When do you give up?

A friend of mine has been going through some pretty rough stuff with his kids. Pretty much solely the oldest, male teenager, is drinking the PAS kool-aid pretty hard from his mother and being disrespectful and downright horrible to his Dad. Some stuff went down which I won't get into here, since it's not my story to tell.

However, it did get me to thinking, at what point do we as parents just give up? I know that sounds like a horrible statement to make, but in the blended family and divorce world, especially where PAS runs rampant and no law makers seem to give two shits, it's something that needs to be discussed.

In a normal family relationship, the kid has no where to "run" as it where and must deal with the fact that their parent is being a parent, no matter how much they may or may not like it. Me, I had issues with my father from very early on (for matters that are too private for any online blog and had nothing to do with PAS) so when I hit the teenage years, my mother's word was law and I had to deal.

In a blended family, especially due to the fact that the divorce was almost always messy, and the parties almost always hate each other, the parents can't really co-parent. So you have one set of rules at Mom's and one set of rules at Dad's. This is then again complicated when one parent wants to make the other parent's life miserable, so anything that one parent tries to do, the other parent (no matter how reasonable and helpful the rule is) will disregard and let the kid do whatever they want. They then combine this with smack talk about how the other parent is just trying to "hold the kid back" and "not allowing the child to reach it's full potential."

Sadly, we know it's happening. These teenage kids come home parroting this garbage and we know exactly where it's coming from. And there isn't a.damn.thing we can do about it. We try to show them actions instead of words, we get others involved, we get them to therapy, we get lawyers involved, we get judges involved. No one cares that one parent is having their own child ripped from them little by little.

At some point, after all the fighting, the money gets to be too much. The disrespect gets to be too much. We essentially let the other parent win. We let the kid go to a home where he is being disregarded. Where he is being allowed to get away with murder on a daily basis. Where he is being taught hatred and disrespect is okay. That child grows up with no real role-model to show him how it's done right. Then that child goes into society, meets a significant other, and the cycle starts over again with more children.

Until someone starts taking Parental Alienation Syndrome seriously, I'm scared for the way society is going to be when I'm in my elderly years. I can't throw a stone without hitting someone that is divorced, and their either participating in or being PAS'd. It's utterly disgusting. And it just goes on and on. Because the crux of the matter is HOW to get the PAS'er to CHANGE their behavior. By the time these issues get into court, the child is usually SO brain washed that to remove them would be detrimental to the child. The family law court system is so bogged down with bullshit cases because of THESE parents fighting over dimes and pennies and one less day of visitation here and there that it can't get to these cases to help stop the abuse. The therapists either don't understand or the ones that do can't get the parent to stop screwing up these kids.

And so it goes on and on in this endless cycle of bullshit and pain.

It makes me sad for all the children out there that don't know one of their parents. They think the worst, assuming the worst of that person, when they are wrong. At the end of the day, a child needs both their parents. But hatred, jealously, and narcissism gets in the way.

I really hope, that at the end of day, those children learn better. I really do. I hope that PAS gets brought into the light, and someone with some power can get something done about it. For the sake of the kids. All the kids.

The straw that broke the camel's back....

I've apparently been fooling myself....

I've been sitting here since Easter, thinking to myself, "BM getting prego doesn't bother me." I've been rocking on thinking life is grand and that I'm handling the situation fairly well considering...

And then Tuesday happened.

We were on our way home from vacation, SD gets a call wanting to know when we will be home. I said an hourish, why? SD responds "Oh, they found out what the baby is and Mom wants to share with us when we get home..."

I had to un-grit my teeth several times during the remainder of the drive home. At first, I thought I was just angry because she was butting into our time with the kids. She was getting them Friday after work, why couldn't she wait until then? When we got home, SD went into her room, (with MY BD and SS) and called her mother and proceeded to have a twenty minute conversation (of which I caught bits and peices as I was unpacking all the loads of crap) about the baby.

It's a girl...

My head exploded.

That's the only explination I have for it, it just HIT me, and my head exploded. I went into the girls room to put up some stuff and MY DAUGHTER informed me of what I already knew and I lost control of my tongue biting function. I responded "I really don't give a shit." and walked out. I'm pretty sure BM was still on the phone too...

Then I had to go BACK into the room to put something else up and SD started talking, and my mouth started talking before I could stop it. "I don't want to hear a damn thing about that thing growing in your mother. Your mother is part of the reason I don't get to have any more kids and every single time you bring it up, I want to throw up in my mouth, so just DON'T."

No....not my finest moment. I then proceeded to the bathroom to cry my eyes out...not my finest moment.

I did apologize to SD later and I explained to her that it's hard right now because everyone around me is prego and I can't have anymore children. I explained that it hurts, and I really hope she never understands how much it hurts. I told her I expected her to be excited about her new sister and I didn't begrudge her that, but that it's like a knife stabbing me in the heart everytime I hear about it.

Of course, you know me, I've had time to think about it since then and go over all the details with a fine toothed comb in my head...

I'm irritated about having to give up all of MY dreams and MY hopes and wants because of HER. That's basically what it boils down to. I'm stuck in my current house BECAUSE OF HER. I have to schedule myself to the brink of destruction BECAUSE OF HER. I didn't get to have my dream wedding BECAUSE OF HER. I don't get to have another child mostly BECAUSE OF HER.

It's the curse of being the second wife and it's fucking INFURIATING.

She gets to start over and go be little miss perfect, while I picked up all the pieces of HER old life and had to form them into something livable. She goes off and gets an education while DH and I help the kids SHE gave birth to with theirs. She gets to be selfish and I have to think of EVERYONE else.

To put it mildly....it sucks.

A week of mulling over all this in my head has given me A LOT of perspective of recent events and some behavior on my part that isn't flattering and goes against a lot of my programming but at least I know now.

I KNOW I chose this. I chose DH and all the baggage that came along with him. I chose to love the kids with all my heart. I chose to not go back to school because I wanted to be able to give the kids (his and mine) the full attention THEY deserved to make it through school. I knew from the beginning that DH didn't want any more kids and had taken the steps to make sure there wouldn't be anymore, and I still married him. This was MY CHOICE. Granted, in the dark, that doesn't make it any easier to bear some of the burden that I do, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right???

Right....