Randoms.

**this was in my drafts, i added to it and am posting it because it needs to come ahead of my big news** People see the surface, they judge without ever asking questions, i know, because i do the same damn thing at times, though i try to only judge if i have real good belief of what the actual situation is. A few people have judged me harshly then come away seeing more than they ever had before and realized how wrong they were.

Anyways, the point i am getting at is......we made some major (good for us) decisions that affect our life and the life with my son though not really him directly with the way our relationship has been this year. Most people we told so far are happy for us, though there are a couple that are not, one of them being my grandmother. I have given the last 15 years to that woman, i am not kidding when i say i didn't breathe without asking her permission first. That is NO exaggeration. If i did not run everything by her first and she did not approve she would not let me see my son. She did not care that i had a court order with no restrictions, she placed them on me anyways, unfairly and i abide'd out of fear of rocking the boat and her making things worse.

In the end my fears were proven to be true and i came out of this having to reflect, i had to reflect on what i have gained, what i have lost and if i was going to continue letting this woman rule my life. It is also no exaggeration that (while she told a judge she wanted me to have a good relationship with my son and would never stand in the way) i had to beg, plead, and grovel just to get anything outside of my court order because she was so bitter that i came away with a favorable judgement. I am the only person that has ever had to do that. There is no one else in my family that has to ask permission to do anything with him, i am the only one and yet i am his mom and did everything she asked for 10 years (that is about the time i started standing up for myself, even though i still jumped through her hoops).

To take him to Florida with us she requested that i write her a letter explaining when we were going, why, how long, where etc to her before she would give me permission to book the flight. She made me wait months yet she took him across country to Toronto more than once without even asking me. She told me about it a couple weeks before only because my son told her that i was none too pleased that she still kept thinking it was OK for her to go against a court order. I have primary care and control on weekends, she legally can not take him anywhere without my permission if it is over a weekend. She legally can not make any decisions about him on the weekends.

I had to jump through major hoops for that trip but i get bullied and get phone calls from various people (who would never call me for any other reason) if i deny her on the weekends when i have plans and she wants to make plans. I am called every name in the sun and told how selfish i am for not wanting him at events with the pedophile on MY time. I have never been offered time in lieu of, she just wants me to give up my time and that is it. When we came back from Florida i gave up a weekend so she could spend more time with him and i gave up the weekend before so she could take him to Ontario (again, without asking me, i was given no choice). The court order has never mattered though, she has always done what she wanted because she knew i would never enforce it as she still had the upper hand and would never allow me one minute more if i did. I have even held the phone away from my ear and other people can hear her yelling & screaming at me. I refuse to talk to her. I do not call her unless absolutely necessary and she has learned not to call me as well. I refuse to put up with that abuse any longer. I did it for 12/15 years.

This woman has done many things to make it impossible for me to have rules with this child. He gets to do whatever he wants at home. It mostly just leaves him with a crappy attitude when he comes here. Thankfully he does not smoke, drink, or do drugs. He has 0 responsibilities ,0 consequences and 0 chores to do......at 16 years of age. She has put him into things like judo and bowling, but when spring came and he didn't feel like going she let him drop out even though she paid for the year.......i had the attitude of your teaching him it is ok to not follow through with things and she had the attitude of she was not going to make him do something he didn't want to do. I would have at least made him finish the year, not make him go after that, but finish what you start. She has done it with both my brother and dad, babies them to this day (my brother lives with her). She freaked out on me when i showed Austin how to do his own laundry. I want him to go to college, and i want him to know how to fend for himself. I don't want him bringing his laundry home every weekend for grandma to do because he doesn't know how to do it or because she will do it for him. I was cleaning the whole house at 10, cooking meals and looking after my brother and sister.

Don't forget, this woman wants to go against me so badly that when my BROTHER went on his fb and found he was having inappropriate conversations with girls and told my grandmother she freaked on me saying i was spying on him and deleted and blocked me from his fb and changed his pw. Yes, she blamed me, when i was not the one even in his account! He also once again never had any consequences. A 12 year old should not have been having the convos he was having. They were not about sex but still very inappropriate for his age. this woman is all sorts of  f*d up and it hurts me bad because at one time she was everything to me. That was just another way for her to make it so i could not contact him. Eventually he made a new account but she used it to spy on me (since i have her blocked) so i had to delete him. I can still message him, but this way she can't watch me.

It all came to a head in January or February. Austin & I argue constantly because all he wants to do is sit around and play video games and continue the 0 responsibilities, 0 consequences and 0 chores here. I get that he doesn't want to be saddled with a bunch of chores when he is only here for 2 days a week BUT i only gave him 1 chore a weekend, 1 because i do not think it is fair either, but i want some sort of responsibility. He also got to pick what it was, he could do laundry, vacuum, dishes (we have a dishwasher so is just pots and pans). He started pitching fits for everything, and i mean fits. Huge, huge fits. It would take him 3 hours to do anything because he would freak out so bad about how i was so unfair. Remember, this was a 15 year old kid. I get teenage angst, but this went way beyond that. If i let him play video games first it was even worse of a fit at the end. I stopped doing that and it became a huge struggle. One that left me wanting to pull out my hair. This is not an instance of me not being able to control my kid either. I dare anyone who thinks that to come and spend a week in her house & a week in my house and you would see. I could NOT back down and let him come here and play video games for the entire weekend. That would go against everything i believe in and i decided a few years ago i would not do that to myself any more.

I got a call from the school about how much he was skipping. I tried to get her to do more than lip service (l;like she did when he was giving the lunch money she gave him away, i gave it back to her and she did empty threats then gave it to him the next day when she could have went to the school and ordered his lunch as she went past every day). but again, empty threats that she never follows through with, just like all the other times. He still skips, and constantly, but she doesn't care. It is just easier for her to go along with it, like when he stopped doing homework in grade 3. At that time i was working after school, but before i started working evenings i used to make him to it and would sit with him while he did it when i was there. she won't give him to me even though she can no longer provide for him, other than financially but she refuses to accept that. Other family members have even told her she can't do it. I would never treat her the way she treated me so he would always have a relationship with her but she needs that control. I tried to fight her 4 years ago but I no longer qualified for legal aid and i had to slap down 5k for a lawyer just for one to take the case. With the wedding i paid $50 a week to vendors, but for a lawyer i couldn't do that and i was unable to get a loan so i couldn't fight her.

It came to the point i couldn't have him in my house anymore. It was constant turmoil. I love that boy with everything i have but it was a strain on everyone, including him. I could not talk to him, he would dispute everything i said. He used to be fairly respectful but when he started being disrespectful consistently around others it became too much for me to handle. He completely disrespected me every single minute, and anywhere we were. It no longer mattered if we were out in public. If he was under my roof constantly i could have worked on it, but not when i had to contend with her. I would also take him for mental health help, she doesn't. No exaggeration but there wasn't a thing that came out of my mouth that was right according to him, NOT ONE THING, he argued with me over every single thing i said. It was trying on my patience.I think part of it is being a teenager but i think the other part is her constant put downs of me, i am sure he feels torn so he acts out on it. I feel bad for this kid, he didn't deserve this life, this is not what i wanted for him but he is still doing OK. He has food, he has clothes, he has everything he wants basically. He just doesn't have responsibilities, consequences, discipline and lies constantly, he can't tell the truth, ever.

She made me promises and she broke them. If she had stuck to them then things would be so different. She would tell me to do this, this and this to get him back. I would do this, this and this. She would then add 3-5 more things....every single time. I was like a puppy chasing her around trying to please her, but i never could. Trust me, when i signed the papers making him her guardian i never ever thought it would be permanent. I would have placed him up for adoption before choosing this life for him. I know now way more than i did then though and i was naive. I found out later i could have fought more, i was told things that were not true and at 19 i believed the people closest to me who i thought had my best interests at heart.....

When things came to a head i did not see him for about 5 months, at all. I have since come to the realization that there is nothing i can do for him right now. I am not stopping to be his parent, but i will be at a distance. He knows how to get a hold of me. All i can do is hope & pray one day he will know exactly what i did for him (he used to know, he used to tell her how mean to me she was being and that he hated it) and appreciate it. I had to step back. If that makes me a bad parent, then so be it, i am a bad parent then. I don't wanna hear it. I don't need you to like my choices, but this wasn't a pretty picture and some situations can not be fixed. He knows he does wrong, he continues to do it, with her, with my brother, with his teachers. I still don't think he is a bad kid though. I think if he was out of her house and learning how to be responsible he would do just fine. She will not let him get a part time job either..........she has to control everything. She is 100 times more A type than i am, and that says a lot. I am not making this up. I have an aunt that moved here from TO, she used to be on my grandma's side.....i used to get so upset with her because she had blinders on, well she doesn't anymore. I guess she sticks up for me every time she feels i am wronged (which is a lot). My son himself told me that. She says she loves me, but if this is love, i want nothing to do with it. I told her someone who loved me would not do the things she has done. I am no angel, but i have not done or said a thing to her in 6 years now. I don't think i have said more than 10 sentences in that time. For the florida trip i wrote a letter but it was very polite so she can't hold that against me.

He came to my birthday when my mom was here but he didn't even see her for the first 4 days. 4 DAYS, like wtf?? She lives 1900 kms away. He was supposed to come to the airport, but told all of us different stories that were all lies. He just couldn't be bothered. He is also quite lazy, he will tell you that. He spent the night here once while she was here and it was fine, but by the end of her visit he was back to talking trash to me. He was on good behavior at first.

I am a fixer, i need to fix everything. I will wrack my brain for days solving problems. I can't solve this. I have to accept it. It has taken me a long time but like i said......there is nothing i can do for this boy right now. He knows i love him. He knows i want him around, but he knows i can not have him around under these circumstances. Sometimes a person has to accept things just as they are. I know many parents who have gotten to the same place with their children and have had to place them in foster care, or other types of homes.

I absolutely do not believe that everything falls on the parents. Children have minds of their own. My son has mental health issues that i can not fix. A parent can try their hardest to instill good values in their children but they can't make the children listen. I hear constantly how it is the parents fault for everything the child does but i don't believe that. Maybe when they are little, but definitely not once they hit the age of 10. Anyone who thinks parents have complete control live in a world with blinders on. Children have minds of their own and are taught in the schools if they don't like what their parents do they can call cfs & police. Yes, i know for a fact they are taught that since kindergarten here, i have heard more than 1 teacher say it to their class. It is on posters in the schools, in the office. I saw a family separated for 4 months because the kids no longer wanted to do family papers in the morning (the parents went too) and so they wanted to live in foster care. Some kids are really good kids and do not give their parents grief but they are the execption. Agree with me or not, that is how it is. If you look at all these people who kill others and you look at their parents you would see at least 85% had good parents......and good homes. Many are not who you would ever expect to do something like that. It is heartbreaking but just shows that it is not always the parents fault.

He turns 16 in 2 weeks. I work 7 days a week right now and we have tournaments 3 weekends in a row that i can not get out of. I told him i am not buying him anymore presents. I keep wasting my money. She found out i bought him an ipod, she bought him one and gave it to him first. She knew i bought him NHL 14 so she bought it for him and gave it to him first even though i told them i didn't want to get a game for him they were getting so i asked what they were giving him and i was told something different. I didn't find out about it until AFTER mine was opened up, $40 down the drain, on and on like that. He is OK with me not getting him presents because he knows how frustrating the last 2 years of gift giving has been on me.

This year i told him i would take him out to dinner & movie. After all he is getting older anyways. I wanted to take him on a trip but my husband is not around right now (will get to that in another post) so this will do. He picked the restaurant, he will pick the movie. He is then going to come back and help me with a couple things.......we are going to clean out my dirt floor basement. On Saturday i invited my nieces for a sleep over. They want me to do their nails and we will have a party since their birthdays are in November too. I also decorate cakes so will make one up for the 3 of them.This will only be the 2nd sleep over since Jan or Feb  with my son. I am a bit nervous because so much has been going on that i just can't deal with the dramatics with him right now.

If this goes well then when my husband comes home (not for 6 more weeks) he will spend the weekend again and we will do Christmas dinner with G's family and my immediate family and then have a party which we will invite friends as well. He won't be back until valentine's weekend after that so we need to cram as much in as we can.

I feel at peace with my decision (i cried and tortured myself for 4 months before i started accepting it) and my son is at peace with it too. I don't blame him for thinking the way he does, what teenager would want rules & responsibilities when they get everything they ask for and don't have to lift a finger to help out?? I would want that too if i could. Again, i am still thankful that he is not smoking, drinking or doing drugs. I love my son, my son loves me.

You can ask questions if you have any, i explained why i couldn't fight her (now it is too close to his 18th birthday, i will ride it out). I won't explain why i gave him to her in the first place. That horse has already been beat. Some of you will not understand the choice, but those people have also never had to deal with this situation. Most people in my life are in agreement, but they have seen things first hand.

With the family supporting the pedophile (Austin supports him too) this has been more harder than normal. His wife finally left him but still talks about him around me as if he has done no wrong. Not one person has an ounce of respect for how i feel. They ALL talk about him around me as if i should accept him. I am still the outsider..........but not for long.....