The continuing saga of our nephew (Long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Time for another update in the continuing saga of our nephew and his dead beat mother K. This is what has been happening since we officially got legal guardianship of our nephew.

Eric is now seeing a counselor. We had a hard time finding one that we were comfortable with as they all wanted to treat him like a little kid. Eric just turned 10 and he is very mature for his age. Most of the counselors we were looking at wanted to do “play therapy” with puppets and stuff. But we found a good counselor that we spent time with describing the situation. He told us that Eric is dealing with an almost text book case of attachment disorder. His behavior with his mom has been mainly him trying to be the parent to his mother. The counselor has directed us to start controlling more the circumstances of K’s visitations with Eric (What I was pushing for back in November).

Eric is starting to show signs of acceptance being here, and is also starting to realize that it will be for a long time. He still mopes around and is depressed, but he is starting to open up to us a little. It is still going to be a long road with him, but I’m glad to see him opening up to us a little.

K still has not been able to find a steady job. She does a little dog grooming once in awhile, but it doesn’t earn enough to make a difference. My in-laws no longer let her stay at their house. Basically there was an incident around December where K was giving mom-in-law some crap and dad-in-law got upset at her and pushed K into the indoor pool. So K has not stayed there since.

K’s ex decided back in December that it was getting too cold to squat out in people’s yards through the winter, so he somehow managed to get a bus ticket to Florida and is now there. We have no idea if he even has a place to stay out there, but we do know he tried to spend the night in a park and the police made him leave. He calls once in awhile to talk to Eric and has been trying to get him to give messages to K. We put a stop to that because Eric does not need to be in the middle of that drama. We told Eric that if ex ever does that again, just to have him talk to Mrs. D or myself. We also explained that to K as well and she agreed. We also explained this to the ex so hopefully he will stop this stunt.

It’s funny. Just when I think K can’t get any lower and will hit bottom, she just keeps getting worse. When she moved out from my in-laws’, she would stay at her friends’ places and would drift from one friend to another, but now they are starting to kick her out as well and she is rapidly running out of places to stay. She announced today she was going to join her ex in Florida and says he has found some work for her. I have mixed feelings about this. If she leaves, it means the drama here will stop… at least for awhile. But it almost guarantees that she won’t be continuing her drug treatment program here, meaning she won’t even be trying to get better and get Eric back. Of course K says that it will only be a short “Vacation” and she will be back in a few weeks. I don’t believe it for a second.

Our custody of Eric is called a “Limited Guardianship” meaning if K fulfills certain conditions, we would let her take custody back. Her leaving for Florida, in my mind, is basically her abandoning any attempt to get Eric back. We are still discussion how we are going to deal with this as it is going to be really hard on Eric. I think that we should tell K that if she leaves and doesn’t come back, that we will first go to “Friend of the Court” and make arrangement with them for her to pay us child support for Eric. Right now we have it arranged to just pay us directly, but she hasn’t. Also I think we should tell her that if she doesn’t come back that we will go for a “Full Guardianship” and she won’t ever be able to get him back. We are still discussing how long we should wait before pursuing this, or even if we should pursue it. Its going to be hard enough on Eric knowing he won’t be able to see his mom and possibly won’t be able to see her again.

We are also concerned about how this will affect Eric’s older brother, M, who is 16 and will be graduating high school in 2 years. He has been living with my in-laws and doing well in school. In-laws have permission in writing to make school and medical decisions for him. If she leaves, what does that mean for M? We are not sure.

So there has definitely been no lack of drama here. I take comfort in the fact that we have been able to protect Eric from most of it, though. I’m also happy he is starting to adjust a bit. Counseling sessions are scheduled for the next year, so we will see how it goes.

2

Hon, good luck and many blessings to you through all this. If K leaves, well, she leaves. I know it will be hard on the boy, but you said it youself: he is very mature for his age. He’s actually old enough to hear some straight talk: your mom can’t take care of you, we know you’re hurting, no matter what happens, you’ll be taken care of as you should be, none of us can control your mom’s behavior/actions/decisions, so let’s all practice the Serenity Prayer.

With enough healthy messages getting through to him, from you and the counselor, perhaps he’ll make a remarkable adjustment, and, as you said, the drama stops. Again, good luck and God bless… you and your wife are heroes.

3

Dragwyr, as someone who has been there (and, I haven’t seen previous threads about this, so forgive me if I am ignorant of the specifics; no presumptuousness intended), I want to throw in my two cents. And I WILL stop before it becomes a whole pocketful of change!

No matter how seemingly callous or irresponsible the boy’s mother’s behavior has been, I hope you can find it in your hearts not to be too judgemental or dismissive of her; and especially not to let it seep into whatever you tell the child about his mother and the situation.

I find that the various skills and abilities which facilitate coping in the modern world, and the capacity for motherly love, are entirely separate things. Often a woman’s behavior in a situation like this belies her feelings on the matter; and the irritation or rancor which such behavior will naturally cause can obscure the fact that she is a three-dimensional person who may have different things going on inside than you suspect. There is a peculiar mixture of guilt and shame which can result in a person concluding that, since they cannot live up to the expectations others have of them, the only thing left is to get out of the way and admit defeat.

In other words, she may feel she must leave* because* she loves her son.

I could be wrong; I don’t know much about your situation. But I do know that the more you shut her out with conditional restrictions (barring those necessary for safety), the more the child will suffer. Remember, whatever you may think of her, she is still his Mommy.

4

Whatever you do regarding the guardianship, Erik will stop seeing her if she leaves… this has nothing to do with the legal situation, it has to do with the laws of Physics. Most people can’t be in two places at the same time, including K.

I think that, if you do end up pursuing full guardianship, Erik needs to know that this doesn’t mean he won’t be able to see K when she’s around. K knows she needs to fix herself before she can take care of him or M; she’s doing her best to fix herself; it may or may not work. But you also need to do what you believe to be best, and that’s what you’re doing. You getting full guardianship doesn’t mean K won’t be part of Eric’s life any more. He will need to know this.

I hope the therapy continues to work, I know Eric’s a good kid and that you guys are doing your best to help him get a good life; I’m glad you were able to find a therapist who looked at Eric as himself and not as “a standard ten year old.” The standard ten year old doesn’t need therapy.

5

Thank you all for your words of support.

I understand what brujaja is saying, but I don’t believe K is leaving because she loves her sons. I think she is leaving because she has nowhere else to go, she doesn’t have a job, no place to live, and no money to sustain herself (or her habit), AND it is cold here in MI right now. She knows that M is fine at grandma’s and Eric is fine with us so why is she staying here when she literally has nothing? In my mind it is a selfish action on her part because she is running away from the problem instead of dealing with it, but her mind is so messed up she doesn’t see things like normal people do anyways. I have no doubts of her love for Eric, but she is acting cowardly by running away and the worst part about it is she doesn’t even realize it.

Is it wrong of me to think it would be better if she never came back? Or even worse, died of an overdose? Sometimes I just don’t know.

6

Not wrong of you, human of you. And also, possibly, overly simplistic of you. Who knows how his mother’s abandonment/overdose would affect your nephew?

But I can certainly understand that in addition to whatever day-to-day struggles you have, wondering if and when the mother will waltz in and out of your lives is a stressor you’d rather not deal with.