Well, here it is, two days after the great birthday fiasco of 2007. About the only thing that's better is that I changed antibiotics, and I no longer feel like I am swimming backwards in a maelstrom. But yeah, that really is the only thing that's better.
Night before last, husband discovers a sign on the kid's door, complete with a mangled photo of guess-who and an announcement that she hates his guts. Husband manages to fight his initial impulse to yank her out of bed and paddle her butt, and comes to find me instead to talk about it. He seems pretty horrified and hurt that she would 1) do that to a photograph of him 2) announce that she hates his guts and 3) tape it to her door. I explain to him that those feelings are relatively normal in kids when they are disciplined, and I ask him how he feels. Is he angry because she taped it to her door or is he hurt because she feels that way? Both, he says. I tell him that he needs to let her know that while he understands that she will get angry and feel that way, taping that to the door becomes something else: a statement meant to hurt and defy. He says he doesn't know if he can do that without crying in front of her. I also tell him that he has to become something more to her than a source of punishment and lectures. He reveals that the source of his difficulty is that for example, he doesn't want to take her to the movies because one time he took her and she complained that she didn't get candy AND popcorn. In other words, he doesn't forget anything that she ever does wrong and just anticipates everything going the same way every time because when she was eight, she bitched about something. Oh boy.
Anyway, yesterday while we are on the way to the store, just us girls, I talk to daughter about the note on the door and tell her exactly what I told husband that he needed to say. I also tell her how much it hurt her daddy's feelings, and that while sometimes it really is hard to tell that he cares as much as he does, he really does have a big soft spot under that growly exterior. Husband and daughter sat down last night at the kitchen table and had a discussion about just what happened. Husband apologized for his part and daughter apologizes for hers. Husband discloses information about his childhood such as the fact that his dad used to make him ride in the back of the truck on road trips so his dad wouldn't have to listen to him and the fact that his mom never told him that she loved him until he was twenty-six years old. (???????????)
Right before we go to sleep, I ask husband if he is satisfied with the results of their discussion. He says that he does some, but... Then he asks if I am still going to make an appointment to get her some help. My dander rises instantly, because you guessed it, I am thinking HER? About you, too, asshole. Don't you dare try to lay all of this on the kid. At this point, honey, we ALL need help. Damn. I tell him that it is really not a good time to get into that, as I have always asked (demanded - even though I've been largely unsuccessful) that we do not get into controversial, emotionally charged issues either last thing before bed OR first thing in the morning (especially before I have to go to work). He agrees, and we go to sleep. I have nightmares.
We both get up at about the same time, and I have a really hard time waking up and becoming human. He asks me a couple of times why I am mad at him, and I tell him that I am not. I am just having a hard time waking up. Husband goes off to the hardware store to buy some new gloves, and when he comes home, he makes arrangements to drop off a couple of ricks of firewood to a customer out in the county. I want to help load and unload (good exercise!), so I choke down the last of my breakfast protein shake so I can go get changed. Husband takes his birthday card from his mom down off the microwave so he can get the check out to deposit it. There's no check in there. He asks me if I think that maybe the kid took care of the check for him when she was mad. That sets off all kinds of alarms with me as I know that it's possible, sure, but it is just as likely or probably more so, that he took it out already and lost it. I tell him that there really is no way to know, but I hope that's not what happened. Kid comes strolling into the kitchen in search of breakfast, and husband asks her. She looks surprised (which doesn't mean a whole lot) and says that she has no idea what happened to it.
I go to change clothes, and husband and I go out to the woodpile to load the trailer. Husband asks me again if I think that she could have done it, and I get upset. I tell him that he needs to just let it go as there is no way to know what happened and it is entirely possible that he lost it just like he lost his mom's Christmas check AND the payment check from a purchase order just a couple of days before. He tells me that he is just trying to talk to me as a friend, and I tell him that if he is interested in letting that entire fiasco go, then he needs to let it go. He wants to know who he is supposed to talk to if he can't talk to me as he has no friends - and that's the truth. (I've suggested many times that he join the VFD, join a riding club, help me find a church with a men's group that he feels comfortable with, etc., and he declines, saying that he seems to only try to make friends with people who want to use him for what he can repair, etc., and he's tired of getting his feelings hurt. I've told him 1000 times that it's not healthy to live his entire life this way, and he agrees, but that's all that ever comes of that.) So we argue about all of that - I tell him that he needs to just shut up about it all, that even if she had done something when she was mad, there was no way to prove it and nothing positive could ever come out it either way. I told him that I was sick and tired of being in the middle and that I didn't want to hear about it anymore. By this time, I am crying, and it is mostly because I feel such an incredibly heavy mix of emotional exhaustion, hopelessness, and frustration. I tell him just to leave me alone about it all as it is just as likely that he lost it just like he lost the first check (not fair, he says) and there is nothing that we can do about it now. I also tell him that I resent him asking me if we are going to get the kid help, that at this point it is all of us. He says he agrees. He asks me why I think it's fair that he is still paying for the mistakes he made in the big birthday fiasco, so I look at him and ask why it's fair that *I* am still paying, too, when I didn't orchestrate any of that particular fiasco. He says he doesn't understand how I am paying for it all. I try to explain but I don't think that it did any good. I tell him to leave me alone, and he goes to make his delivery.
So here I am at the kitchen table, still trying to think about how I feel about all of this. I am afraid for my marriage and my family. I know that the kid can be a defiant little monster sometimes, and I know that my husband has all of the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old. In all fairness, I have to admit that I am one of those let's-not-talk-about-it-and-see-if-it-goes-away type people who has been thrust into the role of mediator. Meanwhile, I am getting so depressed that I don't know how to handle it, and I sometimes contemplate running away from home, even though I seriously doubt that I could do that, even if it does become more and more appealing.
Is there anything that we can do on our own to make this better? I don't really know. I thought that we were making progress last night when we all sat here at this same table and husband explained his actions, told the kid what he wished he had not done and apologized, and then explained what he would do again because he feels that it was right. He gave a set a east-to-understand rules and a time line for getting her cell phone (one week of doing her chores correctly and not eating in her room). Kid apologizes for her fit and hurting his feelings with the poster. She admits that she really does feel that he is evil sometimes, and he discussed the basis of some of his ideas and feelings. He even admitted that showing and receiving affection makes him feel uncomfortable and nervous. The he wants to know later if we are going to get HER some help. Jesus.
IN a little while, he is going to be back, and I find myself dreading it.
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