed up with the abuse and the fact that her husband was having an affair with his nephew's wife. When she walked out, he moved his g/f in. Welcome to the wonderful world of train wrecks. Just try to keep the casualty count as low as you can. loving ur kid is a necessity. the necessity for urself. were ther is no necessity, the love ends. often its convenient. and love in this world is selfish. so need not do anything. things will happen by its own. Same story here except my kids are girls aged 13 and 12 at the time. Sure, the differences are between you and their mother. However,the kids do not see all of that, they see her leaving them behind. No matter how good a job you do at spinning the split, they still got left behind. I've been told by the counselors that kids take about 2x as long as adults do with this kind of loss. We've been at it nearly that long and we're just now being able to talk about how angry they are. The important thing here is that you keep your opinions out of the picture and help the kids find a voice their own opinions. Between the anger and a subconscious fear of making you leave them to, the kids may go overboard on their negative comments and voiced opinions about their mother. If they go overboard, reign them back in gently, if they hit on facts, let them go, you need to keep your credibility with them. The main thing here is that you do not need to explain her actions to them. Encourage them to ask their mother about her actions. Keep your explanations about her motives neutral, if you can recognize that there were problems in the marriage, admit those, but let the kids form their own opinion of her actions based on how it affects them, not you. The one thing that I have found that makes a difference is to keep up those things that their mother did for them while she was around. Sit down and make a list, and if your situation is like ours, you may need to think back a few years. My list had things like board games, making lunch, fixing breakfast on school mornings, helping the kids to cook meals. I hope that this helps -j > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my > kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. >My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my >kids literally overnight. Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >and the boys? She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her >choice is more important that them losing a mother. I am confused. She was wrong to do this suddenly. She should have discussed it with the boys and allowed them to take part in some of the "choices" involved. Is she planning to have an ongoing relationship with her/your sons, or is she literally abandoning them? The reason i ask these questions is that in my divorce our sons stayed in their home with their dad. They (11 & 14) were given a choice, did they want to remain in the same home or did they want to move to an apartment somewhere else. They chose to stay home. So i made every effort to stay as involved with them as i possibly could, sometimes to the point of them telling me i was spending "too much" time with them. Communication had to remain open between their dad and i and we had to remain civil. The reasons for the divorce, ALL the reasons, were shared with the boys. I wouldn't recommend that with younger kids, but i think teens are old enough to understand. That way they can know it wasn't THEIR fault, that it was issues between the parents. What you must do is whatever it takes to encourage their mother's staying in their lives. Good luck to all of you. > My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my > kids literally overnight. I struggle believing "you didn't know" how she was feeling and what direction it might go. >Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. They should be, and they should express their frustrations to her. But, you shouldn't say anything derogatory about her to them. > My councelor, parents, and everyone else says that I should encourage > the boys to accept her choice and that our separation is between me > and her. The separation is between you and her... let the children be >Now can someone explain how there are NOT issues between her > and the boys? There are issues... For which, maturity and time will help them to understand. She didn't abandon them, she abandoned your marriage the only way she knew how. >She abandonded them and it seems everyone thinks her > choice is more important that them losing a mother. Maybe it's because people understand the actual options she had were very limited. As far as the children are concerned, they would feel abandoned regardless. > I am confused. I am not trying to be sarcastic, but sounds as though your counselor isn't doing a good job "if your confused."  SignatureSD:) >> My wife of 18 years packed her clothes and walked out on me and my >> kids literally overnight. > >I struggle believing "you didn't know" how she was feeling and what >direction it might go. Oh I don't know! The fact that the OP "did not know" could well be the best supporting fact that the marriage was toast, and might well support the wife's actions in leaving. Not enough info to tell. >>Both of our boys (13&16) are mad at her. > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] >I am not trying to be sarcastic, but sounds as though your counselor >isn't doing a good job "if your confused." I understand this possibility. In todays "bleeding heart liberal" society, a lot of so-called and self-professed "professionals" (such as counsellors) espouse the virtues of the "me, Me, ME". To wit, they would say that the wife not only has the right to do what she did, but to do so without consideration for the resulting consequences - that she can do what she wants with impunity - and the rest of the world should support her and not judge her. And, if the OP's counsellor has suggested that the children supress their feelings in a misguided show of "suppoort" for "mom", then that counsellor is a QUACK and should be run out of town - IMHO. It is ESSENTIAL that your boys DO NOT disconnect from their feelings! To do so will damage them beyond belief! And society has a habit of trying to teach boys to "suck it up", "be a man", and in the process supress and reject the feelings that make us HUMAN! They are a part of all of us, and regardless of gender, we need to learn about our feelings, and learn what they are telling us so we can use the feelings to make good decisions and take appropriate actions. I sure which I had known all that when I was their age! Took me 30 years and a failed marriage to figure out. :( Your wife may well have made the best decision for her. But she MUST face the consequences for her actions. And one of those consequences is expalining herself to her sons - who rightly feel abandoned. This is HER task, NOT yours. The only thing I suggest, as I think others have, is that you try to be supportive of your sons and help THEM to resolve the resulting issues. Just as YOU need to resolve YOUR issues with your wife - and the sons must NOT interfere with that, so THEY need to resolve issues with their mother - and YOU must not interfere with that either! hth |
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