I'm 51 and back in college, working on a degree in Environmental Science, should be cake for me at this stage of my life, and with my understanding of the subject matter, but my life and the complications which act as bricks on my back which stem from my wife and son sink me in even shallow water. I am drowning and those who should love, support and help me are twisted and destructive, and I have to put forth real effort just to get through a week without some sort of major disaster.
The bulk of the problems originate with my wife and her addiction to pain medication and sloth, and while there are some valid reasons for her problems, most of them come from her own choices and lack of effort in making a better life. She is NOT on the same page with me, and acts more like an enemy than an ally.
You would figure a wife would be someone willing to elicit what is best in a marriage and a companionship, but this is not my lot in life. For a long time I was the workhorse, fixing anything that went wrong, working to make things better, and carry on the functions of a family, but I forever get no cooperation; moreover, it seems as if she choose to work against me.
There is no middle ground, no humility on her part, no willingness to admit shortcomings of put forth effort to fix problems, there's just a litany of excuses and reasons why everything is my fault. My son picks up on this discourse and has learned to take advantage of it, and she paints me as the villain. In speaking, I am forever cut off, not hardly allowed to even finish a sentence. I have tried many approaches, but everything is taken advantage of, so my only defense left is yelling until I am left alone. It is the only way I am able to retain any ground of my own. This is my sadness, when her attitudes and lack of will to fix anything or give effort destroys everything, including our son, who has learned how to cherry pick and take advantage and focus on what he doesn't have and can't do rather than what he does have and can do.
Everyone has faults, and I'm no exception, but mine are mostly now generated from these no win situations and hopeless and unproductive conflicts. It is clear to me that the person making a point of doing things the right way is seen as the nemesis of those who take the lesser way. I am left without many resources and family members who set out to destroy or sabotage positive efforts.
I do blame my wife for tainting and damaging our son, because instead of being on the same page with me like I always tried to do with her when she was putting forth effort, when she used to put forth some effort, she would often work directly against me.
Men are often viewed as supposedly being able to fix everything and when things go wrong that somehow it is their failure in allowing things to go awry, and if we can't fix things that somehow it is all our fault, but my wife, in trying to be friend before parent and in castrating my authority, has taken away any set of consequences that would compel our son to do the right thing. It has made morality for its own sake a choice open to debate and doing good something where a reward is expected without effort or being earned.
Over time this has even damaged me, making me depressed and making me feel hopeless and that I am alone in fighting to make things which should be right naturally at least acceptable on basic levels. My son puts in no effort to do schoolwork, to study, to accomplish anything, to work to create, to take pride in what he does, to do something where there is an investment without immediate reward. These flaws come from her and her alone, and my fault is that I couldn't correct the connective person who put these things into play.
I could list the reasons why she is now this way and how she doesn't even see it, but it deals mostly with her taking so many pills and being on methadone for over a decade. I remained a wellspring always coming back with effort and working to fix what was steady being broken, but after a while that gets old and there's just no longer any ability to fix, it becomes enabling, and the will to keep at it just fades away. Now what was expected is removed and there is a demanding by both for me to do things for them I no longer have the will or emotional ability to do for them. It is their turn to do some things for themselves.
More and more people have come to see the reality of it and understand, and see that what I was saying wasn't just an excuse. I had and have a sense of duty to stick things out even when difficult but I just can't allow myself to be taken advantage of especially when it may cripple my son. I hope there is time to correct these missing elements before he becomes an adult, that he learns the real value of working at something even through sustained failure to make practice until perfect, to earn the things and skills desired.
Failure is not a lack of ability but a lack of effort to attempt.
Friends recognize and tell me that there has to be something there for me, that I just can't keep giving and getting nothing back.
At this point, my only want is for my son to learn what he needs to do well in life, even if he winds up hating me for it and what I have to do to fix this. If I have to lose whatever love for me Judy hasn't killed in him to save him then that is a cost I will gladly pay to save him from himself. Altruism sucks.
I hope Judy gets fixed in the process, but I have just suffered too much and have been left alone and wanting too much for too long. The romance is gone, lost, and I don't know that I even want that back. There are just too many bad memories and ghosts, she has cost me too much. I deserved so much better, and when I think of how much was taken for granted I just don't want it.
But now it is 12:33 and I am going to go fishing and get away from some of this....... I just listened to about 20 Frank Turner songs and feel between melancholy, hopeful, resolved, and a little bit at peace.... but just a little.
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