Anxiety
One of the areas I am struggling with this year during the boy’s visit is calming my worries about feeling like we’re under constant judgment. I feel like the Ex is just sitting on the sidelines waiting for something she can scream about, looking for something she can say we are doing wrong whether it really is or not. Looking for some reason she can yell about of how we aren’t providing a good environment for “her” sons. We have heard these kind of accusations in past visits regardless of the environment she provides for them.
Nothing added to my anxiety of such accusations like yesterday morning when SS2’s medicine went missing. Hubby had given SS2 the medicine the morning before so I called him at work to find out where it was. He said it would either be on the bar in the kitchen or in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. No, not at either place. I told him I didn’t remember seeing it on the bar the day before so I didn’t think it was there. SS2 and I looked throughout the house for it and it didn’t turn up. I told Hubby he would need to look when he got home. Last night it still hadn’t turned up and by the time I laid in bed my head was spinning with all possible responses we were going to get from the Ex when she found out SS2’s medicine was lost. I got back up and looked a little more around the living room and couldn’t find it. I finally got on my computer and played a game until I could get my mind to slow down.
After dropping all the kids off at my mom’s this morning I called Hubby and we talked about it a little more. He hadn’t searched in depth last night so I planned on going through the boys room when I got home. He told me he gave SS2 the medicine in the bedroom and handed him the bottle and told him to put it in the medicine cabinet. SS2 is not a morning person so I was fairly certain it probably ended up in a random place in their room. I got to the 3rd dresser drawer, pulled it out and there was the medicine rolling around in the back of the drawer. The worst part is I briefly looked in all the drawers yesterday and SS2 put laundry in his dresser drawers yesterday afternoon and neither of us saw it. I’m relieved we found it but it has brought to light one of the harder issues I struggle with when the boys visit.
We work to make sure the boys feel like this is their home as well when they visit us. Hubby and I both think and talk through each decision with each other to make sure the boys don’t feel like outsiders. Each year we try to do something special during their visit so they have good memories to take home. We provide them with a glimpse of what family life is like here. Yet I feel like the Ex is just looking for a way to make it seem like we’re inadequate.
Right now I’m waiting for the explosive phone call which usually comes in the first two weeks of their visit. In some ways I’m mentally walking on eggshells. Hubby has reach the point where he doesn’t care what she thinks or says. I’m not there yet and it’s wearing on me. Somehow I have to find a way to let go of this worry, anxiety and anxiousness and realize no matter what we do she will always find something wrong. My mom reassured me this morning telling me we do provide a good home and nothing the Ex says can change that fact. Why do I let a woman who doesn’t even really know me, has never been in my home or seen how my family functions have such control over me? I can’t let my worry of her actions wreak this much havoc on my life during the boys visits.
Filed under: Step Life on July 3rd, 2008 | 1 Comment »