Stressedmummy is back on line at last!!!

[stressedmummy]

Thank goodness!
We have had loads of problems connecting back up to the internet & H was having a few little tantrums about it this morning, but I am now back!
He was not as cross as he could have been regarding the wine, because I think I have got rid of most of the stain. I am now banned from drinking red wine in the lounge!

{{{{hugs}}}} to you hunni please draw only strength from the way your little man is reacting in the way that it shows how much you need to get out of this situation,and that you are slowly seeking ways to become stonger and resolve it all.
My kids were as you describe your while i was with ex but now are wonderful and are as we speak sitting on the sofa watching madagascar in there pjs having thrown everything off the sofas into the middle of the floor,last nights chinese dishes are lying omn the kitchen table and my ironing is climbing up the wall,what am i doing ? im sitting here atlking to you then im going out at 11:30 and leaving it all behind LOL.
You will get to this stage one day and love it hunny,stay strong you are getting there.xx

And you are right in what you say about H turning into his Dad.
It is very scary, but true.

That stage sounds bliss Loobie!
I haven't rushed things too much this morning, because he is at work today until around 7.30pm.
It is when you realise how much it is really effecting the kids that it hits home BIG time isn't it?
I can't have my ds's traumatised by all this mess.

My eldest son has autism and many other issues soncerned with it,he is 9 now and still a very messy eater but a good eater will eat anything you put down,which is great for an auti kid.Only thing was he stopped eating anything messy and food that could 'get away' from him saying he didnt like it when i knew full well he did, i.e beans,peas,spaghetti, you get the idea, the reason behind it?? his dad went off his head at him calling him an animal and a baby etc etc because he made loads of mess while eating so it was safer to say he didnt like it and not have it than risk dads wrath!! only one small thing he done to my son,incidentally three years down the line and a set of specially adapted cutlery he feeds himself perfectly fine and if he makes a mess then so be it.
So in answer to your question yes they affect our kids to unknown lengths.xx

That is really sad Loobie. Bless your ds.
My ds is a messy eater too & you get really anxious for them don't you?
How long did you put up with things before leaving, Loobie?

Oh no! While I was getting dressed ds2 decided to play behind the blinds in the play room & 2 of them are now bent.
I have tried to straighten them, but can't.
He has told me that I must not let them play with the blinds, but I was getting dressed & cannot keep my eyes on them 24 hrs a day.
I am going to be in SO much trouble when he gets home, it just seems to be 1 disaster after another ATM.

Hi Stressedmummy,Have been following your threads and hoping things will turn out well for you.Stay strong.

As for your blinds,my 2 children are always messing about with ours,and like you say you can't watch them 24hrs.
My dd 2 wrote over the side of my cream sofa with blue wax crayon the other day.I could have cried.But then thought oh well hopefully it will wash out.You can't have a perfect house when you have children,I have tried and it's not possible.

I told DH when he came home that I was busy loading the dishwasher when dd crayoned on the sofa,I was actually on mumsnet.

stressedmummy, it's not a disaster. And no, you can't watch them 24*7, these things can and will happen with little ones, as any reasonable human being would understand.

Your reaction to this minor incident only underlines the reasons why you need to make changes at home. Remember, he's not your father, you can't be "in trouble" with him.

And in keeping with my previous red wine suggestion, perhaps you should set fire to the blinds, then he wouldn't notice that they're bent (Unless they're metal, in which case fire may not work so well).

Lazydays, my sister-in-law is a real neatness freak, and bought some antique chairs covered in white fabric when her ds1 was just a baby. Needless to say, now he's a monstrous three year old, he's drawn all over them with crayon too - and I don't think the covers come off for washing

If I set fire to them tribpot, I would have to get ready to make a very quick run for it!
He is NOT my father, but treats me like he is.
I have pulled the blinds up now, so hopefully he won't notice tonight.
I guess these disasters do happen in other homes, it just seems like they are always happening to me because they make me so anxious.

SM, this is awful.
The problem - as I know you know - is not the blinds at all - it's your H and his reactions, and totally unrealistic expectations.

Actually, I think he knows they are unreaslitic. I think deep inside himself, he deliberatley sets up impossible tasks for you, (beige carpets etc) so that you will 'fail' and he will be able to gain some sort of feeling of 'superiority' inside his warped mind. To feel that he is not the bottom of the heap, but that YOU are.

Loobie - I'm so sorry - that's very sad.

SM: I am worried that you will be having to put yorself under so much stress to find the time to do the freedom training. I am worried that it involves lying to him - not because I think he deserves any loyalty from you, but because it is such a strain on you, and because, in his pathologically controlling mind, once he sniffs a bit of a rat he will assume you are having an affair or something, and go berserk.

Could you say to him that you have the chance to go on course for women to increase their confidence (which is true), and you are doing it partly because you think it will lead to you being able to take on more responsibility in your job, but also because as HE has seen, he has been making you feel you don't like yourself v much. And since he has declined to go to AM, or make any changes whatsoever, you have decided that you will take responsibility for your own feelings, and are therefore going on this confidence raising course? Tell him calmly and matter-of-factly? And as if it is a great career / job / training potential opportunity?

I can see now that it isn't necessarily the course itself that is worrying you, but what it will involve to go on the course. And it's really important that he doesn't undermine this chance for you. I can't pretend: I think that you do have grounds to be apprehensive about his reaction, whether he 'finds out', or whether you tell him straight, and you may need to be prepared to do a moonlight flit with the kids. Perhaps you could ask how other women are handling this aspect of things - because your H won't be the only one to create havoc. Maybe I'm being a doom-laden pessimist, and of course things may well be ok - but I think it's wise to be one step ahead and anticipate the ways in which he will try to clamp you down. Forewarned is forearmed etc.

He is always 'on the lookout' isn't he - noticing Tessie's spray etc. And that is par for the course for someone with his insecurities, I think.

We must think of ways to make sure that you can go on this course, and find out all the facts about how you stand legally, financially, your entitlements etc - the wider knowledge of MN is needed here - it's way out of my experience.

Have a nice day with the boys. If he kicks up about the blinds, just try to stay calm and say 'these things happen, I can't watch every part of the house every moment, I'm not a cctv system, and in a house with 2 small boys, accidents will happen. Blinds are not important - your understanding of your son's need to play and feel happy in their own home is. That's all I have to say'.'

XXXXXX

Wow, you are so clued up Blu! Are you sure you are not a counsellor?!
Good idea about telling him it is a confidence course, I would never have thought of that one!
But it's true, he knows my self esteem is on the floor right now.
I am seeing my HV for a talk on Friday pm, which is the afternoon after the course, so I will ask her some serious questions then.
I briefed her on the phone as to a few of the things that have gone on in her absence & she said "Does he realise you are an adult?"
She also said that if she lived in my house she would be having accidents all the time, because she would be so anxious (which was similar to what you said to me a week or so ago)
I am going to take the boys out in a minute to play with friends.
I think I will dig my escape pack out of my locker at work & take another look at it.
I can't live under such pressure for much longer & neither can the boys.
Every time there is an accident I panic & feel close to tears & I just can't live like this.

Glad it sounds as if it makes sense, SM - the truth is that I think it's just easier to see from the outside - that's the power of MN for all of us, isn't it? A chance to see things from someone else's point of view.

Glad you have an 'escape pack' - and you are doing All The right Things

Enjoy the park - I'm off into the garden for some time free of talk about WillyWonka (aaaargh!)

SM, hope my comments didn't come across as trivialising the way you feel about the blinds. I understand that to you this really is a disaster, the only point I was trying to make was that it shouldn't. Your H wouldn't last 10 minutes in my house, I really am completely clumsy - even managed to spill milk all over the floor this morning when all I was doing was pouring formula from a carton into baby's bottle. (I may have been holding the baby at the time .. no, I don't think I was! Hey ho!).

A friend of mine once poured a whole glass of red wine down one of her white curtains, also can't remember how that happened, but I have a feeling it was something to do with the amount of red wine we'd poured into ourselves first

I'm sure Blu's right about him setting you up to fail, so that he can make someone else feel worse about themselves than he does about himself. It's pathetic really, and emotional violence of the first order.

Tribpot - 'emotional violence' is a v good phrase for it.

I was with ex for about 9 years altogether,he only picked on ds1 who has the difficulties,he was a great father to ds2.We constantly battled over ds1 from when he was about 2 1/2 to 3 years till i chucked him out when ds1 was 6 1/2.
He was diagnosed with his main problem just after his sixth birthday in january 2002,i then fell pg totally unexpected with dd in feb/march,believe it or not we were splitting up and he was actually moving out the end of the week that i found out i was pg with her.Because of that we decided to stay together again and try to sort things out again but he got dreadfully worse,he questioned any money i spent,stopped helping out in the house and got ten times worse with ds1,and to top it all off totally denied my pg,accused me of falling pg deliberatly,that the baby wasnt his,just generally became an absolute nightmare,so i stopped using his money and bought the new babys things from my own money and everything else we needed only asking him for money towards the bills.This went on till i was 5 months pg with the worst pg in history and i couldnt take it any more,i just told him to leave this wasnt happening any more,i gave him a fortnight to get somewhere to go then took the kids out for the day he moved out and it went from there,i had my dd and bean rebuilding our lives without him,have looked back at times but it has been a hell of lot easier this side.

No,tribpot, I didn't think it seemed as if you were trivialising things at all!
I would love to burn the blinds, especially in the playroom, where they are not really needed & I would like the children to be free to play how they want in there!
Sorry to hear how horrible things were for you Loobie.
I remember you speaking of how awful your pregnancy with dd was & how similar it was to my ds2's pregnancy & birth.
I have been with my H for over 9 years now (it will have been 10 years in Dec) & things have always been the way they are now, although it is only fairly recently that I have got over my denial that he is just a man with a bad temper & realised how abnormal & unhealthy this all is.
Glad to hear you sounding so positive now though!
I don't know what to expect from this course on Thursday & nor does my HV, so that in itself makes me very nervous.
I think it is very good of my HV to come along to the first session to support me though.
She has said that if I hate it, we can always leave!
Hope you managed to escape into the garden for some Willy Wonker free time Blu!
My 2 are both into aeroplanes & helicopters BIG time ATM & it is driving me mad!
All their games & conversations revolve around one or the other, infact ds1 has ditched nick junior in favour of discovery wings!!! (Which he is watching ATM!)

Very about how your ex treated your ds1, Loobie.
Is he ok with him now?

He still doesnt understand ds1 and i have stopped all contact from ex to all the kids for the last 3 months now as he is so unstable and refuses to see how he is affecting them and thinks all will be fine if he just gets to see them,ha!!!the last thing they need is someone like him who puts himself first over the welfare of his kids,so until he puts them back at the top of his priorities i will continue to deny him access and phone calls.
He will never understand ds1 and his difficulties as they are now a lot more complex than what they were when he was here,i mean we are 3 years down the line from dx now and ds1 is 3 years older so obviously his problems although mostly the same seem so much worse.
A prime example of exs misunderstanding of ds1 was the last time he saw them,i had served him with a solicitors letter telling him no more visits until he had stabilised his visiting patterns,he recieved the letter the tuesday and he was due up here that weekend,unknown to me he told ds's on the phone on the wednesday that he was coming up on friday but mum wasnt letting him see them.Come friday morning ds1 is going off his head,screaming i want to die,just kill me,beating himself over the head and body with a hard hairbrush,hiding behind the sofa,i really thought i was gonna have to get the docotr in to sedate him.I had no idea what on earth was happening to him and why he was acting that way,he had to stay off school etc.
Later in the weekend i find out what ex had said,ds2 told me.The thing is ex said this to them so that i would get hassle from the kids for not letting him see them so he thinks but all it did was drive them off there heads,hence that was the last time he was allowed to see them.

OMG! That's awful Loobie, poor you & poor ds.
Good on you for stopping him seeing them until he proves to be a proper father to them.
What a ba*tard!
Does he accept your ds's diagnosis?

yes and no he is unaware of exactly how things affect him and his understanding of the world,but does accept he has autism just not what iot does to him and how it makes him if this makes sense.

Yes I understand what you are saying Loobie, someone like that probably doesn't have the patience to deal with the kind of behaviour linked to that condition.
The children sound like they are better off without him TBH.
My H hasn't seen the blinds yet, because they are still pulled up & he didn't go into the playroom last night.
It's only a matter of time though!
I feel we can't relax anywhere ATM. Even when I send the boys outside to play, there is a line of gravel running along the side of the garden, which they cannot stop being drawn to & he gets cross if they play in there, because it ends up all over the place.
We have a broom out there, so I try & sweep up any damage before it is noticed.
I told him about ds1 being upset about the Mummy monkey crying, because it reminded him of me crying & he said "Well I didn't used to like my Mum crying either"
I went on to tell him that he assosiated me crying with him telling me off & he didn't respond to that at all.

He wouldnt though would he,that would be like accepting he is in the wrong and he wont do that.It really is shocking that you are unable to relax in your own home,you are going to end up making yourself ill then who will look after the kids?
And as for the kids playing in the dirt,hasnt he ever heard the saying that dirty kids are happy kids,mines are never out the muck and trees etc and i love seeing their dirty little faces,then seeing them materialise from under it all when i bathe them .You will get there hunny and one day you and yours will be free of this tyrant of a man and believe me life will never have been better,ok cheaper and tighter but better!!

His double standards ae breathtaking. He assumes the right to tyranise you and the kids about things like gravel - he is happy to reduce you to tears over mugs, spilt wine - but he expects to get away scot free, and have none of you answer back over his destructive parenting. He thinks carpets matter, but his son crying over the way daddy treats mummy doesn't.

SM - you have to start making some practical plans. I think you will feel better if you can see an actual escape route. I saw that someone on the Lone Parents Board had suggested the CAB as a good start for finding out all your rights and entitlements. You have come so far, and are now in the painful position of knowing that your life shouldn't be lived like this - and worse that the DSs have been badly affected, but do not yet how you could manage the practicalities of making a new and better life for yourself.

Get on those fact finding missions, find out what other women did, somehow find time to make an appointment with CAB - or maybe any other legal advisors that your HV / freedom training people could suggest.

And what more reason could you need for going on the freedom training course (however you choose to describe it to H!): If H hasn't / won't / can't change his behaviour, you need to find the confidence to stand up to him and not cry - so that your little boy doesn't see any more of this.

keep going SM - you're doing so well.

great advice (as always ) Blu - couldnt agree more