Tonight my step-son from my previous marriage called. He is 22 now, but stills needs a mom. He calls and just says he called to say hello, but once I let him ramble for a few minutes it comes out that he is struggling with some pretty rough emotions. I can't imagine feeling so lost and alone, let down and ignored by the people who are supposed to support and love you, your family.
He recently found out a pretty harsh truth about his parents. He hasn't been very close to either of them in years. But he feels really disconnected from his whole family. His mother abused drugs his whole childhood, which in retrospect I think I knew something wasn't right. He lived with me most of the time, but her household was always an unstable environment. Her husband abused her in front of the kids and was at best absent or hostile to the children. A lot of this didn't come out until after I had been divorced from their father for awhile, but I hated sending them to her house even though I know she loved them. She kept choosing (and still does) the abusive husband over her own children and has convinced herself she was a good mom. On top of all that, she lied to my step-son his whole life about his father.
Her sister got drunk over the holidays and told him the truth, blow by blow. He then confirmed it with his mother.
He now knows that his father, my ex, was never his biological father. He is afraid to tell his dad this recently shared secret because he worries he will lose the only father he has ever known. Knowing how hurt he is makes me furious because his dad never treated him like a father should treat a son, like I see my husband now treat his boys. His dad always pushed him to be more manly, more like him, less into video games and Harry Potter and more into football. He never felt like his dad approved of him and sometimes if he even ever loved him. Plenty of times, I heard the ex say awful terrible things. I spent a lot of nights not knowing what to do. If I left, where did that leave the kids? But staying cost me too. (another entry for another night)
Other than his late grandmother, my step-son feels like I am the one person who will always take time to listen. I just wish he wasn't hurting so much. He said he doesn't remember being happy for a very long time. I told him he needs to find a way to be happy in himself, with himself and forget the ways his family has let him down, cut him out and hurt him. I tried to encourage him that he can make his own life and find his own friends and love and family however he defines that term.
I raised him 80% of the time for six years, until 2003. Eight years later, we spent Thanksgiving together and talk about once a month or so. But I feel I let him down. I worked so hard to give him a stable family while I was part of it, but failed in many ways especially since my marriage to his father ended with his infidelity and a complete loss for the children of another mother, home and life.
Now I am relegated to phone calls from states away and prayers that he will find the peace he needs to walk away from the hurts his family has inflicted on him and move on to create his own place in this world. I just hope that he really knows, even when he couldn't talk to me after the divorce, that I was always his mom in my heart, that I stuck it out with his dad because of him and his siblings, that when he needs a family who loves him, I am always mom, ready to listen, offer advice, smother just a little and love him. And he has a heavenly Father who loves him more than I can, and maybe I was around just long enough to let him know those two loves will never let him down.
He recently found out a pretty harsh truth about his parents. He hasn't been very close to either of them in years. But he feels really disconnected from his whole family. His mother abused drugs his whole childhood, which in retrospect I think I knew something wasn't right. He lived with me most of the time, but her household was always an unstable environment. Her husband abused her in front of the kids and was at best absent or hostile to the children. A lot of this didn't come out until after I had been divorced from their father for awhile, but I hated sending them to her house even though I know she loved them. She kept choosing (and still does) the abusive husband over her own children and has convinced herself she was a good mom. On top of all that, she lied to my step-son his whole life about his father.
Her sister got drunk over the holidays and told him the truth, blow by blow. He then confirmed it with his mother.
He now knows that his father, my ex, was never his biological father. He is afraid to tell his dad this recently shared secret because he worries he will lose the only father he has ever known. Knowing how hurt he is makes me furious because his dad never treated him like a father should treat a son, like I see my husband now treat his boys. His dad always pushed him to be more manly, more like him, less into video games and Harry Potter and more into football. He never felt like his dad approved of him and sometimes if he even ever loved him. Plenty of times, I heard the ex say awful terrible things. I spent a lot of nights not knowing what to do. If I left, where did that leave the kids? But staying cost me too. (another entry for another night)
Other than his late grandmother, my step-son feels like I am the one person who will always take time to listen. I just wish he wasn't hurting so much. He said he doesn't remember being happy for a very long time. I told him he needs to find a way to be happy in himself, with himself and forget the ways his family has let him down, cut him out and hurt him. I tried to encourage him that he can make his own life and find his own friends and love and family however he defines that term.
I raised him 80% of the time for six years, until 2003. Eight years later, we spent Thanksgiving together and talk about once a month or so. But I feel I let him down. I worked so hard to give him a stable family while I was part of it, but failed in many ways especially since my marriage to his father ended with his infidelity and a complete loss for the children of another mother, home and life.
Now I am relegated to phone calls from states away and prayers that he will find the peace he needs to walk away from the hurts his family has inflicted on him and move on to create his own place in this world. I just hope that he really knows, even when he couldn't talk to me after the divorce, that I was always his mom in my heart, that I stuck it out with his dad because of him and his siblings, that when he needs a family who loves him, I am always mom, ready to listen, offer advice, smother just a little and love him. And he has a heavenly Father who loves him more than I can, and maybe I was around just long enough to let him know those two loves will never let him down.
I remember those days of your (other) family. He is a good kid!
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