single parent of adult and younger children that make my life hell.

my kids have watched an abusive ex and a troubled abusive son abuse me and saw that anyone can do anything to me and get away with it because i may not have the health and money to follow it up and do much.

i have 2 very very troubled kids at present and i'm sick to hell of them!

we have enough challenges enough crisis in our family and they create more when a simple short conversation could often clear the air.

i dont know if i will ever forgive them

they are used to abusing me and then when they are really suffering and call for help from me i help them as if they didnt just ruin my whole life and try to hurt me in so many ways.

part of me wants to stay away from them FOREVER.

part of me knows they are troubled and wants to be patient, enjoy this break and see what they are like when they want to reconnect

part of me at least wants to protect myself from them for ayear or 2 or 3.

but with one that would mean missing out on some contact with a grandchild.

why cant people be normal rational fair communicative, looking to resolve, ignore, get on, talk do what it takes to get on instead of to inflame cut off sulk.

i dont know if i want to come back into their lives when they do finally decide they have had enough of being angry immature sulking depressive troubled. i've done this in the past and helped them to extreme only to be kicked in the face very quickly with no notice.

what do others say?

i dont have any wise voices in my family besides me who try to get peole to calm down and get on and understand each other or even try to talk and resolve things instead of making dramatic rifts or worse.

i'd like to hear from others.

thanks

It sounds like you are in a very difficult situation. I am sorry I don't have much advise. I can see in a way your damed if you do, damed if you don't. If you do distant yourself from them to protect yourself perhaps then you might regret it later if they decide to cut you out of your grandchildren's lives. But if you don't they will continue to treat you the way they are.
As a teenager I couldn't stand my mother. I was rude to her (verbally) and I honestly went through a stage where I hated her. As soon as I had my own child (when I was 17) I suddenly realised what a Bi(a)tch I was to her and over the past few years our relationship has improved and we now have a fantastic mother-daughter relationship. It is all water under the bridge now. My eldest is very challenging and I can see us having a huge difficulties ahead especially as she is older and going through puberty. I can only hope that once she is on the other side and an adult things will improve.
I hope you find a solution thats good for you and improves your relationship with your children. I haven't had much luck with professional family therapists in the past but maybe some advise from people that have experience dealing with family problems would have some good suggestions.
Good luck

It sounds like you need to set up some boundaries for yourself. I am one child of three- my two brothers (22 and 20) sound like your kids. Our dad was abusive, and long story short, your story sounds like it could be written by my own mother. I have been "counselling" my mother since I was 14/15...there was a reversal of roles ..I felt it was my responsibility to fix everything and save everyone..to the point I brought over my (then) 19 yr old brother and put him through school- after a year and $13,000 later, I had to send him home as he wasn't taking advantage of opportunities to get out of the hell hole that was "home"...Thing is, I have had to be the one to set up boundaries and she emotionally purges and dumps on me as she says "I'm the only one who understands" and she doesn't trust anyone else...

so after all that - in a way I can understand where you're coming from so to say "set up boundaries" i KNOW is not as easy to do as it is to say however it's the only thing that saved my sanity. It sounds like you have been an easy pushover and your kids know it...the same that my mother is...

I have learned that "They can't MAKE you feel" a certain way, it is up to you to control your emotions...

and most importantly I learned a huge life lesson from my brother last year and that is

"You can't MAKE someone WANT something as much as YOU want it for them" ..I almost killed my brother and stressed myself out so bad over the entire year learning this..and I was pregnant during it all...all i can say is never again.

HTH.

You have to retrain them Sue.

So far they have been able to treat you like crap, then summon you to their rescue when the going gets tough. That must change and you are the only person that can do it.

Stop coming to their rescue - they are adults. It might be hard, but you must do it - what unlikable people they must be right now. Not just to you but others as well. If they can treat their mother like this, how do they treat everyone else?

So, hang up the phone if they get abusive. Tell them you won't talk unless they can be mature.
RETRAIN!

wow thanks so much

so much to answer becauase parts of each ones story is so relevant

thank you so so so much. everything you all said was relevant and helpful thank you.

rifts are so painful and the most painful is you cant go around talking about it even. you can say things like ' my partner just got diagnosed with ... so i'm stressed , but you cant easily say my children are really acting carzy at present or my family isnt getting on at present"

rifts are painful. i wish they could just talk sort things and get on

but at present i'm going to have to have the pain of the rift as well as time to focus on other areas of my life which is much needed after 3 decades devoted to children and almsot nothing for other areas of my life.

Oh yeah you can - I do it all the time ie - "my teenager sucks right now", "my 3yr old has gone feral" and something a friend said to me just last week - you give birth to them and love them, but you don't always LIKE them....

A relative of mine has forever been coming to the rescue of her adult kids and still does! At ages 45 & 40 she still bails them out :o

Mr 45 won't contact her for months but then he will turn up because he needs money to pay for a tank of petrol to get to work.

Not being in your situation I'm not sure I can say what I'd do, but I know damn well I'd not let it get to that point after seeing what the relative goes through.

thank you everyone for your response. i am feeling very raw and sad for a long time from this.
well i guess there are different situations which decide if you should give or not. if people need support even huge support and they then go flying with the support you give thats great. but if they fly for a while and then in a crisis kick you in the face, thats the painful part.

suze orman once said on oprah how single mums give all their time and money for their kids with no time for relationships, friends, savings, and then have nothing left at the end of it. i've got worse than nothing left i've got so much hurt.

i'm trying to focus on other things but i have found its made me very down. I was exhausted by challenge after challenge without a while lot of crazy thigns now that its left me to do when i just needed peace already.

i have been told to build an imagernay wall around myself and let all their crazynes bounce off and not let it get to me that i dont deserve it.

sue.