SUPPORT for all living with estrangement

we're OK thanks but finding this lock down more difficult than the last one, due I think to the new variant and the worry that it's transmitting much faster

Glad you are ok Smileless. We feel the same as you and very wary, especially with the situation in many hospitals now! We have also massively reduced our need to shop with one big shop a month, freezer batch cooking, even more detailed planning ahead than normal etc. Still wondering how long all this will go on before we start to see a turn around in the NHS pressure, number of cases and deaths. Those deaths are not just statistics and it is so hard to hear the individual stories from relatives etc.

Looking back, I don't know how we managed either TBH Rhinestone. It nearly broke us and think if we'd stayed much longer I'd have completely fallen apart.

The thought that your ES could have been there must be terrifying. It looks from what we're seeing here that security is going to be extremely tight. All we can do is hope and pray that it's tight enough.

Stay safe x

Rhinestone I hope security is VERY tight and I am sorry that you have such a worry about ES

Hi Madgran I must say my shopping lists are a lot more well planned than they used to be, especially at the weekend when I was getting food for the new freezer.

I haven't been to church since March and although ours is still open Mr. S. isn't going for the foreseeable future. We're having a zoom PCC meeting to discuss and vote whether it should be closed next week, and we both think it should be.

I can no longer listen to the stories from those who have lost loved ones due to Covid, it's just too upsetting and I have to admit that this is the first time I've felt afraid.

With DS in Aus. and being estranged by his brother, I worry about one of us being left if something happens to the other. We're totally devoted and reliant on one another and although we do have extended family and good friends, we both feel that 'it's us two against the world' if you know what I mean. I guess this pandemic has made us more aware that that is how things are.

Hello to good friends I have found here and I hope everyone has found a way to cope with the latest lockdown.
I have been quiet since Christmas and New Year only because
I embraced the festive time although it was really different from anything I have known in a lifetime and yet I found enjoyment and peace and got through it.
It was obvious January would bring this chaos and the lockdown after people mixing over the holiday and I am at the point where I kind of just go into a non Covid hibernation and let the world pass on by.
Shopping gets delivered and I do the occasional shop if things have been forgotten and the dogs are walked which has become a favorite activity and gets me outside apart from that I am back home.
I tend to agree with you Smileless2012 and do not listen to
many stories about people losing loved ones to Covid as it is upsetting and also I do follow the necessary updates about Covid just to keep up with things but do not watch and listen to every story and bit of news about it as it can then just overtake your life. I am wary and find the overall death toll frightening and cannot believe that a pandemic could change our way of living so drastically.
Family life is okay although I will not get into a long story over it but just say it is alright, and my brother moved into a new flat last Friday and all I can say is "Thank God" he is finally in there, he wanted to get into it before Christmas but it was being refurbished so he had to wait and he was so impatient and kept phoning me to try and make the people hurry up. Anyway he is in there now so I told him get on with your house arranging and settle down.
Everyone take care and if I am quiet on here it's only because my hibernation mode kicks in and that's not just because of Covid I always feel that way until about March and the first signs of spring.

Hang in there everyone. It's always darkest before the dawn.

Too true hugs. How are you? xx

Bit wrecked atm PF. How are you?

What a nightmare here with the vaccines. I can’t get my DM a vaccine shot as the older ones are all getting it through their senior apartments but my DM lives in her own home. Yet people who know people, who are younger than me, are getting it by going to their parents apartments or assisted living places and saying they are their parents caretakers when I know they aren’t. And teachers who were supposed to all have them by now can’t get them. The government said we had supplies they were holding back and now it comes out they don’t.
Yesterday my ES called my DM. He was walking his dog as he talked to her. She heard him screaming horrible things to a man with his dog who was off leash. She told him she had to hang up. She said he was lucky the man didn’t have a gun as he probably would have shot my ES as his mouth was so vicious.One more thing to make me nervous and anxious about.

To say life is hard for you would be an understatement wouldn't it Rhinestone. Situations like Covid show the best and the worse of human nature don't they.

Sorry you're feeling "bit wrecked atm" hugshelp.

Mr. S. have found a great way of chasing away the blues this evening by singing along and dancing too 'that's 70's' on the TV. The dogs are a bit bemused but we've been having a great time.

How are you doing PF?

Sending you all a BIG hug.

Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street' has just come on and Mr. S. is pretending to play the saxaphone.

Struggling at present, thanks for asking, Smileless, so I am keeping away from the thread as I am not feeling very positive right now, but would like to send hugs to you, Rhinestone, hugs, nanny, and everyone else sad or in need. XX

And I agree that music is very healing xx

Just remember PF that we're all here for you and if there's anything we can do to help, you only have to askxx

PF sorry that you are struggling! One day at a time isn't it. [ flowers]

Thank you Smilelessand PF. I appreciate your support.
PF We are here for you. It’s easier sometimes to help others than ourselves.
Boy Mr. S. sounds like he’s having a good time and that’s what we all need.

Yes we had fun last night we've always been pretty good at making our own entertainment which during lock down has been a bonus.

Smileless it sounds like Mr. S. was having fun chasing away the blues after all it was called Blue Monday on the 18th.
I was not as energetic as that and watched a film in the afternoon.
P.F sorry to hear you are struggling take things slowly and be extra kind to yourself.
I feel a bit blue myself today due to the dismal rain outside
but I still am going to take a short walk for some fresh air.

Yes he was having fun 3nanny unfortunately on Tuesday he found another outlet for his boredom which wasn't fun at all.

He thought he'd see if our ES's f.i.l. was on face book. He is, and on his page was a photo of him and our youngest GS who looked to be about 3 years age.

So there's our GC's GF, the man who used to physically abuse his former wife, their GM and on at least one occasion put her in hospital over night.

The man who once punched his only D in the face when she was 11 and in a drunken rage, when M and D had their backs literally against a wall drove his car at them, putting them in fear of their lives.

So that box that we all have and don't want to open, just opened up enough for the memory of that day, before they were married, when ES told me if they ever had children he wouldn't let her parents any where near them.

I told him he couldn't do that because they're her parents and if she wants them to be a part of the lives of any children they have, it would be wrong for him to say no. He could insist that they never have the child(ren) without one or both of them being present, but that's all.

Oh the irony; we're the ones who aren't allowed any where near or any contact with our GC.

Mr. S. was upset by the photo and I was angry at the utter ridiculousness of it all and asked yet again how the hell did we end up like this.

It's not the first time Mr. S. has looked on face book and found things that would have been better not found. I've said yet again that he shouldn't, it's not worth it and can only hope that he heeds my warning and this is the last time.

Every time he does, he gets upset and my heart hardens even more.

Smileless2012 , Hi, I'm new here and hope I'm not upsetting an established etiquette ( or you personally) by jumping in and replying to your post without having introduced myself before.

Reading what you've said about Mr S looking for people and that experience of seeing GC having relationships with people you know to have been abusive etc... Oh how familiar that is! My ex, a vile man who traumatised my son as a child ( that abuse being the primary reason for our divorce) is now the wonderful parent who can do no wrong. Pictures of him with my GD abound and it makes my stomach churn. I no longer look for the reasons you gave to Mr S.

But I can understand why he does. I have come to the conclusion that this cleaving to toxic people and rejecting others is because 'we' ( the hopefully non toxic) make it easy by being reasonable, understanding and accepting. Toxic people make others fight for their attention and crumbs of affection and when they are abusive they make it about the victim's behaviour and not their own choice to be vile. Why would a person fight for something already there? The love and support most of us have given freely to our estranged persons is often a given and needed no fighting for. In fact sometimes that it was freely given has bred some weird contempt - as if we are weak in some way, whilst the abusers show 'strength'. Trauma bonding is weird stuff.

I hope I'm making sense, but overall I think one of the reasons some of us do carry on looking, even when it harms us, is because giving it up means facing the loss of hope. For me, that loss of hope has been the hardest thing I grieve - yet grieving it has been the most useful. I have a hard heart these days too, but it's soft where it matters.

I hope Mr S and you will find some peace with this - I hope we all will.

Welcome to GN Nell and thank you for your lovely response to my post.

I couldn't agree more and I too found "that loss of hope has been the hardest thing I grieve -yet grieving it has been the most useful".

On a closed online site for estranged parents I used to go on, one of the mum's there referred to the 'hope devil'; for me a very apt description of the hope we all have to some degree, that things will change, that our estranging adult child will come back and we can be reconciled.

For me, accepting that that hope was futile enabled me to move on and enabled us to move on literally, by selling our family home and starting again somewhere new.

8 years since our estrangement this is something that Mr. S. still struggles with, and the explanation you have given as to why he still 'looks' fits perfectly.

"I have a hard heart these days too, but it's soft where it matters" beautifully expressed.

We have found peace, peace and happiness neither of which we ever thought would be possible in the first few years, and that was finally found when we moved here just over 4 years ago.

I think for all of us who have been estranged, moving on and acceptance will always be a work in progress and as we found on Tuesday, you never know when something will suddenly pull you back to a place you work so hard to avoid.

I hope we'll see you post again.

Thank you for the welcome, and for the kind reminder that this does ease. I am so glad that you've found peace and a way to accommodate this thing that feels so wrong and unnatural - it shows such a lot of strength and wisdom. Something I believe we all have despite how hard it is to face the feelings at times.

I agree it is a work in progress, we moved to a different place too and it has helped. The new start had been very symbolic, yet as you say it's still hard sometimes.

There was a tentative attempt from my son last year to reach out, but in all honesty it didn't work. The whole thing felt like bait - to get us to react so he could justify his changed feelings for us. I didn't feel like he wanted a relationship, it was more a demand for subordination, or else. I chose the or else. Anything less would have made me a part of the problem, not the solution. To model relationships 'at any cost' to my GD is not who I want to be or what I want to be part of her understanding of relationships. I can still love them with all my heart. I just don't have to like what my son has chosen to do and neither am I obliged to accept his wife's frankly disgusting attitude towards us.

Anyway, sorry for the 'blurt' it's the first time I've spoken about this outside of home. Thanks again for the welcome - it means a lot. Salve for the bruises!

Smileless, I do feel for you, you describe the dysfunctional family your son has chosen over yours. Mr S went on Facebook, a part if him still hankers for son he had, that love doesn’t go but your son is a million miles away from what he was.
Rhinestone, it’s so awful for you seeing your son in such a bad mental state, he needs help you can’t give but you need to really protect you and your husband by distancing if you can as nothing you can do will change things. Why do parents put up with the unforgivable, things they would never tolerate from anyone else. I know I’ve done it to, it’s been a waste of years.
You would think in these awful times it would make children want to reunite, but no, they seem to have no feelings..

I understand what you're saying Nell we can't be something or something that we're not just to facilitate a relationship, not even with our own adult children.

I lost my mum last September and he sent an email. It was the last thing I wanted and my initial reaction was to ignore it but I knew how hard it was for him to send it, so I replied. I hope I wont be hearing from him again.

I showed an email we got from our ES at the time we received it to a very dear friend. She'd known him since he was 2 years old, and said it was like reading the ramblings of a mad man, and that all he wanted was our total capitulation. If she hadn't known he had written it, she could never have believed it came from him.

You don't have to apologise for the "blurt" you are among friends on this thread. It feels good doesn't it, to be able to say how you really feel to others who understand because they're going through it too.

There's a part of Mr. S. who knows that our ES "is a million miles away from what he was" and a part of him that still cannot believe or accept the person he has become Sparkling.

Perhaps it's our instinct as parents to "put up with the unforgivable" and if and when we get to the point that we can't do so any longer, we are judged and told we're wrong.

I've seen many posts here on GN over the years, that talk of unconditional love that don't understand what that really is. It means we love our children unconditionally, so despite being estranged by them and for many of us losing our GC too, we continue to love them, even if for some of us, we never want to see them again.

That is unconditional love. I've often wished I could just stop loving him, but I can't.

Spot on, Smileless2012 - well, for me anyway. I'm fairly confident that if I were to grovel and beg, apologise for things I didn't do and generally humble myself and stroke some ego I could re establish contact by the end of the evening. But what DS and DIL did to me broke me, I am no longer the same person. I remain kind, but I am also wary, cynical, reluctant etc and I like myself less for it. The love will never end, but like you I will not allow another opportunity for the brutality. And it was brutal, I think it is for any loving parent.

What I should have said first is how sorry I am for your loss - my mother died a few years back and it's hard. Responding to your ES with compassion as you did at that time shows deep integrity - and unconditional love! I hope he respects you for it and aspires to it.

Smileless2012 oh goodness I feel such sadness for Mr. S.(your post 21st Jan. 13.55).
I totally understand where Mr. S. is coming from he still has his memories of your E.S and the heart can rule the head sometimes and he still even after almost 8 years thinks of the son that has turned his back on him and also yourself.

It is almost like re-opening a box that you know should stay closed and yet there is something that drives you on to search for something and just maybe find answers.
The picture would certainly have upset him, just wondering what you felt like to look at it.
The ex F.I.L sounds a nasty piece of work and as you say it makes you wonder why your ES would have ever wanted him near your G.C. That in itself would be hurtful.

You are right in saying estrangement is always going to be a work in progress and even when we are successfully enjoying life again something so small as looking up someone on Facebook can pull us back to a place that we
are best avoiding.

I am posting late on here tonight and will soon be off to bed,
I have had my son here with me for the last three days, as like most of us he has problems and has not been seeing eye to eye with his other half . I hopefully have talked some sense into him and his other halfs brother has been out walking with him and also done a lot of talking. Anyway he has gone back home to her for now which he needs to do what with her being pregnant and all.
So will leave things for now hope Mr. S. is feeling better.

Welcome to Gransnet NellG and I hope you will find this a welcoming place to be. I cannot add much more just now
as it has been a long three days and I need some sleep.
Take care All