Messages By: rural13

Dear Robin, 

I love your name by the way ;-).  I would appreciate your parenting advice for me and my 21 yr. old daughter.  She has never been told that her "Dad", is not her "biological father", and I really feel that each day not doing so, could be fatal to her.  Not because she has the potential for any immediate medical problems, but because her "father" was/is an alcoholic.   I'm sure that you understand my concern for her, as she is now old enough to drink legally, and is doing her all american part of such.  Fortunately (and unfortunately), her "Dad" has also became an alcoholic since she went to college 2 years ago, so she sees first hand what the disease can do to even the strongest of people, in a very short period of time, and how badly it effects everyone around them. 
Now I'm torn in knowing that her knowing how her Dad has become, and how it could have effected my choice 21+ years ago to leave her father, will leave her feeling about both herself and me.  I don't want her to think that I would ever leave her if she ever became a victem of the disease, but I really want her to know how vulnerable she is to it, and how very sorry I am that I chose to carry a child with MY knowledge of how high risk my child would be for alcoholism.  I don't regret having her, but I now feel ver selfish and guilty because she now has to carry the burden of the potential of alcoholism.  Especially since my Dad/father was one too!!
Now I am going through my 2nd divorce since she was born (to her step dad as of age 9), and she is fresh out of 2 year college in LA and in deep student loan debt.  To make matter worse, her alcoholic dad is dying of emphasema and alcohol, but not in a very rapid manner.  It has definately effected his brain though already, and he is becoming senile and somewhat demented, but refuses medical care of any kind.  As a result, he is becoming very verbally and financially abusive towards her, and it is turning her "daddy world" upside down and apart. 
Then, just to top the cake, after having lived so somewhat independantly  for 2 years in LA on her student loans, she had such a hard time having to move back in with me afterwards, that she totally sabotaged our relationship, trashed me and my home, and gave me no choice but to send her packing to live with her girlfriends.    Robin, that killed me.  Ripped my heart out , far worse than my husband did when he had me come home from work on July 4th weekend, only to find him and all of his things gone.  Stuck me with the house, the animals, the bills, everything, including trying to explain what I had no clue of, to my daughter.  THAT is all still in process, but I am most concerned about how and when I should tell my kid about her "father", and the choices I made 21+ years ago when I chose to keep her, but not him.   

My Dad didn't know that he was adopted, and as a result, he died at age 43 when I was 9 years old.  The disease that killed him would have been easily controlled by his giving blood weekly, to remove the excess iron in his blood.  Because he had no reason to worry about it (not knowing that his parents weren't his biological ones), even his doctors were clueless until his autopsy was done. 
Robin, I don't want to wait for autopsy results for my child.  Her life is in seriously heavy emotional upheaval right now, and she is a financial nightmare waiting to wake up.  She doesn't so much as look at her bank statements, because " what the heck, the bank knows what goes in and out, and that's what they are paid to do.  Handle it.".  Scairy!!    And I can't even afford to help her out, because I am scrambling to stay afloat myself since my husband left, and dumped it all on me as well. 
I don't want to dump any more baggage on my kid, but I don't want her to fall victem of anything that she isn't even open to looking for (like my Dad was) either.
Please help me with any advice that you would be so kind as to offer.  I truly do respect you and your husband's judgements and opinions.
Thanks for reading all of this, and for listening.
 

When my Dad died, I was 9 years old.  My Mom was suddenly left with 3 older children (who were pretty much out on their own and starting their own families), and the four of us younger kids, aging from 9 to 11 years old.  Having been totally dependant on our father's income for all of their years together, our Mother was devastated.  She absolutely had a mental, physical, and financial breakdown.   

She actually put a lock on her bedroom door, and locked herself away from us kids for almost a month before our older brother finally came over and helped her face and deal with her depression.  We immediately went from upper middle class, to standing in a welfare line, ONE TIME!!  There was no food in the house, the oil was gone from the oil tank to heat the house, and it was November here in the Northwest.  We were cold, tired, and scaired, but went to school every day hoping that Mom would come out when we got home.  Thank God our brother finally sensed that something was wrong, when he finally came to save her and the rest of us.  He did as she had taught him to do.  He made her look in a mirror, and insisted that she was deserving of more from and of herself in life.  Having 4 kids standing in the hallway hungry and cold may have helped too, LOL. 

She looked into our 4 little faces that day at the welfare office, and said "No way!!  I'm not going to raise the four of you to believe that you don't deserve more than this in life.".  She took a night secretary job that paid LESS than welfare, enduring sexual harassment and the nightly fear that the 4 of us were running the streets and raising Hell with the neighborhood (which we pretty much were).  After the first 3 or 4 childcare hires quit trying to keep up with us, as well as a couple of visits to the emergency room for broken bones or stitches for one of us kids, she ended up relying on basically God's angels to watch over us by night, and her belt to inspire us to behave by day. 

She worked her way into a secretarial job with the city which helped to pay for her to go to night school, and she eventually earned an Engineering degree.  Mind you, she ended having 7 children,  ending it with the 2 of us twins at the age of 37, so by the time she had to start supporting anyone, much less herself with a mortgage and 4 kids, she was almost 50 years old. 

Ultimately she retired after 26 years of working for the city of Seattle (and even earned a couple of awards from the Mayor for her superior service), while having managed to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellys, and even scrounged the money for the boys to at least stay in sports and boy scouts.  There wasn't anything left for us girls of coarse, but hey,......we were only girls.  In her generation, only boys really mattered when it came to status. 

I still remember the cocktail parties when Dad came home (he was a merchant mariner captain), with all of the adults dressed in their mink coats and draped in jewelry galore.  His parents were millionaires, but they never gave him a dime to support us.  He educated and supported us, and followed in his father's footsteps.  He was the youngest man at the time to get his Master Mariner's pilot license for all seas, and we were beaming with pride in him. 

I remember the all night bridge games and cocktails, and sneaking handfulls of cashews and bridgemix when they weren't looking.  I remember my Mom letting us play with her precious gem necklasses, bracelets and rings that Dad would bring her back from his travels to Japan and the east.  She only wore them for their cocktail parties.  I remember eating off of Franciscanware dishes as our nightly dinnerware, along with fine crystal glassware.  I also remember Mom screaming for plastic, but Dad saying "not in my house." 

I also remember the huge 5 bedroom "house" that Dad convinced Mom to move into for 1 year, before she insisted that he buy back our old smaller and older 4 bedroom "home".  I remember the new Cadillac that Dad bought mom one year, before she insisted that he return it for a Dodge Polara, that same day.  She was always afraid that her children would see them as wasting what they had earned, rather than being responsible, while also enjoying what they could from time to time. 

I saw her go from rags to riches, and then back to poverty in the blink of an eye, before spending a lifetime working her way back to middle class, and being the most happy as such.  She now has Alzheimers, and thankfully doesn't remember any of her life's suffering.  She doesn't even remember our Dad, and is slowly losing her memory and recognition of some of her own children.  I pray that I never forget her, or all that she has taught me. 

In all that HER life was, it has taught me all of what MY thoughts are of money.  It can make you or break you, but only if you let it.  I have always been happy to work hard to make just enough money to allow me to maintain the little things that make me happy.  Having enough money to have a cat or two.  Being able to see a movie "once in awhile".  Being able to go camping once or twice a year.  So what if at one point I qualified for a bigger home?  It would have meant sacrificing the little things in order to keep the one big thing, so to me it was never worth it.  Unfortunately, my future ex-husband doesn't see money that way, so he has left me for another woman who does have "means", and can "keep him" in a way that he feels makes him more financially "happy".   

While I do have fears for my immediate financial security, it is only because I am physically no longer able to to maintain my idea of a comfortable independence.  I have stage 2 hepatitis, contracted from a blood transfusion 21 years ago when my daughter was born, and am starting to feel the daily physical fatigue that it causes.  I am also suffering from a couple of repetitve motion injuries which I have suffered on my job as a rural mail carrier.  Still, I am only happy as long as I am doing what I can, and am able to accept what I can not.  Not that any such acceptance comes easy, because I am by nature very independant. 

I have a small (around 1400 sq. foot) 3 bedroom home, which I suppose is 2 bedrooms bigger than 1 person "needs".  I "like" having one extra room for guests or whenever my daughter blesses me with an overnight visit.  I "like" having an extra room as an office, and I "like" my own bedroom, small as they all are.  I "like" having my 2 cats and my 1 dog.  I "like" having a house to clean and maintain, and a yard in which to rip things out of when I feel the need to tear something up, as well as to plant new things when I am in a nuturing mood, with nobody other than my pets left with me now to "nuture".  As a Cancer born in July, it is in my nature to be a home body, and to nuture things and those around me. 

Still, while I "like" having all of these things, and I do feel truly blessed to have them, I also realize that I don't "need" them.  I realize that if I do lose it all, I will still be rich in life.  I will still have my family and friends, and I will still be alive and breathing in order to share as much as I can of my time left on this planet with them.  Perhaps that is why I have always been lowsy about taking photos through the years.  I prefer to place memories, in MY memory, which doesn't require a camera or film. 

I actually feel sorry for my future ex- husband, because for all that he stands to gain in his new and future life with this other woman, he is still, and always will be, morally and spiritually broke.  For me anyway, ..........that's just sad. 

It isn't just love that money can't buy.  It also can't buy you a true understanding and appreciation for all that is truly valuable in this thing we call life.   When we leave it, all we can take with us is our love, and our memories of who and what we loved.  I plan to be vastly rich in these when I die. 

I believe that the reason one person dumps another, is simply because their needs and desires have changed somewhere along the way, but they have FAILED miserably to communicate that to their partner, before it was "too late".  If partners would do a better job of communicating their Natural desire for change, AS it evolves, the world would be a better place, and marriage would become a stable institution again.     

Likewise, if the other partner (dumpee so to speak) weren't so afraid to acknowledge visible and/or verbal signs that their mate's tastes were changing, they too could take charge of the situation and it's prevention.  To do so though, means taking personal responsibility for changes in another person, and requires then to make changes (wanted or wanted) to themselves in order to save the relationship.  "Change", although natural when it happens to us, is not always "a good thing" when it happens to those we are so close to, especially when it occurs at a time when we ourselves have a need to hold on to the "stability" of our relationships.  "Stability" for most people does not translate to "evolving" or "changing", but rather means "remains the same", or "is predictable".     

I myself ignored the redflag warning signs that my husband of 12 years was going though "changes" in his personality.  I attempted to attribute it all to things that HE was going through, so HE needed to address and resolve them, but were NOT mine to be responsible for.  I demanded that he hold onto the "responsibility of being married and a parent" and to DEAL with HIS issues, and then  I failed miserably to take my half of the responsibility to maintain them.  Ultimately he left like a thief in the night one day while I was at work, and with no better reason than "I know that I'm being an A**hole, I'm sorry that I'm being an A**hole, but right now, I have a NEED to be an A**hole".  Needless to say, I was both dumbstruck and livid, until I put myself into the equasion.  It takes 2, and although it may have started and ended with his changes, it ended as a direct result of his not better communicating them, as well as my not better addressing the needs that were obvious to me.   I had a need for stability, at a time when he had a need for change.  My display for the need of stability, did not entitle me to expect the same from him (although, gee, wouldn't that have been a nice concept), and my fear of losing what I wanted, cost me all that I had with him.  

So "If" he's not into you, ask yourself,.............why?  Then don't just ask him, make him tell you in detail what it is that he NOW has a need for in a partner.  If you are not or can not become that person, then it's a no brainer.  Either he get's help getting back on track with your needs, or you need to let him do you a favor, and let him go.