Monday, January 4, 2010

Same Old

So, yeah... it's been awhile since I've blogged. I finally did post a couple on the other one, but I've been biting my tongue and biding my time and trying not to be a bitch over here. See how well I've done? Almost two months. Well, it's a new year so I guess I get to start over with a clean slate and a new tally... right?

Things have been... going... where daughter is concerned. She's gotten better about helping out and in a week or two she's going to have her own shelf in the pantry for her own food stuff. You know, the snacks and such she still can't seem to stop eating. I asked her to pay a little bit toward the utilities and she made a huge production of bringing me a check downstairs in the family room the other day - in front of her younger sister - as if to say "see?... I pay". Well, hate to say it, but neither of us are impressed.

Where the behavior has gotten worse is in her impulse control and her lying. I was talking about it with some of my other children one day just trying to understand what I can do differently or how I can understand her better when my daughter-in-law said, "she's a teenager!" It hit me like a ton of bricks. She was spot-on. I have a 34-year-old teenager. Seriously. Everything she does, every trick in the book, is just like a 16 or 17 year old would pull.

She tells me what she thinks I want to hear, then does exactly what she wants to do... totally irresponsibly and completely the opposite of what she's told me. Then, Karma steps in and bites her as it did this past weekend. She's been "seeing" a guy she met on facespace (you know) that had been a classmate of her brother. Well, her brother didn't like him then and doesn't have much to say about him now... but she thinks he is a 'safe' friend to have because her brother knew him. Whatever. So, last weekend she gives me this b.s. about how she thought her sister was going to be gone and she'd arranged for her son to go to his dad's, and how she was going to go spend the night out of town "so you and dad can have alone time". Oh, HELLO. Dad and I are perfectly capable of figuring out when WE want to have "alone time"... and yeah, you were gone to the movie? Right. Okay, TMI... but don't use me as an excuse for you to do something.

Anyway... I didn't quiz her on where she was staying, and she led me to believe she would be at her birthfather's house (they've re-connected more recently, which I'll address another time). But, it was puzzling to me as they were to have Christmas the next day together and she would have to come back to town, get her son, and go back to the other town. Hrm. A few hours later it dawned on me that her not-yet-ex-husband also lived in that town. Then I was figuring she was staying with him, as he'd called her a couple of times recently and told her he was in therapy, yadda, yadda... Now I'm really frustrated. I think she is probably somewhere she shouldn't be, but she keeps telling me she's an adult, so I don't ask. Well, she calls me the next day about the time she was supposed to be celebrating Christmas with her father... to tell me that she's been in a car accident. She's fine, just bruised from the air bag going off... but the car is totalled (not hers) and, well, yes... she figured I would find out so she is telling me she was with THAT guy... the 'friend'. You know, the one that she JUST TOLD ME and her sister, and her sister-in-law, that she was NOT going to date, talk to, or see in person (she would talk to him on the phone and online)... any more.

Yea. Lies. I haven't even asked if she spent the night with her husband (yea, divorce proceedings haven't even been started) or her new 'non' boyfriend. I'm so mad I could spit. Not even so much that she is doing these things that I'm not crazy about... but that she is then lying and lying and lying... like it is no big deal.

Just a little bit ticked off. Can ya tell?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know me...I don't like to judge. It just seems like she's using her bad times as an excuse to take advantage of you and that's no good. We all go through really rough stuff and don't lie like teens because of it.

Anyway, not my bidnass...I am just upset that YOU are so frustrated.

Al said...

I always told my kids "If you tell me the truth, we can deal with whatever trouble you have gotten yourself in to. If you lie to me, you are on your own"
So of course, they lied to me.

PlazaJen said...

I'm sorry, Sue. She wants to have the freedom of adulthood and the non-responsibility of a child. And now this. (your FB note.) I'm just so sorry you are having a rough go and trying to be the best parent you possibly can be while preserving your own sanity. I wish there was a simple answer for it all. Hugs to you my dear. xo