5 words, so much meaning....
Those are the words that were uttered to me right before bed last night. He's tired I thought, he'll change his mind in the morning. Wednesday he was so excited to go. Wednesday he wanted to spend the night.
Then this morning, as he was brushing his teeth he said them again. This time in front of Jim, this time I'm not the only one hearing it.
As we got in the car he hit me with this one:
Mommy, when you get to work can you call daddy and tell him not to pick me up?
Then when we got to daycare:
Do I have to spend the night? I don't want to spend the night, I want to stay home.
And it's happening all over again.......
For three months he's been living with the new girlfriend and Zack has been fine. He has been wanting to go there. She has a seven year old boy. She seems somewhat normal, all be it small town and kind of nieve and I think Zack has enjoyed the company and having someone to play with.
Until this weekend.
I don't know what is different but it breaks my heart to have to make him go there. Week after week, month after month. We are almost 18 months into this visit thing and he still doesn't want to go and I am wondering if he ever will. I thought it would be different by now. I thought by now he would like spending time with him. Somehow, I thought the broken would be fixed but I'm now realizing once again just how broken their bond is. I'm now smacked in the face once more with the realization that sometimes what is broken can never be fixed.
I had no answers for Zack as to why he had to go. He is not yet four. I can't even begin to explain to him that he must go because a judge says so. Because FoTB doesn't believe me when I tell him he doesn't want to go. Because his main concern is his "property" and getting "his time" whether that makes Zack happy or not.
I can't explain these things to him but I know in time he will come to understand them himself. For now I just assured him that he would have fun. That it would be a good time and I would be there to pick him up on Sunday. I told him if he wasn't having fun and wanted to come home he would have to tell FoTB and maybe he could call me and I could come get him early.
I know he won't call. I know even if he cries and throws a fit he won't call me. It is "his time" and he won't give it up. Not for anyone, including Zack but I had nothing else to tell him.
I just gave him big hugs, assured him once again that he would have fun and sent him on his way. Then I got in my car, tried not to cry and prayed that Sunday would come quickly.
Abandoned
-
I didn't mean for this space to go dark... but it sort of has. The new blog
is up and running and that feels like my new home. I'm not sure what will
becom...
14 years ago
7 comments:
Oh Heather,
Hang in there.
You are strong.
You are loved.
I can relate... somewhat. It's obvious the way you talk about the situation that there's more to the story than what I've read here. However, I have a similar situation that my son is now 8 years old. I've been divorced for 4 years, when my 4-year old's son left me for his now new wife, who a the time's son was 6.
I know our situations were much different. Trey and his father got/get along just fine. Trey was in love with the gf's boy, and that's hard to compete with in my household where all we have is animals.
Anyway, in the beginning things went fine for a while. Then randomly during the week Trey would randomly ask to go to his father's house when it was 'my' day, and ask not to go to his father's when it was 'dad's' days. I'll be honest, I never called his dad on 'my' days. I still don't. It broke my heart to send him on the days he begged me not to go. I got very upset when he would tell me through tear-streaming sobs that he would have dad bring him home early, and also never got that phone call. There were a couple of times that I would fake Trey being sick without dad knowing so Trey could stay home, and just switched him weekends praying that next weekend Trey would want to go. Sometimes he did, others he didn't.
I'll be honest, I don't have a solution for your current situation. I really wish I did. the reason I'm telling you this is my son is now a little older. He is slowly starting to understand the situation. It's obvious that Trey loves his father and the time he spends with him. Except now that he's getting older, it's obvious that he tries to use his emotions, thoughts, feelings, etc. to get what he wants. If Trey (now 8) and his ste-brother (now 10) aren't getting along, he will try to fake sick to come home, and for close to a month he just doesn't want to go to his father's house. Once, he even alleged abuse (which was checked out and I now know was not true) so that I wouldn't have to send him to his father's house. Then he goes a couple of times, the boys forgive or forget, then it seems like he wants to constantly stay at dad's house. I know it's probably more fun there. They live in town with neighbor kids and a park across the street that always seems to be full of kids. We live in the country and have to resort to sleep overs for companionship in our home of his age. Now, dad's visits are also more frequent. He will try anything from being home sick, to on purpose leaving things behind that he 'needs', just about anything to get to stay in the house he wants.
Just please always remember that at his age, he is very impressionable. I know you already know this, but it's vital at this age to know that he doesn't get to pick and choose his way. Unless it's an abusive situation at dad's, but then I'm sure you would've had the courts step in. I just know I used to give my son the idea... have Dad call and I'll pick you up... and I really think it's those earlier years that started the problems we're having now. I know it's not easy to explain to a child of his age. The advise I didn't take from my social worker was just to reassure him of dad's love for him. The social worker suggested showing him a calendar and showing him instead of telling him in 2 days that is when Mommy will see you again. I didn't do those things. I played into the guilt. I got mad at dad for never calling. Dad didn't want to hear that Trey didn't want to come over. I just know I (we) made mistakes when he was young, and it's made things worse now.
Keep your head up though. It won't be long before he's able to understand more. You'll have him back soon.
:( ((hugs)) I hope that he has a great weekend and everything turns out fine. I hope I hope.
Gah..that would be so... hard. I hope for everyone's sake, especially Zack's, that the weekend went well and there were no tears.
Hi there,
This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at www.heathersunwrittenblog.blogspot.com.
May I use part of the information from this blog post right above if I provide a backlink back to this website?
Thanks,
Peter
I hope she doesn't let you Peter. (sorry Heather, I feel as if your privacy is important)
@peter - Please contact me at hamiltonfamilycircus@yahoo.com if you are really interested in using content from this site.
@anonymous - my guess is the previous message was left by a spam bot, since there was no contact information left with it.
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