Is he wrong or am i just too sensitive?

[prettybutrfly126]

Hi Everybody,

 

I have been reading through all of your posts and decided i would finally start a new thread. Me and my fiance have needed an outsider to tell us what the problem is for quite a while. Let me just say that we have had so many differences in the short time that we have been together that its caused too many arguments and disagreements. Okay, i guess i just need to know if i have serious head problems or is he just being difficult. This is it, we cannot afford premarital counceling so im hanging on all of your guys's insight. And please, i wont be offended if your blunt and to the point..its what i need. I wouldnt be here if it wasnt.

 

Okay, let me just start by giving you all our history. Bare with me!! To start, he is 30 and i am 29. I have 2 children ages 13 and soon to be 11 by a previous relationship. He had no previous kids. We now have a 3 month old baby. Our backgrounds are pretty much similar as far as the way we were raised except I pretty much had to grow up at a young age without much support. I was pregnant and had a baby by the time i was 16 and the words of my mother were "you've made your bed now lay in it" and kicked me out while pregnant. I was in that relationship with my kids father for 6 years until the drug problem got too bad that i finally left.

 

My next relationship was 6 years as well to a guy that i beleived loved me way more than i could ever love him. By this time, now i was on drugs and he was supporting me and my 2 kids. I was on drugs for about 3 of those 6 years and when i finally got off of drugs, i felt that he was controlling me and never let me do anything. Let me just say that if i had fun without him it was a sin in his eyes. I was pretty much a married woman..staying at home and doing all that a stay at home mom does...all along being on drugs. I was considered a functioning addict. I was that good, that nobody ever knew that i was on drugs untill i finally admitted it when i decided to become sober. Being sober brought our relationship to a whole new light, I wanted to go out now and have fun, I wanted to be a mom...but a loving mom, a sober mom, a mom that did things with her children and didnt just take care of them and all in all I just knew that this relationship wasnt for me anymore...I was just a different person. I got a job, and found this new found self esteem in myself...I was supporting myself now...and pretty much realized that i wasnt in love with this person anymore. He will be a great husband for some lucky lady one day but just not for me. One thing i loved about him was that even though my boys were not his, he always had a special love for them. He played with them and disiplined them. He treated them as his own and my kids were so young that they didnt know any better.

 

My 3rd relationship was with a younger guy, 6 years younger...he brought into my life all the things i never had. WOW he let me go out without him to clubs and wasnt insecure about it and even asked "did i have a good time? That was certainly something i was never used to. To tell the truth, the first time I told him i was going out, when i got back i was soooo nervous about what he was going to say to me...I was just so used to my previous relationship that I thought he was going to acuse me of cheating. But he never did!! I finally let my guard down. In this relationship....he was like a big brother to my children, LOL well close to it anyways. It was just so different, he played video games with them and told them ghost stories at night. He helped them with their homework and disiplined them as well. We did more family things all together than i ever remember doing in the last 6 years in the previous relationship. And not only that but he treated me like i was heaven on earth. He showed me off to all his friends and he did the most sweetest things for me. Things that made me want to do the same in return. I would surprise him when he came home from work with a nighty on or cook him special meals for just him and I. The response when i did these things was so much more welcoming than i ever remembered in the previous relationship let me tell you. Let me also mention that i was his first relationship ever so he definately was not previously influenced. And of course I was in love, i mean, look what i had to compare him to. Anyhow, that relationship ended after 2 years....let me just say that the playing house life just wasnt for him. He needed a single women with no kids.

 

which brings me to my current relationship. sorry so long guys but just trying to give you a bit of insight...or maybe an idea for the reason i think the way i do. I met my fiance only 1 week after my ex and i broke up. I was up front and honest with him about my ex and was still obviously heartbroken and now i realize i probably shouldnt have gotten involved so quickly because some of our arguements stem from my previous relationship. Now not so much as before. Anyhow, weve been together now for 2 years and 4 months. My baby is 3 months and let me tell you that I never wanted to have another baby before i met Rick. But it happened and not only that, but i loved him so much that i wanted to give him what he wanted. A baby and a family. I always wanted that as well but never wanted more until i met rick. We got engaged only about 2 weeks before i got pregnant. It seemed perfect. I figured we would be married and have this baby together and life would be great. He was getting along with my 2 boys just perfect. I mean i could ask for a little more play time with them but hey not every body is like my ex...thats what i told myself.

 

He had heart to heart talks with them and taught them right from wrong from a mans point of view. My youngest boy 10 has been diagnosed with adhd and had been for quite a while but i was just always scared to medicate him. I handled him the best way i knew how. Well i pretty much delt with it. I have had no previous mommy training, you've read from the beginning...i got pregnant at 16. **** i taught myself to be a mom and a dad. And I feel that ive done pretty good with them. They dont cuss, they go to school every day and they know that is a priority...weve had movie night together since i cant even remember which is our time every fridays. I mean ive taught them all that there is to know about being a respectful child. But sometimes thats not enough in some peoples eyes. The problem is with my youngest whom is adhd and my fiance.

 

My biggest arguement with my fiance is that he doesnt do enough things with me and the boys as a family. He goes to work at 8 at night and most of the time only works part time...the rest of the day he isolates himself in the room and only comes out when he is hungry. Now he pretty much has no idea what goes on outside the room except for when i decide to update him. Okay, now heres where the arguements come in and this is pretty much why he says that be doesnt like to do anything with the boys.

 

He says that they dont respect him and he will not do anything with a child if they cant respect him. I agree, i think that all children should respect adults just because they are adults but he thinks coming out of the room and regulating rules is cool but then doesnt talk to them otherwise unless he's bitching at them. They're relationship has definately dwindled from when we first got together. At first things were fine between them, but now since its not the same I feel like maybe it was all an act to impress me. Ive always told him that i wanted him to be himself around me, cause i am not high maintenance at all....im a kick back type of girl and just listening to his past relationship it seemed it was all about what he could give her materially. Id rather have time spent with me and the boys and affection more than anything. maybe hes gotten too comfortable??

 

To me it seems like he has just given up on my boys. In the beginning i admit that i wouldnt let him disipline my boys because i felt that i didnt know how long he would be around and I didnt want to confuse my boys any more with men. I even lashed out at him once for yelling at my son while in my presence...of course it was something that was perfectly legitamate but i felt that he needed to tell me about it and i would disipline him. But now, things are different...we have been together for over 2 years...of course i want him to be a role model for them and if he sees them doing something wrong, then definately regulate them....not hit them, just punish them and explain to them.

 

He said i dont know what i want because first i dont want him to disipline and now i do. Ive explained to him that times have changed, we are engaged now, and we are making a life together...he needs to step in when he sees them doing things wrong and he needs to spend time with them most importantly to give his words meaning and hopefully they will want to be good for him. He said he will try and he said once in a heart to heart that we recently had that he feels guilty...he said its hard now, because yes...he feels like he had given up on them. I already knew that though. I just need to know....do you all think this will change in any way?

 

I am the weak parent and he has always been the strong. I think that talking to them will help most of the time and he thinks that a good ass beating or a very long grounding will do the trick. Its hard for me to be this way, so we came to an understanding that....when he finds that the boys have done something wrong, then he needs to punish them as he sees fit (except for hitting because i just dont beleive in it) and i promise to stand by his side. And he needs to realize that theres nothing wrong with hugging and talking to my child when they are in trouble. He thinks its they're way of making me forget what they are in trouble for. I think he just wont understand untill his own child gets a little bit older and then maybe he will be a little more lenient and fatherly.

 

Anyhow, there are other issues of course but this one being the one that comes up the most. Especially with my youngest son as i said. He thinks that i give him special privelages because he has adhd. He said that i dont see all the bad things that he does and he just cant ignore them. Im trying to make him understand that to keep myself sane i choose to ignore some of the small things my son does....like putting his shoes on the couch when he knows hes not supposed to or eating a banana in the living room when he knows eating is only to be done in the kitchen. I will simply say "Andrew, are your feet supposed to be on the couch?" where he would ground him because its a rule that he is obviously breaking and that is disrespecting him.

 

What do you guys think...do you think he will try for the long run? Or am i the one wrong here? Should i make more of an issue to enforce rules? As far as spending time goes, he said that he is just not an inniator but will do things with us as long as i plan them...and thats just what ive done. So this for now seems to have been fixed. Guys be brutally honest!! I wont mind.

[seriously confused]

Well I need to say that you should really consider what you are getting into. if he is locking himself in a room all the time then what do expect he will do for the rest of your life if you marry him? I really think that yoiu should reconsider a commitment with him if he shows no interest in you and your kids. Please talk to him and find out what his intentions are with you and your kids.

 

Good luck honey...........................from seriously confused

[HoldOn]

Many therapists and counselors will help you on a sliding scale, which means that you pay them only as much as you can. Some churches have free counseling. Please look around and find someone that will help you.

 

I don't know what to say to your story. It seems that your fiance isn't a good father and I don't think he is going to change, but at this point with the kids involved I think you should work as hard as you can to save this relationship...

 

Please find some kind of marital counseling....

[HoldOn]

Also...grounding a 10-year-old for eating a banana in the living room??? Ridiculous!

[prettybutrfly126]

HOLD ON... dont you have to be a catholic or christian or even a member of the church to get free counceling? I havent been to church in years...i would think you would have to atleast be a member of the church for the services. I dont know, but i have called some pre marital counceling places and they are just way too expensive. They say first 2 hours are free and im assuming all they will do is listen for the first 2 hours and then rack up all the fees as the hours pass. We just cant afford it right now. But im still looking for some cheaper places.

 

Im thinking this will not just be a 2 hour session but rather a few days. Because this issue is just too sensitive. I love this guy and i have seen great change in him in the past with any other subject but this one just hasnt really gotten any better. I told him to just start with asking one of the boys if they want to take a ride with him to the store just to let them know hes trying. Instead he went out and bought them each golf sets because he is a golfer and now uses that to hold against them for when they are supposedly acting right. Dont you think you have to start a good relationshipwith them and then bargain? I really do want to make this work, i just know that i will have to keep pressing the issue. The sad thing is that my youngest son...even though he does have adhd...he is the most sweetest child. When he comes home from school he makes an effort to go into the room to say hello to rick. And there was even a time when he would hug and kiss him goodnight. but now im sure he feels the tention.

[moimeme]

This guy is a dud. He's not good with your kids - and kids with AD/HD badly need excellent parents. Which this guy is not. Anybody who thinks 'asswhipping' is an effective method of teaching kids is a twit.

 

You can't 'make' this work. Haven't you heard that you *never* marry someone hoping he will change? He hasn't, he won't and the sooner you get rid of him and start looking for a good man who is also a good father, the better it will be.

[HoldOn]

I was just suggesting a church as an option, many many couselling centers use a sliding scale, NOT just church-based ones.

 

However, I don't think you have to be a member to get help. All this time you are spending writing your story you could spend looking for marital counselling centers in your area. If your fiance bought golf clubs for the boys, then you could afford counselling too!

 

Anyway, I still don't think your fiance will ever be a good father. He sounds like a grade A @a**h***. (sorry for the bluntness)

[jmargel]

Alot of the ways a parent interacts with a child, is the same way they were brought up. Apparently he was brought up with alot of punishment. Thus, this is what he is accustomted too. As you were probably not punished or grounded as harsh.

 

All of you need to do things as a family, and for counseling, most health insurance covers it. Him locking himself in this room, could be a sign of him distancing himself from you & the kids, and it could also be a sign of depression. Have you asked him why he does this? Ask him what is making him so unhappy? Unfortunetly it seems he is taking this unhappiness out on your kids as well. He may not even be realizing this.

 

I don't think it was an 'act' when he was getting along well with your kids. He probably really does want to get along with them, it's just he's taking his frustrations and unhappiness and not communicating it effectivily. Once you get answer to those questions, come back w/ the answers. Maybe I can help you a little more then.

[Wellnowuknow]

Let me give you a little of my background because it relates.

 

My mother had me when she was 17 and my grandmother kicked her out to live with my father and raise me on her own. She had another baby my brother with him and then couldnt take my fathers drug addiction anymore so she left him.

She then found my step father.

 

In the begining he was great with us. Took us to the park, brought us toys w/e, my brother and I were little so we were extremeley happy with him because we didn't know better.

 

They got married and he bought us a house and then everything changed. He would lock himself in his room all day after work and smoke pot. He would only come out to watch TV and eat. The only time he would talk to my brother and I was to punish us or scream at us for ridiculous things. I remember getting punished for watching a TV show called MTV. He never took us out, we weren;t allowed to have friends over and we felt like he wanted to be with my mother and we were a burden to him. That he had to deal with us to be with my mother.

 

My brother and I hated him and despised my mother for putting up with him to keep her house and keep him happy. It just got worse untill one day I guess my mom finally realized that he wasn't right and we weren't happy and she was neglecting us to keep him. She realized that she wasn't being the best mother and finally left him.

 

My real father was in jail so I didnt have him and then the dad I thought I was getting in the begining turned out to be jason from hell. I've never gotten over the fact I didn't have a father to take me out or go to school meetings or go see my school plays and just a dad to hang out with. i was always scared of my step father. I felt like he was a ticking time bomb and I had to be careful of what I did cuz anything would set him off.

 

I think your headed in the same direction and you dont want your kids to go through what i went through. I think you need to sit your man down and have a serious conversation about it. Either he needs to be more family oriented or your out. It's not fair to your kids.

[Craig]

Your Fiancé and you have the way that you were raised in common and that could be an attraction to each other--because you can relate to each other. The difference I see is that you have chosen to stop and think about how you were raised and decided to take a different route in raising your kids. Your husband, however, is using similar parenting methods that he was exposed to as a child. How did that make him feel as a child? Did he hate the parent(s) with the harsh parenting style? Did he become a better person because of the harsh parenting style?

 

I think your mistake was not being single long enough between relationships but that is water under the bridge and can’t be changed. It is only speculation to say that he might have been putting on an act to impress you. Maybe he thought that it would be different this time.

 

You have every right to expect him to be a GOOD role model for your children. Some people believe that a bad child wants to be bad, that the child has a free choice of being bad or good and that he can be made to be good with physical or other inappropriate punishment. That one can beat the devil out of the child. Anyone can get a child to act a certain way by hitting or inappropriate punishment but lose the child's love. Rather than beat the bad out, you will beat the hatred in. Isn’t this like what happened with your step dad?

 

Children are children and need to be taught how to act by adults who are mature adults. Children are also people and they are going to respect your husband if he earns their respect. If he is not involved in their life except to punish them by grounding them, hitting them or bitching at them how can they respect him? How would it be possible for them to feel anything but disrespect and hatred toward him?

 

It is good that you and he can have heart to heart talks during which he expresses feeling guilt regarding his treatment of your children. There is hope. Change though will probably not be immediate. There will be times when he slips back to his old ways and he may need some parenting skills to learn how to effectively parent. Think of it this way, right now his parenting skills (or parenting tools) are few and not truly effective for the long term benefit of everyone concerned. By learning about parenting skills he’ll be able to make better choices concerning disciplining your children. His parenting skills tool box will be filled with alternate choices to grounding, beating or bitching and the children will grow to respect, like and love him like every child wants.

 

You said you are the weak parent. I disagree. I think you are strong but submissive and HE is weak but dominant.

 

Your son with ADHD should be treated differently than the other children. Your husband might say that he wants to treat all the children equally (presumably because it is fair). Others would say that treating unequals equally is the greatest inequality of all. Your son didn’t choose to have ADHD he simply does and punishing him for it is simply wrong. Medication can have a dramatic effect on ADHD in children. I had childhood ADHD and now live with adult ADHD and use Ritalin or Dexidrine on an as needed basis. Having ADHD is a mixed blessing in that I can multi-task like you can’t believe, I notice everything around me and I’m interested in everything. The problem is that I don’t have enough time for all of my interests. As an adult with ADHD I enjoy having a unique reasonably technical business that I developed myself, I enjoy music, math, computer programming and am a very good private pilot in addition to many, many more things. So having ADHD isn’t in itself a sentence to a bad life.

 

You are the strong one in the relationship and you may have to “remind” your husband to discipline the children in a manner that develops love and trust rather than the inappropriate grounding, beating and bitching. Your husband can learn to be an initiator with some encouragement from you. He may not know how to initiate and maybe you can gently teach him how to be an initiator.

 

You will have to decide how much time you want to give him. Your children’s futures are at stake here and I am certain that you don’t want to have your children raised the way you or your husband were. You are bright and have decided to stop the cycle that you were in as a child and youger adult but your husband needs to join with you to stop that cycle now that he is with you. If he doesn’t begin to change (allow him some slips backward too) you are aware that your children are going to be raised the way you were and in the end you have a choice to have him influence them or not.

[prettybutrfly126]

jmargel alot of what you said is what he told me when we first got together when we were sharing our childhood and the way we were raised. Even though i was raised with a father, you might as well say i wasnt because he was on drugs all of the time and never there mentally. And his father died at the age of 29 and so he didnt really get any disipline from him...so for those reasons we always agreed that we were raised by single parents. His mother was the disciplinary and she agreed that a good ass beating was the only way, and he always says that he grew up the respectful person that he is today because his mother never let anything fly by and she was always on top of things. And he says he loves her till this day for keeping him on the right track. But thats just not my way, and i really dont know how else to explain it to him.

 

And yes, i have asked him on several occasions why he distances himself from us and he says hes just a private person and needs his alone time like everybody else. When we met he used to have anxiety really bad and seemed to be more around us than he is now. The funny thing is that its not just me and the children that he avoids...its anybody who calls, whether its his mother or best friends. Most of the time he will just screen his calls. I think thats weird but its not like he pushes me away when i try to conversate with him, its just that hes in the room alot. Maybe i really shouldnt judge that as being weird since i have my quirks as well.

 

Craig thanks so much for all the advice. I really found yours to be very direct and give me many ways of thinking about this. After reading all of your posts i decided i would sit down and have this conversation with him yet one more time. And just in time i might add. Because my son Andrew yet again broke another rule and i wanted to suggest some things to Rick to maybe go about it a different way. And to tell the truth, i was so very surprised when he came to me and said that we needed to sit down and have a talk with andrew and explain the rules all over again....

 

One of our many rules for the boys is that they cannot go off of the block that we live on and they cannot go into anybodys house whatsoever. So i came back from the store and andrew was gone and hadnt come home for about 25 minutes so i went outside looking for him...after a little while of not finding him...and i tell you by this time, im ready to do exactly as rick always suggested and put some size 8 right up his butt. But luckily he heard me yelling his name and came running. He didnt lie, he admitted he was on the next block where all the fun is...so i told him to go in his room and he is grounded.

 

Like i said, i was going to talk to rick about this so we can handle it together and just talk to him and take a few of the outings from him that are coming up. Rick got home and suggested that we sleep on it and we will talk to him tomorrow. Tomorrow came and rick took off to the store, came back with a card for me that said even though he doesnt always say it...that he loves me and gave me money to go and get my feet done. (cause i so badly needed it) LOL. He came back with a model car and all the paints, glue etc. for my oldest son and said that he noticed that he has been especially good lately and just wanted to tell him thank you and then said he wanted to talk to andrew alone. I agreed....later after the long talk andrew came out of the room and said that he was sorry for breaking the rules and that he will try his hardest not to do it again. He said rick said he was grounded for 2 days in his room with no tv. And was actually really content with this.

 

Actually I gave him another day for coming out of the room every 25 seconds just to do nothing. LOL.....sorry i couldnt help it, he was driving me crazy. I finally blew up and added a day.

 

Anyhow, i definately know there is hope for us, i still beleive we do need counceling. And I havent given up looking and saving. But in the meantime, I really really do appreciate all the input from all of you. Its amazing how many different ways of approaching this there is. And im not a quitter, i guess i was just wondering (even though i know deep down there is) if there was any reason for trying.

[jmargel]

Counseling is a must, because just as things are going smoothly for a time, he will go back and do something you don't agree with. As for the private time, he needs someone else to talk to regarding what is going on. A good counselor will speak to you both, and then have private sessions. These private sessions are only between the counselor & the patient. So if that ever happens with him & the counselor, don't ask what was said while you weren't there. Unless he gives you that info volunatarily.

 

Keep looking for a counselor, find one specializing in family & marriage counseling. Don't put this off!

[moimeme]

I would also suggest that you find someone that can advise you about dealing with kids with AD/HD. They do have trouble learning and following rules because of their deficits and some sorts of discipline work better than others. Go to http://www.chadd.org and look for a local chapter that you can join.

[jmargel]

I read there have been known links from flouride poisioning and ADD. Do your kids drink tap water, or use tap water with anything? Do they use floride toothpaste? Flouride is actually not the best for you, it does alot more harm than good. Just something to consider.

[prettybutrfly126]

No not really, i cant say that they do use tap water. He was just born with it i think because i know that every since he went to kindergarden his teachers have been telling me that he had it but since i was able to control him and i was used to it i thought his teachers probably just had too many kids to deal with and they didnt want to deal with a kid that was a little more hyper than the next kid. It wasnt till this year that i decided i would consider the medication because his school work was suffering big time and i took him to counceling for about 6 months because i thought i should try the counceling before just throwing him into the medication thing. Not only that but i was scared of how he would act on it. or maybe he might get addicted to it. But after reading up on adhd and medication, i realized i just didnt know much about it. And besides that, i can always discontinue the medication if i dont feel it helps.

 

Rick and i have seemed to be on each others sides when the kids are concered for the past few days. I just hope that it lasts. I will continue to encourage him.

[moimeme]

There are all sorts of theories about causes of ADD. They have been investigated and found to be false. Please don't believe this kind of bogus 'science'. Children are born with AD/HD. They don't 'catch' it from food dye or sugar or fluoride or anything else.

 

If you want the truth, please go to the links I posted yesterday. You can also follow links from those links but don't buy any theories that people who don't know what they are talking about feed you.

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?postid=276702#post276702