Is this normal and how do I deal with it as I am pretty upset?

[JustFabulous]

DS1's school is open. He usually gets the bus and has too today as we can't drive after 8 hours of continuous snow. I wanted to walk to the bus stop with him in case he fell over and the bus didn't come. He did not want me too. He later snapped he'd be teased for being a mummy's boy. He went alone. I may have acted like a two year old as I didn't say bye. Normally he texts to say he is on the bus okay. He has texted DH instead so another one having a strop. DH said I should pick my battles and is fed up of the arguments, with DS1 and I, I suspect he means.

DS1 just texted me, he is at school okay.

I love this child so much. My first born, my heart, and it breaks my heart he treats me like I am nothing some times. We used to be so close and now it feels like he isn't bothered about me and doesn't need me anymore (unless he wants a lift).

I have felt like this for a while, not just over this morning.

I assumed my childhood made me the person I am as I didn't have parents to mould me so I am a product of life rather than them iyswim.

I am not miserable, lonely or martyrish in my parenting beyond the odd day when I feel alone as I have no family and being annoyed that sometimes they won't help.

I am sure ou are not. But you are not really modelling a full, exciting fun filled life for your children either.

Are you seeing whati am saying as criticisms to defend rather than my sharing a very difficult time in my life to try and help you see a more positive way to move forward? Because it is quite hard to endlessly have everything you suggest dismissed.
If life is full and peachy, what are you asking for here ?

I have to echo pag there. Why have you just focused on one sentence from the last 2 posts? Do you not see how counter productive that is?

Fab ... those last ten posts are really very powerful. In my opinion, which is just one of thousands you could listen to, they sum up the foundation of being human which will help you with the move from parenting primary school to secondary school.

If I were you I would stop and read them. Work out what they meant to me and how they make me feel. Then I'd have a go at building a small plan to do something about those feelings and issues. Just to move forward.

ooo make that 11

I posted a response but tbh I feel it won't get me anywhere. I have always had a problem when asking for advice and explaining why I feel the way I do and do what I do. It is why I have stopped posting anything personal at all or asking for advice.

Maybe I just can't take criticism. It just hurts to get it when I did what I did because I thought that was what a good mum did since I never had a mum to show me.

I have to go now. It really is time for a break when I get quizzed as to why I haven't answered every single point raised. Maybe I just didn't have anything to say!

I think you do have a problem with seeing criticism where there is none and seeking to defend yourself rather than listen to advice which is honestly given.

I would genuinely wish to help you. I think you are sincere and loving mum. I just think you are destined to spend all your time seeing everything in your life as insurrmountable when your problems are shared by so many on here.

You walk away from good kind women offering you there time because they want to help.

You are so determined that your problems are so much harder, your struggle is unique, no one understands.
You are pushing away advice that could help enormously and I don't really understand it to be honest.

In a fight between my ego and my children's happiness you can say anything to me, I would rather correct my issues and be happy then endlessly hang on to the idea that it is all just too hard.

With all due respect I think you're right.

There honestly isn't any point in asking for advice if you know in advance you won't take any of it.

Lots of people have spent time trying to help you on this thread. That last post by pag for example was very personal and must have been difficult for her to post. I don't think it's fair to be as dismissive of it as you were.

In all honesty your posts make you sound as if you are so completely entrenched in the victim persona you have created for yourself that you find it impossible to think any other way.

Until that mindset changes I'm afraid I don't see how anyone on here can help you.

I hope at some point you can re-read all the posts on this thread and see them in the way they are intended.

(X-post with the above)

I worry for you OP. I worry that you have immersed your whole self into being a mum and wife, to the point where you don't know who you are anymore and you are using your DC to fulfil your emotional needs by gauging how.worthy you are as a person based on how much love and appreciation your DC show you.
I worry that you see any independence your DC or your DH exercise as a direct rejection of you as a person, if that involves your DC or your DH not needing you for anything you want to feel needed by them for.

I worry that in what feels like no time at all, your DC will be fully independent adults and rather than feel proud and ready to bark on the next chapter of your life, you will cling to your DC well into their adulthood because when the time comes that they no longer need you in the way you want to be needed. . . . . where will that leave you?

I worry you have invested so much of yourself in your DC, and need your DC to fulfill your emotional needs so much that you will find it impossible to ever let your DC become independent adults.

Honestly OP, how are you going to feel when your DC reach 18 and you don't have access to their every movement, how will you satisfy your need to show you care if your DC refuse your offers of help, your offers of helping?

l fear you are going to feel so rejected, and therefore so much a failure that you will cling on even tighter and your DC will feel they have to let you do whatever you need to so you don't feel rejected.

As I said earlier, this is all about you OP.

Children are never meant to remain childlike and in need of guidance and help as children do forever. Your DS is beginning to show signs of independence which is a great thing, but to you, it is a great loss and I fear you will fight it all the way, by whatever means you can, to get your needs met.

I believe you found the baby stage easier. When is a person more needy and dependent than when they are babies?

By always referring to your awful childhood, it's almost as if you are saying you can't change anything because who you are has already been carved in stone.
I think it would certainly make your life a lot easier if your DC didn't show desires to be independent, and remained needy and dependent for as long as you need them too.

OP have you looked into Borderline Personality Disorder?

You CANNOT keep blaming your childhood on your behaviour. You are an adult. You have a choice.

I think you should speak to a counsellor.

This will be having a huge effect on your children, whether your intentions are good or not.

I think that you could do with seeing a counsellor-it would be a huge help to you to discuss your childhood and get it into perspective.
Parenting is hard, it is the one job where you aim to make yourself redundant! The thing to bear in mind is that you give them roots and give them wings. If you do it well you always have a good relationship because they want to spend time with you and not because they feel responsible for you and worried about you.
'Letting go' is the hardest part of parenting IMO-everyone wants to protect. When I was in my 30's, and going through a tough time, my mother said that she just wanted to wrap me in cotton wool! While I understand that- it was distinctly irritating at the time! I was trying to explain that you only learn by your own mistakes-and you can't do it through your mother!

JustFab I only really know you from your posts about your cat. Forgive me if I have got the wrong poster but I seem to remember stuff about Fabcat?

Please, please, please do not be upset by anything said on this thread, everyone, I am sure, is on your side. You always come across as completely lovely (disclaimer - I am not). The stuff you are feeling, and posting about, is so huge that maybe this is not the best place.

I have been randomly (shit, is that a word?) upset by responses to stuff people have said on here, until I have taken a step back and realised that they have so got the wrong end of whatever shitty stick I have thrown into the cauldron.

Take heart my dear, your concerns underline what a fab mum you are, and you are doing just fine, bumbling along like the rest of us.

I know you have felt very upset by the worst case scenarios detailled by some posters ("he will want to distance himself from you", "you won't be so close").

But there is another type of scenario to think about too:

My mother made a very conscious effort to let me have my freedom. She let me try water sports, skating on the lake, being out an about on my own.

When I went on a foreign language trip, she saw me off- and did not cry until she had turned the corner.

When I went to university she made herself only ring me once a week, at a pre-arranged time, and made it very clear that she understood that I might not be in.

She is now in her 80s, we are still very close and I can think of those years with a warm happy glow, because she never made me feel guilty about growing up.

Growing up was inevitable but she made it easy.

That is something you and your son can have.

She makes good cakes, too

Cory, that's a lovely post. I know we don't always see eye to eye but that's just lovely.