Blather

It’s Sunday afternoon and my big son is taking my small son back to my ex-wife.

I’ve been thinking that there isn't much left between my small son Schaffe and me. The ex, Bonnie, won't allow him to bring his homework, so I’m excluded from his academic life. I’ve devolved into a biweekly babysitter with a requisite duty to entertain him. I’m a diversion, not a parent. I’ve gotta think more about this, but I’m not pleased.

Once again, he had a problem with me but took it to someone else. Two days ago, he told his shrink that he is uncomfortable if I talk about Bonnie. (Probably because I have a lot of bad things to say about her. This makes him uncomfortable and I guess it's so. No one wants to hear bad things about their mom, especially if the listener discerns that there is more than a grain of truth in the rants.) But he didn't talk to me, he talked to his shrink. This is OK because it’s a communication that’ll help him. He needs to trust his shrink. I’m not sure he trusts anyone. Even though he kow-tows to his mother, I’m not sure there’s any trust there.

Once again, I didn't get anything like access to his schoolwork. I see my relationship with him as just movies, food, and little else. He doesn't need me for food and he has plenty of movies. I don't get to talk to him about anything that I regard as parenting because that would take us to the realm of values. And any values that conflict with Bonnie's would make him feel bad, so parenting is not going to happen. All I have left is the movies, the popcorn, and a bit of welding. (She doesn't weld nor does she help him to weld. Apparently spending money is a more worthwhile activity, but I wax sardonic.)

If a job in Iraq comes through, I won’t be seeing much of him, perhaps obviating any stress over my opportunity to be a parent to him.

I can’t force him to behave like my son because I think the divorce has put him in an awkward position. He’d have to want me to parent him, and his mother won’t allow him to do that. He’ll need to choose to be my son and to let me be his father. Unfortunately, I don’t see this occurring soon.

Can he make such a choice? I don’t think so. His mother won’t allow that.

His mother has a plan, though she’s not stated so to me. She wants me to have as little influence on him as possible because this is another of her “all or nothing” approaches that she won’t abandon. Oh, she’s smart enough to avoid a direct conflict with any court order, but she pushes the envelope there, too. I will see him every two weeks because the court order says so. But I won’t have the ability to be involved in his life much because she talks to him until he sees things the way she wants, including his comfort level with me seeing his schoolwork. This is part of his “enmeshed” situation with his mother.

But nope, this is about me letting go, letting go of my care for him, of anything like a sense of responsibility for the way he grows into adulthood. My son will be 16 this month. He’s lived with his mother for 14 months. He’s lived with her considerable influence for longer than that. No, he’s lived under her considerable influence for longer, that’s what I really mean.

Let me explain a bit. “All or nothing” is her approach to how she wants everyone to accept her. Sure, she doesn’t mind if you favor strawberry ice cream while she chooses chocolate. Why? Because your choice doesn’t reflect on her as a person, on her value system, on her merit as a mother and human being. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes from time to time. But for her, she needs everyone in the family to accept her position as alpha bitch and accept her as all-knowing, all-loving and all-caring. One may not disagree with her if disagreement reflects on her abilities, her morals, or her behavior.

Thus it’s fine to like different ice cream but if one should disagree with her financial management skills, this shakes her value system. That’s what I did, and that’s what she can’t forgive. She can’t accept that she was wrong. Not just a wee bit wrong, like getting the answer wrong in the third decimal place. Nope. She was wrong, dead wrong, in choosing to make financial decisions with our community money. She took us from financial security to financial hopelessness. She paid bills, though not all of them, and didn’t account for where the money went. Why? Was it mere foolishness? We can’t discuss that because the topic is off limits to her. She took her $12K retirement annuity (with a $4k penalty) without saying a word to me. The next year when she got fired, she said that they cheated her out of her retirement. (I learned this truth a couple of months ago, when I found a letter from her old employer from 1997; she left in 1998.) A few years ago, she stopped paying the mortgage until we got foreclosed. After we sold the condo, she took $100K from our joint account because it was “her” money and she didn’t want me to know where she put it.

So if I talk finances with my son, it’s hard to avoid dwelling on how I got here, with a few months left before I have to leave, too. When I leave, it’ll probably be to a place where I can live on my meager retirement and social security.

Either that Iraq job or my dismal financial outlook will take me somewhere else. And I won’t see my small son very much. It’s nothing I want, but I’m not sure the alternative is better. If I were to remain in the area, I might remain only a biweekly movie-and-popcorn ticket, not a parent.

More dilemma: I can’t just leave, skulking off in the night. If I tell him I’m leaving, I want him to know why. It’s not “I don’t feel like seeing you any more,” it’s “I can’t afford to live here.” I could try leaving it at that- “I can’t afford to live here anymore,” but the unspoken “why” will lead to his mother. And criticism of his mother, even unspoken criticism, will make him feel bad.

So the only thing I can do is let go. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m trying that particular feeling on, like I did when I divorced my ex-wife. I didn’t like the feeling then and I don’t like it now, but it’s not quite as soul-shattering as I’d feared. Maybe letting go of my small son won’t be as painful as I think it’ll be. I console myself with knowing it doesn’t have to be like with his mother- I don’t have to let go forever, just for awhile, and just until I’ll get a chance to be a father again.