5. Slow Progress in A TIRED MARRIED MAN

  • May 24, 2019, 9:19 a.m.
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So things have calmed down a bit, partly due to me just taking each day by day and trying to see my own anger for what it is. I am trying to see my wife for who she is and what qualities she does have and how that’s worth saving for my family.
She seems to be stressed lately when I don’t talk to her, so I have started to talk to her more on different issues and our future. One of our older calmer foster kids went home a week or two ago, and now we are left with the two really stressed out ones. These two pre-teen kids are from a family where the mom had 6 kids, they all of which have major issues with stress, anxiety, abuse, boundary issues, and the list goes on. if they go off their meds for a day, they are almost unbearable to be around and never give you space or listen properly. I understand that they’re fucked up, and i understand that their mom did this to them by the neglect and lifestyle she provided them, but holy shit.. I don’t know how long i can hold onto this. They don’t respect people, or belongings, space, themselves. the boy lies with almost every other sentence that comes out of his mouth (not exaggerating at all) so he sounds like knows everything when just really is making it up, compounded with such extreme ADD that he has 2 different pills a day to calm him and they barely work, it’s the worse case of ADD I’ve ever been around, he makes normal ADD kids look calm, if you tell him to be quiet and stop talking, he’ll cry with his mouth closed then scream and say that he just can’t do it, so you have to remove yourself from his annoying presence or make him go somewhere else, it hasn’t changed in months. You would think after 3 months of being with us, and my wife and I calling him out on it with the actual facts of what counters him, he would learn, but nope. You would think that the girl would learn after we have gone through her stuff and room every week and find items (from makeup to other peoples items/jewelry to expensive clothes) she stole, then put her on the spot about it, that she would learn.. but nope.
They have no ability to learn on the normal scale that most kids do, I understand fully that this is due to trauma. I get it, I’m not lacking the understanding of this, I’m lacking my ability to stay fucking calm, day in and day out, dealing with this, to have the compassion and love that a Christian like me is supposed to have for them. I struggle with the idea that I’m actually not really a nice guy like i’m trying to show on the outside to everybody around me. I’m struggling with the fact that i just want to smash this kids head into a wall when he talks back to me like I’m another pre-teen kid and not his elder who’s more knowledgeable, in-charge, and 10x his size and strength.
Anyway, back on to the main topic. My wife and I were able to talk about this last night and the struggles i’m having with my anger on these kids. She mentioned that at this moment they have a 10-day in (social workers have 10 days to find them a new home). She also mentioned that without them, she won’t be making any money and due to our 1yr old being home, she doesn’t want a job until she’s about 3 or so and can start pre-K. I really didn’t know how i felt on this, part of me is jumping for joy, because just getting down to 2 kids and one young-adult (who’s moving out in 1 week), is super easy and way better to manage. but on the other hand, these 2 trouble makers will just get passed onto another family that will need to discover all their issues first hand all over again, like we did, who may not have the routines as strict as we do, who may not run things at the level we do. Our agency that handles these kids has only 3 children that are at the “therapeutic level” due to trauma, and guess what, 2 of them are these that are in my house. I can see why, i can see how the stress is getting to me, I am willing to drop my whole family and just live alone or just with my little ones and raise them as a single dad, before i have another week then I need to with these two kids. But on the flip side, i feel like a failure, I am a responsible, intelligent, logical , christian man, and I should be able to just suck it up and deal with this and help these children more than most people can in their homes, and I feel like i’m giving up on them.
I don’t know what to honestly do here, and here’s my options in my head:
1. Tell the wife to call off the 10-day and just keep the foster care going for these kids and we just need to try harder, and love more, resent less.
2. Tell the wife that after these kids are out, we take a few months break (summer) then bring kids back in during the school year, but NOT at the therapeutic level again.
3. Tell the wife we are done for a couple years and that we really don’t need the money from it (never really did) because my job brings home almost 4k after taxes every month and we only have about 2,200 in bills. So we just need to budget better and we’ll be fine.
4. Tell the wife that my main issue is with the boy, his disrespect and constant issues is too much for me, but i can handle the girl just fine (all true). So we need to just move the boy. (This seems like the worst, do to the fact that splitting up siblings usually ends in worse situations and worse outbursts from them later, it just makes them believe that the system is against them as a family and attacked, but in reality it’s just that they can’t get the level of care they need when they are together and difficult decisions need to be made at times.)


DimMeOut May 24, 2019

Wow... what a hard situation!! I have no advice, because I honestly don't think I would know how to handle that.

Half_Hearted DimMeOut ⋅ May 24, 2019

that's fine, i'm venting too :) life has hard decisions sometimes that have huge impacts just from a simple yes or no.. this is just one of those moments and i have the time to make the best decision i can. whatever we choose, we just need to make sure that we are going to be ok with the results, and know that we made the best decision we could with the info we had and the situation we were under. Every major decision i have made in my life, i know i did it slowly and methodically with the best intent i could get, trying to make the best future i could with it. so i have no regrets so far in my life.

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