Been a while but I need opinions

[Catty1]

From what you say, therapy is working for you and Grant. This is fantastic, especially in the strides he has made!

As some wise person once said, "You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to."

If the kids won't cooperate, keep on doing the therapy and getting better. I know this next suggestion will be very hard to do, but do no contact for a little while. If one of the kids happens to call - or you might call each of them and leave this message - something along the lines of "We are going to a therapist right now and there's no point you and I talking unless we do it with a therapist."

HUGS. I am just glad the two of you are doing better.

BTW: Exercise DOES help depression, don't know about anxiety.

[katladyd]

You and your hubby are fine. It's your CHILDREN who need therapy! How ungrateful can they be? Just keep doin' what you're doin' and let the kids sleep in the messy bed they have made for themselves and their children. You might call them and offer to see the grandkids (leaving them out of it). On Christmas give the grandkids amazing presents and give the parents a card. They will get the message, believe me. You are not doormats anymore and if they want positive things from you, they will have to respect you first.

[Catty1]

You and your hubby are fine. It's your CHILDREN who need therapy! How ungrateful can they be? Just keep doin' what you're doin' and let the kids sleep in the messy bed they have made for themselves and their children. You might call them and offer to see the grandkids (leaving them out of it). On Christmas give the grandkids amazing presents and give the parents a card. They will get the message, believe me. You are not doormats anymore and if they want positive things from you, they will have to respect you first.

What she said!

[catnapper]

You and your hubby are fine. It's your CHILDREN who need therapy! How ungrateful can they be? Just keep doin' what you're doin' and let the kids sleep in the messy bed they have made for themselves and their children. You might call them and offer to see the grandkids (leaving them out of it). On Christmas give the grandkids amazing presents and give the parents a card. They will get the message, believe me. You are not doormats anymore and if they want positive things from you, they will have to respect you first.

Thank you.

Though I had to laugh over the Christmas gift thing. I bought the kids great gifts this year: each got between $500-$1000 worth of limited edition artwork that THEY picked out. (Oh goodness, I never paid that much!)

Ashley and Tony never picked theirs up. I'm redoing the spare bedroom, so its getting the picture that was destined for Ashley (REALLY cool custom artwork of black branches arranged on handmade rice paper. My one coworker constantly tells me that if I don't find a place for it, that she could find a place in her home

Tony's artwork will go in the dining room once I redo that. I have to redo both rooms because we had a major freak hail storm that did $40,000 (yes, forty thousand) worth of damage to the house, put a hole in the roof where I could see daylight through the ceiling and the bedroom flooded through to the dining room. I currently have a patch on the roof that leaks with every new rain, no ceiling in either room and bowed walls from the drywall/plaster expanding with moisture. Its lovely and Callie keeps tinkling in the bedroom, which, since we have nothing on the floors, and no ceiling, pours right through to the dining room - she never did that until tony moved out (one week before the storm). Insurance has been decent, and are giving us nearly $32,000 to do the repairs. Right now hubby is rebuilding the shed, which is saving us a lot of the missing insurance money - between what they gave us, and us doing a huge amount of the manual labor, we'll break even without owing anybody anything. But I digress....

Heather got hers and asked me to hang them. The day I showed up, her Mother-in-law and sister-in-law looked at me with daggers and said "He will not want you to hang those - he wants to do it!" (Heather wasn't home and her hubby was upstairs during the interaction). So I got back in the car and headed home. When she found out what they said she was furious. All I could do was shrug - at least hubby and I enjoyed a nice lunch at a restaurant by her home we never get to visit.

So, lets just say, they will not be getting any gifts from us in the foreseeable future. I, however, get to enjoy my gifts.

[Karen]

Oh, another thought - do start a little journal for each of the grandkids that you just keep around to write down stories you want them to know someday, family memories, etc. Even if you just mail it to them when they turn 21, I bet they will be fascinated!

[kaycountrygal]

Perhaps I shouldn't even comment because I do not have children but obviously I had parents and believe me, none of this behavior would have been tolerated.

I will say that your grown children sound very childish,spoiled, self-centered, probably because you all used to do/get everything they wanted. Must be quite a shock to them now that you don't jump up and do what they say LOL. Also it sounds as if they are punishing you two if they do not get their way--very childish imo. They sound very immature and selfish and very unappreciative for all you have done for them. I cannot imagine myself ever being so hateful and unappreciative to my parents when they were living.

I agree with whoever said to just leave them alone for awhile. When you try to give them a gift or visit them, I bet it gives them some kind of enjoyment to not be socialable or agreeable because they want to punish you because you aren't doing what they want.

One other thing: I would not be buying expensive gifts for your ungrateful children; they don't deserve it. I'm sorry you all are having this problem.

[catnapper]

God has a sense of humor: Our family friend stopped by tonight and asked, "What's wrong with your family?!" She was referring to hubby's sisters in addition to the kids, who are just as bad. They are used to him doing everything for them too, and aren't adjusting well to his refusal to jump when they tell him to. Its affecting them so much a family friend stops by? WOWZA!

Heather called tonight too. Apparently no babysitter was found. She spoke sanely and agreed to drop off and pick up.

[Karen]

Heather called tonight too. Apparently no babysitter was found. She spoke sanely and agreed to drop off and pick up.

That's good, a calm step!

[Catty1]

God has a sense of humor: Our family friend stopped by tonight and asked, "What's wrong with your family?!" She was referring to hubby's sisters in addition to the kids, who are just as bad. They are used to him doing everything for them too, and aren't adjusting well to his refusal to jump when they tell him to. Its affecting them so much a family friend stops by? WOWZA!

Heather called tonight too. Apparently no babysitter was found. She spoke sanely and agreed to drop off and pick up.

Hee, hee! Good stuff!

[Grace]

He moved out a few days later, and 3 months later has not spoken one word, but comes to the house when he knows we're not home (We know this because his mail disappears on a regular basis)...

Kim, I don't know you well enough to offer much advice - but I think what everyone else has said to this point is very good.

My thing is about Tony - the above comment of yours just jumped at me. Get the locks to your house changed. If he can get his mail, he can get other things.

[caseysmom]

Your husbands health needs to come first, let them know how hard it is on him to babysit a toddler all day, my husband also babysits his twin three year old granddaughters and it is a lot of work but he loves it, and its his choice my daughter never has expected it.

I remember you mentioning your husbands weight, just wanted to let you know I had weight loss surgery and its the best thing I ever did, no more high blood pressure and I feel great, I went from 270 to 143. Just something to think about for your husband it also cures diabetice in most cases.

[RICHARD]

Kim, I don't know you well enough to offer much advice - but I think what everyone else has said to this point is very good.

My thing is about Tony - the above comment of yours just jumped at me. Get the locks to your house changed. If he can get his mail, he can get other things.

Take a cardboard box and label it YOUR MAIL.

(decorate it with pics of flowers and sun-shiney things, then leave it on the porch.)

[robinh]

Unlike everyone else, I don't have a lot of good advice but will tell you that I understand your feelings. My significant other and I haven't spoken to my son, daughter-in-law and grandkids for two years as of October. We're not sure what we've done, but after a couple of attempts of trying to get them to talk to us we gave up. They only wanted to see us if they wanted to, but told us we should stop over any time. When we'd go over, the adults would leave the room and leave us with the kids or they were on their way out. We were never invited to family dinners/event; whereas her parents were. We were told at one point that we didn't grandparent the right way.....the right way? Didn't know there was a right way.

The stress of it all was just too much for me. I'm in therapy for depression and anxiety myself. If I think about it, I start crying. Therapist said to wait until I'm stronger before we do anything else.

Catnapper, will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

[catnapper]

I spoke with Heather and her husband a bit today (who, by the way, picked up their children themselves and somehow got Ashley to drop them off )

Her husband commented on how much damage we had from the hail (HELLO?!?! Have you heard a word we said in the past 3 months?!!?!?!?) and commented on how hubby's brother-in-law (a contractor) is going to be busy fixing our place. I laughed. Apparently, WE can do things for them, but they can't do for US. So I told him that the response from B-I-L was "Have fun with that" - while he's missing out on a $30,000 insurance check to fix the damage. Their eyes bulged, and he figured that maybe B-I-L was afraid we'd try to get him to do the work for a reduced fee, which is a weird assumption since any work he's done for us has always been either fairly paid for or bartered (once I did 3 portraits including frames in return for installing a hot water heater, which he hooked up incorrectly and was sending Carbon Monoxide (or was it dioxide?) fumes into our house.) and any work he's done has been shoddy because you could tell he resented doing it out of obligation.

I guess things are little bit better. I was disappointed Heather and her husband didn't stay longer then ten minutes, but at least they talked to me instead of just swinging by, getting their kids, and running off.

Oh, and because of the storm, we got a new door, so we'll get new locks. Boy, won't that frost Tony's buns when his key no longer works?


And since its slightly related, I have to tell you a quick little story of how much a goober I am. My work got hit with hail too. They had contractors there all last week re-stucco-ing the exterior. There were (4) 5-gallon buckets of stucco stuff left over and they were going to throw it out. I asked if I could take it home and they said, "you do know its stucco, right?" Yup. "You know you need screens on the walls, then spread the stucco over it?" yup, we have that already. "You do know its 4 different colors?" so? that's what paint is for, which we already have too. So I excitedly called hubby to bring the truck over and pick up the 5 gallon buckets. Two are 90% full, the other two are 3/4 full. We saved nearly $400 because of work's leftovers!!! I was so happy, you'd have thought they gave me something amazing. I have off this week so I have a date with the trowel and multi-colored stucco. Gosh I hope it rains........

[Karen]

Glad to hear things are at least a smidge better. Keep swimming! Or stuccoing, as the case may be! Wow, the spellchecker didn't object to stuccoing - I guess it IS a real word! (but it objects to smidge!)