The nice ladies and gents on OS thought you could help me!

Caroline73_2

weeze210 wrote: »

I can't stand confrontation, it scares me. I'm a very weak person. I know what everyone is saying is making sense but I don't have the 'fight ' in me.
I do have my own account with my own money but because of my past I have a real problem spending money on myself.

Weeze x

I understand what you mean. As I was reading I disagreeing with the family conference idea.

Personally I think you should write the list of things you want to change, then choose one item on the list. Pick a small one first and then deal with it. Cross it off the list then pick another one.

Your situation hasn't happened overnight so it isn't going to change overnight either.

Take the incident with your daughters phone, you have dealt with it brilliantly.

With your x box loving child, I have one of those. Is there a game you can play together? You can download lots of demos for free. I have great fun playing Lego Harry Potter/Batman/Starwars on the Xbox with my children. I have discovered that I am not going to get my DS1 (12) interested in anything I like so I have tried to get interested inhis things and it works.

Also take a look at the flylady website for a guide to housework. I spend 2 hours a week on mine now. Don't look at the OS flylady thread as I think it's a bit overwhelming to the Flylady beginner.

Also get yourself to Hobbycraft, and look at all the things you can do, there will be something there that catches your eye I reckon.

paddy's_mum

If there was a superthanks button, I'd be pressing it for Primrose's post number 36. A depth of understanding, straight but kindly speaking and oozing commonsense - well done!

Weeze - as much as I sympathise with your predicament, I can also see that if you can't, don't or won't seek some help with the problems caused by your own nature, you will, without doubt, end up with a catastrophe at some point further down the line. It may be that your physical or mental health break down; it may be that your children come to loathe your timidity, fall out with you and are estranged for years; it may be that your husband ends up feeling that you are just 'her indoors', not a real woman with feelings, emotions and passions.

Only you can help this situation. Only you can change it. You love your family. Why run the terrible risks of losing them when so much non-embarrassing support and help is available to you out there at the end of just one phone call.

Can I put it to you this way? If, by some terrible chance, you discovered your hubby in the shed taking some blokey 'exercise' with the help of some particularly smutty dirty magazines and in the throes of a heart attack, would you be crippled by the thought of the humiliation that might descend upon you all if the facts became public or would you not hesitate for a single second and be dialling 999 without another thought?

As I see it, you and every single member of your family need you to give up this unhappy doormat way of life and become a proper, feeling human being before you get to the point of no return and, as you've threatened here, take your own life.

FatVonD

weeze210 wrote: »

I've never been just me, I had my first son when I was 17 so I've always been a mom and can't remember before that. I don't know who 'me' is or what 'she'd' like to do!

Weeze x

Imagine that the world is going to end the day after tomorrow, how would you choose to spend your last day? That's how you need to spend one day a week.

It might not be floating on a lilo in Barbados (for me it would be a picnic on the top of a hill with my loved ones) for you it might be spending some time with your kids away from the home, everyone's dream is different which is great because it would be boring if we all wanted the same things

BitterAndTwisted

It's quite understandable that you are afraid of and feel threatened by confrontation. Old habits die very, very hard indeed. You are not a weak person, you've just lost your voice for the time being. You have demonstrated just how strong and powerful you are by having endured those difficulties in the past. A weak person would have crumbled and you haven't. This is the main reason why you should consider taking time out for yourself and deciding what changes you would like to make to your family life. I think counselling would be incredibly useful to you in that respect.

A counsellor once told me that depression is the mind's way of acknowledging the need for change in one's life. At the time I found that idea very comforting in the depths of my black depression as it meant that I wasn't going completely bonkers and it gave me the strength to seek the changes I needed to make. Counselling can be terribly hard for those of us who don't find it easy to open up and share our innermost thoughts but it can be incredibly liberating.

Kimitatsu

weeze210 wrote: »

I can't stand confrontation, it scares me. I'm a very weak person. I know what everyone is saying is making sense but I don't have the 'fight ' in me.
I do have my own account with my own money but because of my past I have a real problem spending money on myself.

Weeze x

Sorry is this the weak person who has been a single mum on her own, looked after her kids and beaten skin cancer by herself??

Weeze you are not a weak person - you are amazingly strong but you have very low self esteem so you dont feel like you "deserve" anything. Because everyone is more worthy than you thats why you do all of the household chores, why you let hubby go out on his bike, why you sorted out all of your family and then went and did up his house (where did all that money go?) why you make him tea and wait for it to be spoilt......need I go on?

Hun you are an amazing woman, you really are but you need to learn to love yourself a little more, because until you do the support and the help you crave will not come because if you cant respect yourself you dont demand it from others.

So start with baby steps, if you dont want to have a family conference because of the confrontation thing, dont. Just sort out a housework rota and put it up on the fridge and if something doesnt get done then ignore it. It takes a bit of practice (I know I did it) but gradually everyone does their bit because otherwise someone else suffers for it and peer pressure comes into play. Your daughter could cook a meal a week, you son could make his own lunch etc.

Thursday is YOUR day OFF, that means its Weeze time even if that is only sitting on the sofa reading a book or catching up on the telly you have missed.

To give you a starter, my boys routine is that they come in from school, have a snack take the dogs out. Then they do homework, pack their bags for the next day and make their lunches. If the washing hasnt made it to the basket in time for the washing and ironing run they iron their own clothes for the next day, then the rest of the time is their own - if they have clubs etc then I take them and drop them off.

Other chores they have to do is to clear their rooms - cut off point for inspection is 6pm on Sunday, if the room is not tidy then they forfeit that part of their pocket money. Empty the dishwasher, do the grass in the summer and clean the cars when the weather is fine. Pocket money is also linked to attitude and the amount of back chat they give - fines can be given for both of these too. I keep a running score on the fridge so everyone is aware, and if they are saving for something special then they stick that up too......kinda concentrates the mind lol!

It neednt be a confrontation just small steps to get them organised into helping you and being part of a team which is what a family should be.

rozmister

FatVonD wrote: »

Imagine that the world is going to end the day after tomorrow, how would you choose to spend your last day? That's how you need to spend one day a week.

That's so true and such a thought provoking thing to say! It's making me think about my life!

Anyway back to the OP. Could you come up with a housework rota for everyone maybe? Sit down and say in a calm way I'm really struggling at the moment and you all need to pitch in and help Mum with the housework. Then do a rota so everyone knows exactly what needs doing! I don't always see mess but when I sit down and make a list it's easier for me to know where to start, if that makes sense?

You say you try to cook healthy meals for your family but they don't enjoy them? Maybe you could start an adult education class in the evening in some form of cookery. They do a quick and healthy one at my local college (I've been wishing I had the time) which would give you an opportunity to meet new people and learn something new. I find learning new things always makes me feel a bit better when I'm down because it makes me feel I've achieved something and I'm good at something.

With your husband I think, like somebody else mentioned, you should speak to him about how he sees your children. My stepdad is just that, a stepDAD. When he first came to live with us I hated him (my dad had died quite recently) and keep saying he was just my mum's boyfriend. Now I'm older we have a proper father/daughter relationship and he helps with boy things I don't understand (cars, bikes, tools and fixing things). He really loves me and I love him. I don't know quite when it changed but I think it was definitely as I got older and learnt to appreciate all the effort he makes me with me.

Think how he feels emotionally for your children if your partner lives with you and loves you but doesn't share any of the parental responsibility, I remember feeling like baggage when my Mum and Stepdad got together and it used to really upset me. Maybe you could encourage him to do boy things with your son or to cook with the kids for you one night a week?

As for your son who loves XBox could he maybe join a club like Cubs/Scouts or an afterschool thing? I know it's all geeky and lame at that age but it really helps to get out and mix and it gives you a break.

Good luck finding yourself and sorting your home life out, I have no idea how I'd manage! xxxx

belfastgirl23

I don't know that a household meeting or a rota are going to work at this point. Everyone is so used to you doing everything that they will resist hugely. Remember that people are very reluctant to give things up when they've had them good.

I would just say to each of them that you're feeling a bit tired and under the weather and you're going to try to take things a bit easier. And then sit back and don't do anything you don't feel like doing. It might be that you simply can't bear a messy kitchen so you'll keep it under control. But try to let some of the things you leave be really obvious - eg washing, opening curtains etc. Wait for them to notice the consequences - this might take patience. I would certainly stop on the baking and cooking for a start - they're unlikely to starve but might just realise how lucky they've been. If they're hungry suggest they get themselves beans on toast.

Let them to be the ones to identify that the situation can't carry on. And then when they do, you can have the family meeting where you say that you've had to stop doing so much and that if they want you to do things (eg baking) they have to take on some other stuff. Otherwise you're going to end up trying to put in place a rota where no one will do stuff and you end up being frustrated at nagging them.

As for your husband's biking thing, is it realistic that he could move into a job in this? If it is, then I guess you're right to support him. But if it's not, then you need to figure out whether you can live with the situation longer term or not. At the minute I'm presuming that he doesn't think or realise it's an issue?

And as an aside, I also think you could do with some support. I wondered about contacting Women's Aid, who do a fab development programme (certainly in NI anyway) called Journey to Freedom (I think). I know some of those issues are behind you but at the same time you're still dealing with the emotional residue of them. And you would get a chance to get out and meet other women as well. As far as I understand this programme helps you to identify your own way forward. Maybe worth a go!

Good luck, and remember this is a long term change. It didn't happen overnight and it isn't going to resolve itself overnight.

Caroline_a

Wanted to add my support for you, but also to say that, at 9, your son should be doing his fair share of the chores. My girls all had jobs round the house to do when they were growing up and I was working part-time, but had they been boys they would have been given the same treatment! Boys who haven't been part of the housework routines in their family tend to grow into men who are either useless round the house, or refuse to do anything - neither one of which would endear him to a future wife or girlfriend!

elisebutt65

Or you could do what I did when I was at the end of my tether 13 years ago, give youngest to dad, pack a bag , leave a note saying 'See you in a week', catch airplane to beach and relax.

I still do this occasionally, but I pre-arrange with dads to take their kids first now. Then just go

weeze210

Thanks all. Reading your responses is really giving me things to think about. My son does some out of school activities, he's at Rugby at the mo and got swimming after school tomorrow.
Because I've always done everything then the kids kick up a right stink if I ask them to do anything. I just can't deal with the stress it causes so think I need to get stronger in myself first before I try adding on to their jobs. DS9 empties the dishwasher whenever it needs doing, roughly everyotner day and makes his bed. He gets £2 per week.
DD17 Is ment to keep her room tidy, dust and hoover her room, the landing, the bathroom, stairs and hallway. She also looks after DS while I'm at work during school holidays, although she doesn't have to do anything just be there, I make his lunch before I go and he entertains himself. She also does the ironing on a sunday, she's useless at it so I have to keep giving her things back to re-do! For this she gets £50 per month, £20 is for her contract phone so she gets £30 cash. I do all the rest of the cleaning which takes up most of thursday. I do the shopping on a friday which is also my day off. I do all the washing, cooking, looking after the chickens and parrot, lunches for the next day, organising of paperwork and finances, I'm always the one who knows where everything is so am always getting asked for stuff.
Had a horrible day at work, still date checking chocolate.
Don't know what to do the kids for tea as we're having reduced smoked salmon and salad and they don't like it and I'm not about to waste it on them.
Got to feed chickens and meet DS from rugby.
I'm defintely feeling a bit better, I think its because I have so much to think about thanks to all your suggestions.
Do you think I should let Hubby read this thread?

Weeze x