Your outlook would be.......
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| Sun, 09-04-2005 - 12:15am |
appreciated. Hi, everyone. I am new to this board and I need some advice. I have posted on many other boards trying to get some advice and other peoples' outlook on what I am going through. Hope you guys can help.
I have always thought of myself as a blessed person. Constantly told when I was younger how smart and talented I was, I felt that G-D had blessed me. Two things remained constant though: definite problems with the opposite sex and not a good relationship with my parents.
Well, I got older and married an man that I knew from the start was not "the one." I blame myself thoroughly for getting involved with this person.
Fast forward to now. I have two girls: ages 11 and 4. I am now realizing that I am not as blessed as I thought. Please understand, I am speaking from pain.
My older daughter was born, and I was happy. There seemed to be some problem from the beginning of our marriage. (We are married 12 years). We never had a group of friends to hold on to. And we moved two different times. My older daughter who was always very social, lately for the past few years does not seem to have a steady friend. Same goes for my younger one,and we have relocated here a year ago.
I go with them to stores and never, NEVER does anyone make any comment about them. It is as if we are invisible.
I am sitting here feeling like I have been left with a barrel of problems. 1)my husband and I are probably getting a divorce 2)my girls seem to never get any attention from anyone, including parents of their so called friends. I am the only one now giving them lots of attention.
I don't know what the problem is. I know I want warmth, socialization in the right way, a great community. I don't have that. My girls' don't get attention. And to think, that they are considered "unattractive" by society and therefore no one can ever make a nice comment to them is just unbearable to me. I have more problems than I can count. The thing that hurts me most is that I truly felt blessed when I was younger. Now I really don't.
I don't know what the problem is. I need to go to a family counseling center and dump my problems and maybe they can shed some light on this. My kids have beautiful personalities and we are all very social but very alone. The only thing I can think of is that people are judging based on something that I can't see. I sincerely don't know where to turn, (of course counseling is the first thing) and I have never heard of a mom complain of this before. But I am in agony everyday from feeling ignored. If it were only me, I'd say, okay, but to have my kids ignored is more than I can take. If you have good advice for me, please give it. I seem to want so much, and yet I feel like I receive not as much as I need. Also, for some unknown reason to me, there have been some adults who have been downright mean to my older daughter. Like one of her caregivers at the nursery when she was three, or the mother of one of her very fleeting friendships that was not responding to her at all. This really hurts. So, there you have it. We have no family here, I am probably getting divorced soon, and on top of that, no consistent friendships and no feeling of community. Every mom needs to hear positive feedback about her children. And my kids are intelligent, social, talented in their way. But I don't receive positive or any feedback at all. I keep telling myself it doesn't matter, but whenever I meet new people or go out with them it feels so unnatural to not receive one comment by anyone. Can't anyone say something nice? It makes no sense at all to me. Their silence is as loud to me as a deafening noise. They have such beautiful qualities. I am truly stumped. Everyone needs to feel accepted, acknowledged, appreciated. I always say something nice about someones' child and certainly if I like the person, I care for the child as well.
Why is G-D doing this to me? I suffered enough as a child from certain things. Well, anything you can do to help would be much appreciated. This is supposed to be the best time of my life, but my life feels barren and unsupported, and it is very hard to feel grateful and happy when you feel like this. On top of that, I would love to have more children, but as I will be divorcing soon, this will not happen. Thank you.
Edited 9/4/2005 12:45 am ET ET by smoothride

I'm sorry to hear that your marriage is disolving, but from what you say, perhaps it's for the best. You didn't elaborate on what went wrong in your marriage, but I can't help but believe that it's the cause for the problems you and your girls are having. If you wanted to elaborate on the marriage problems, it would tell us a lot about why you and the girls feel how you do.
Having friends - and knowing how to make friends - should be a very high priority for both you and your daughters. Do you lead by example? Do you do activities that help you meet people? For example, the PTA is a great way to meet people. So is volunteering for the needy. When you are with people, are you pleasant to be around? Positive and outgoing? (The reason I ask if you are pleasant to be around is because I remember my first marriage. I let the miserable attitude of my ex rub off on me, and because of this, found it hard to make friends. Naturally, nobody wanted to be near me when I was a miserable grump!)
Regarding your girls...it's hard to say without seeing them with their friends. If they have no friends, perhaps the school counsellor could put some strategies in place for them to learn about making friends and being a good friend in return. People generally aren't friendless unless there is good reason. Of course, there can be many reasons: shyness, insecurity or even being the school bully. But I will strongly reiterate that whatever the cause, your girls need help as much as you do.
I am, however, very concerned about your need to have your children complimented by friends and passers by. If I counted correctly, you've made nine references to this issue. Honestly, I think you're making this a much bigger issue than it needs to be. What worries me even more is the fact that you discuss compliments in the same paragraph as you discuss love and support. Complimpents can be fake and forced - but love and support is real and tangible. Compliments should never be relied on for feeling good. Feeling good about yourself and your family can only come from one place. It comes from inside you.
Yes, your youngest got compliments as a baby - just as all babies do. But that stopped - just as it does for most kids. (The exceptions being the stunningly beautiful children) Most kids stop being so cutesy, cutesy, adorable as they grow and compliments will also stop. It's quite normal for any child.
For the record, my kids don't get compliments from passers-by. Well, OK...my daughter gets comments on her curly hair until we cut it off .... but hair is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. And my autistic son never gets comments from strangers except to comment on his strangeness.
Edited 9/4/2005 5:17 am ET ET by iv_aisha2004
Anyway, the strange thing is - they DO have friends at school. My older one has friends, they don't gush over her like they did when she was little - but she has friends. And my younger one - the kids' in school love her!
That's what makes it strange. But no friendships after school. We relocated here a year ago and really the only kids who hang out downstairs are a bunch of 12-14 year old boys. No girls their age at all.
So, what makes me sad is to think that it is the parents that do not make the effort. Honestly, it was so different when dd was younger! I try to make the efforts but then let my older dd take the course. She is really old enough to make her own playdates at this stage.
And what I mean about attention, I mean the neighborhood people saying hello, some feeling of familiarity, really that is what I mean.
Seriously I am so lonely, both from this marriage and lack of close coupled friendships. I know that if we had those close friendships (my husband and I) it would provide a lot of warmth for the whole family. But you are right the atmosphere of the marriage does obviously color a lot of things (as I am finding out).
I do not have any family here either, (I am not close to them anyway).
Thank you so much for your words. And I am sorry about what you had said about your son. Although you seem to be handling it well. My friend has a son with autism and he is the sweetest boy. Thanks again.
thank you, thank you for your response. It seems that I've misunderstood quite a bit of your question - and as such I've given the wrong advice. Very sorry about that.
And yes, you would have seen me around on the boards. I'm quite often on the "love and sex" boards.
First, I'm glad to hear that your daughters have friends at school! This means that they are mostly likely well adjusted, and well liked girls. You've raised them well.
After school friendships can be a little tricky. To be honest, while we do them on occaision, I don't encourage it much for my kids either. It's got nothing to do with who their friends are - but it's more about having to fit in homework and extra curricular activities. And when there's no homework or activities, I like them to just 'chill'. I figure that they see each other all day at school....so I don't see a need to continue it with frequent play dates. Perhaps this is the situation for your daughters' friends?
I now understand what you mean about 'attention' - that it's more about feeling welcome in the community. I'm so sorry to have misunderstood you. My butcher and fruiterers always say "hi" to my kids and call them by name (and they're not offended if DS is particularly autistic in response or steals grapes!). It's taken me a long time to get to this point of feeling accepted in the community, but I think I help it along by avoiding the malls - and instead - giving all my business to the local shopping village. We go in each of these little shops daily, so we do get to know the shopkeepers by name. I'm confident that many of these shopkeepers would care for my son if they found him wandering in the street. However, I must stress that I live in a fairly insular section of a capital city. In more urban areas, this simply would not happen.
Yes, we do cope with an autistic child well. He's funny and smart and weird. And there are some very difficult times too. But strength comes from adversity. And I've gained a stack of new skills that I didn't know I could learn! The way DH and I see it, we could be sad and continually search for a 'cure' or we can embrace him as he is and enjoy life the best we can.
When you get out of this marriage, you too will find strength from the adversity. You'll have learned from the mistakes and you'll see the sun shine again. Best of all, you'll be a stronger woman.
Hi
I hope I'm not to late with my two cents.
First I
Becky and Archie 3/1/04
and baby due Jan 26!