Originally Posted by
Jake2008
Sometimes you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
With what you had to do to survive, and come out the other end independent and strong, your children are still making their way with one foot in the past.
That is not unusual for children involved and living with an abusive father, especially when he helped spur their alliance to him, by blaming you for everything. To destroy your personal things, and accuse you of not being honest about your whereabouts is a tactic that unfortunately undermines not only the truth, but the person herself-you.
While he covered up his life, and his non-contribution to their upbringing, and encouraged them to think you were the cause of all that was wrong in the house, really gave them a green light to treat you with disrespect, hate, and uncalled for actions toward you.
He did a number on them. Abusers are very adept at manipulating the truth, particularly with children, and if I recall, your kids were barely 20 when you got a divorce, and much of the damage had already been done before they left.
A friend of mine is going through this now. She provides all that you said you have done, and every other weekend her two girls go to their father's. They ask him for things like school supplies, or money for a school trip, and he says that's what he pays their mother for. The truth is, he is in arrears of over 4200.00 and her phone was just cut off. But, because it was their FATHER saying that their mother should be spending HIS money better, they blame her. She is always in the position to explain that he hasn't paid. All they know is they aren't getting what they want or need, and it MUST be her fault.
Maybe because you were working so hard, you lost yourself somewhere in trying to keep the marriage together, keep the job to pay the bills, and balance three children all at the same time.
Children also learn early how to carry on controlling people to get what they want, even if it is revenge for not being allowed out with their boyfriend. Mine did the same with me, reported me, I did the CPS thing (CAS here in Canada), and it was all unfounded, BUT, this was just another tool to use to get her own way. (the boyfriend incidentally was a heroin user).
As to June Cleaver, I think her husband was a cross-dresser.
It may be time to take care of yourself now, and learn to live with the past is still working itself out in each of your children's lives. It may take years for them to come around, and realize that they too need to work out how thier lives were affected during their growing years, in an abusive household.
If all that you said you've done included a happy marriage, you would not be in this position right now. Could you have seen what could have been happening? Probably not. could you have prevented or changed your husband's behaviour? Probably not. The past was lived, and there were unforseen consequences on the horizon.
This is what you are living now. Even after surviving what you did, and providing all that you could, until they are ready to accept the past as the past, and come to terms with the truth of their lives, they won't be ready to reconcile.
I really hope you get counselling. It would be very helpful for you to learn to let go of some of the guilt that is eating you up, and learn how to accept what you cannot change in your children.
Like anybody else, if you can honestly say that you've done the best you can by your children, at the time they were growing up, then you have to learn to forgive yourself for the the mistakes that we ALL make, and learn to live your life without living in this emotional hell.