Shelby

Donna, my younger kid is trans. It is a journey but we have done our best to fill in the cracks in the sidewalk with love. Feel free to call or message.

I just wanted to say that you are understood.

This is huge! I had a hard time going to Sam's Club; I can't imagine having a room with so much significance in my home. You are brave and strong!

This particular thread has made me cry. It is a hard road. It's over six years from me and I don't have it all figured out yet. I just wanted you to know, Arneal, that you're definitely not alone. <3 to all my fellow former caregivers

I reach out to the ones who are going through similar things and I reach out to the ones whose loved ones have lost the battle. I haven't been doing it here. For some reason, this "new" YWBB still gives me the wiggins sometimes. When I reach out to spouses of those with similar disease processes to my Rich, I also am sort of treated like the specter of things to come. The "if it happened to her, it can happen to me" girl. But I'll never stop trying. I'd have loved to have had someone who'd BTDT to sort of talk me through the caregiving journey. Shelby

Maureen, so much THIS Some days I wake up and still expect to see him which is weird since I've remarried.

These are my same thoughts everyday, nonesuch. Kindred. Shelby

Maureen, wow! You are an inspiration to me particularly in regards to your tenacity and persistence. It is SO HARD for me to stick with stuff; and look at what you've done! ROCK STAR! Love you, Shelby

I am so, so sorry. I don't have adequate words. My heart is with you, your daughter, your family. Shelby

I'm hanging in, guys. I so appreciate the support, encouragement and prayers. I'll keep you posted.

I am so very grateful to all of you for expressing yourselves and for drawing me out a little more. Throughout this situation that really started out as being about my kids needing to come home, I've had to ask myself some hard questions and look at some situations in my relationship with my husband a little more closely. I asked him last night if he could just have some compassion for how I feel to be in the position I'm in, that it grieves me because I'm going to have to hurt or turn my back on someone I love no matter what I do. His answer was no. I made this situation (and I did to a degree, not denying that) so he has no compassion for my consequences. I think that pretty well did it for me. I appreciate his honesty but can't be with someone with no compassion for the person they profess to love. As for this discussion, please don't begin to argue with one another over anything that's been said. THere's lots of room here for varying opinions and I appreciate TRUTH especially when it's spoken in love. Shelby

This is so true, Maureen. Life is very unpredictable. And I have to say that having the "kids" around would be very helpful for me. As my physical health goes downhill and my vision loss continues (did you know that I am nearly blind now?) the kids would be a great help with chores and errands and such. Hubby and I are barely keeping up with things. He has health issues, too, and is working a full-time job and he has nothing left after work in terms of energy. It is true that it is too late to lament the red flags that I ignored. I love him and he loves me as best he is able but sometimes I do feel very controlled. He's very specific about what we eat, how we cook, how I clean/do laundry/etc. I've always assumed that was just me overreacting and each of us just being set in our ways. He does share the same belief system but he picks and chooses. Most of us do, to an extent, but it is the areas in which he picks and chooses that concern me. Like loving people. Like helping others. Some of this I didn't really see until after we married, some of it I saw before and overlooked. He absolutely will not do counseling. He had a brief marriage between his late wife and me, which ended in divorce, and they tried counseling and he says the counselor told him he was wrong in just about every issue so he won't entertain the idea. I would love to talk to my local girlfriends, the ones I had before him, but they left my life because of my relationship with him. I have been incredibly sad about all of this and somehow yesterday sad turned into mad. I don't do mad well and it wasn't pretty. I said the things I've been wanting to say but I didn't say them in a productive way at all. Today we are living peacefully on the surface, going about our normal Sunday stuff, but with lava running below the surface just waiting to erupt again. Thank you, friend. I needed to read that. I've missed you. I've missed a lot of my life lately. <3

Catnip, your ideas are good compromises. My husband won't have my kids at all under any circumstances.

Thanks, everyone, for the support and advice and suggestions. I am considering everything!!! I might end up making the wrong decision - human and all that - but I don't want to make the wrong decision because I acted or reacted hastily. Shelby

Mike and Serpico, I appreciate the questions you both raise. Both of the kids struggle with mental health issues which include primarily depression and anxiety. Understandable having lost a parent but it also complicates things now. I kind of see them both in a downward spiral that ends badly if no one steps in and intervenes. It is entirely possible that they have leaned on me too much and that maybe some tougher love was in order. In fact, I'll say it outright. After all the awfulness of their dad's very long (15 years) illness and then his death, I coddled them to try to make up for it. Unfortunately, that downward spiral I mentioned up there is real even though I fully acknowledge that in trying to help them I probably made things worse. Mike, this is the million-dollar question because this particular situation has highlighted some stuff in my marriage that I would have otherwise been willing to either work on or sweep under the rug as not such a big deal. Serpico, this is it in a nutshell: A portion of the details that I'm willing to share (some of the rest of it is more the kids' business than my own) is that the kids need to move back "home" even though that's not at all what it used to be. I was a stepparent to my LH's 3 kids. He had full custody so they were always with us and it was a relief when they moved out because they moved out later than kids did during my time (their mid-20s). Then they all came back (two of them with their own children) at one time or another. I hated it and I resented it but I UNDERSTOOD it. My new husband has never had kids so he can't understand the ferocious feeling of needing to protect them and he doesn't really want extra people in his home. It was always just him and his late wife. I understand that as well. I've pointed out to him that, especially with today's economy, a lot of kids leave later or end up coming back, but he isn't buying it. Maybe (well, obviously) I'm too close to the whole thing but I keep wondering how I could have married a man who would turn away my adult kids when they need help. Or a Christian who would turn away anyone who legitimately just needed a safe place to land while getting their act together. Much deep introspection is needed indeed. Thanks. The questions are difficult to face and consider but they are necessary. And counseling is out. He won't consider it.