Ain't Facebook Grand?

Given that some are not able to see this on Facebook - and not sure if anyone can with the settings that may be set on the other side, figured I'd let everyone know the latest and greatest in the "I hate drama" soaked life.

It amazes me that this whole thing blew up over a facebook issue.  What the hell are we doing as a people that Facebook can destroy a relationship between a family.  But now it is what it is.  Hopefully he understands and takes it in consideration - but go back to my first post on this blog.  Yep - the one with the drool.  Obviously, the times are from when I copied them.  They don't hold up to real time. 

Yep - it's true.  You can't comment on this blog post anymore:  http://jkwgup.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-much-drama-so-much-bullshit.html

I copied and pasted the first portion of this to a.) my blog as you know b.) his blog in the comments section, and c.) comments in facebook. 

But what do I know.  I'm just a babbling idiot.

Rich H When you go on the attack, expect to get reaction. You went on the attack, then expect me to just sit by and take it? Especially when the picture is painted that we are some evil, controlling, helicopter parents that are only in it to control you? I can’t let that go. Normally, I just eat the shit sandwich. I'm not hungry today.

Let’s be clear here - you shut yourself off from us. This is of your doing - not mine or your mother's. You blocked us from your phone. You de-friended. We didn't. You’ve published that. This is exactly my point about finding the fault somewhere else.

Think about it - you blocked us from your phone, but go on to say we don't want anything to do with you? How does this make sense? How is it that you say “Fuck this house, I’m never coming back” and we don’t want you in our lives? It doesn’t make sense.

We never told you to get out of the house and don’t come back. We didn’t block your phone number. I’m sure victim mentality people will agree with you. I just don’t get it.

The debt is forgiven. I'll take care of it. Should have followed my own advice and understood that it’s a gift and not a loan because you should never expect to get it back. I don't want your money.

You can't continue to blame someone else because you had a knee jerk reaction. It was your reactions that led us here. Was Mom out of line with the Blog about that comment? Yep - and I told her so. Hopefully, you will learn from this and think about it before you conduct yourself the way you did yesterday. Perhaps show a little bit of respect. Perhaps not paint us in the light that you did in your blog. Maybe take a step back and review the situation before jumping.

We've tried to help, both emotionally and financially. We get shit on when the newest girl strolls in. Then we don't trust you, we don't believe you, we don't this or that. We control your life, we don’t treat you fairly, etc. I don't think we've said no very often – many times go above and beyond of our own free will. But then we are treated this way regardless of what we say or do. We can probably chart out the exact time that you will say we don’t trust you every time a new relationship begins. It’s a pretty static timeline – about 2 weeks in.

We both love you very much and you are not a waste of space or a burden or a failure. We're not sorry you were born. I think you need to get your head out of the pussy and start thinking for Richie. We’re frustrated seeing what road you are taking – and it’s a long one. We’ve traveled it making a lot less money. And 2 kids.

I’m still here and your number isn’t blocked. Can’t say that for the other way around.

8 hours ago · Like

Rich H II I said what i did because of what mom said and did. so when she went on the attack, that was my reaction. I never attacked anyone, reacted to being attacked. Hence feeling defensive. I shut myself off from you guys because when I moved out, I was apologized to for mom trying to control my life. She said that she did it because she couldn't control your alcoholism. So when this issue came up and i didn't do exactly what she wanted me to and she got mad, i realized that nothing had changed. we've fought about it and "fixed it" enough times for me to realize that it's never going to change. it's never going to get fixed. It's going to be the same struggle and the same fights over and over again for the rest of my life. I will be sending you checks in the mail for the debt. there is one in the mail right now for $200 to pay the phone cancellation and the minimum payment on the credit card. As soon as I get a job, I will be sending you a check for as much as i can afford to pay off that card faster. I will also be paying you back the money for finishing that room in the basement.

6 hours ago · Like

Rich H II now as for being a burden, re read your blog posts. It only really talks about how much it cost you to help me. I apologize for asking for help when i needed it. I won't ask for help anymore. I'll figure it out on my own. My head is not "in the pussy". this whole deal has nothing to do with Lauren. It has everything to do with the fact that nothing has changed and I will always be fighting with Mom like i fought with Grandma. It'll be the same stuff because she is doing the same things. She knows how hard it is for me to even contact grandma to fix it over a year later. why would she treat me the same way that grandma did? why would she act just like grandma? she complains about it and then turns around and does the same things. She even had a big heart to heart and told me about the reason she tried to control my life. and here we are, she's doing it all over again. If i don't just say "ok mom, i'll do exactly what you think i should do." then she gets upset and goes and does things like try to make me feel bad (to the point where you apologized to me in the garage) and guilt me into it. when that doesn't work, she'll try to say hurtful things (Blog on THAT one!) to get under my skin.or perhaps get under Lauren's so that she'll leave instead of me leaving. i don't know. but i can't sit there and take this for the rest of my life. i need to take some time away from it and if she wants to talk about it and honestly fix it this time then she or both of you or whomever can come out to my place and talk about it. until then, i'll be more focused on gettting another job and paying off my debt to you.

6 hours ago · Like

Rich H I'll call Bullshit right now. I'm not going to let you to try and spin this conversation and pull this back to the point. First, please go re-read my blog posts. Especially 1 and 3. You have conveniently left those out of the conversation. You have focused on 2. I know exactly what I wrote. Then go re-read your blog posts. You are changing the subject and trying to spin it. You've left out critical details - you've not answered to the point. You are trying to change the situation so it fits your point of view. Remember - I fight fair and stay on topic. I've said (in blog post 1) that I wasn't going to comment on your issues with Mom. That is for the two of you to figure out. Then go re-read blog post 2. I take responsibility for the expenses. I now know that I shouldn't have done it and it's my issue. Life lesson learned on my part. Your checks will be returned with Void written on them. I'll also call Bullshit that this whole thing is not about Lauren and it's all about Mom. Annnndddd what was the topic of conversation all evening? And what set this whole thing off? You even point that out in this post! "Get under my skin.or perhaps get under Lauren's so she'll leave instead of me leaving" Really? But it's not about Lauren? More spin, kid. Now - let's look at this logically, you have blocked us from your phone - both of us right? You've admitted that. but now we are supposed to come to you when we have limited ways to contact you to see if you are even home, what's going on, etc. Bull shit - and even Bull Fucking Shit.

6 minutes ago · Like

Rich H But at least we have a breakthrough. You now admit that your post about us not wanting anything to do with you is false. You did attack. You attacked through blog. You spread bullshit in your blog. Might want to consider these things. I haven't blocked your number. You've blocked mine. I'll wait to hear from you. In the meantime, I'm done with this. You now admit you want nothing to do with us. You now admit that you have pushed us out of your life. I go back to the fact that you need to start thinking for Richie and who your biggest fans are. But we get pushed aside - every time - for the next girl that walks in. We love you kid. We just can't play this game anymore. You have chosen to pick up your marbles and go away. Not us.

Rich H Wow - and deleted and disabled comments on the Blog huh? Makes it look a bunch cooler that way and spins it to your point of view. Maybe changed it to approve only. This ain't my first blog - I know how to work it. Keeping it on Facebook you can control who sees it and who doesn't. These posts might even be seen only by me. That's OK - I know which way to go now.

about a minute ago · Like

 

You've Entered the No Spin Zone!

I knew it would be my fault somehow....http://jkwgup.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-much-drama-so-much-bullshit.html

When you go on the attack, expect to get reaction.  You went on the attack, then expect me to just sit by and take it?    Especially when the picture is painted that we are some evil, controlling, helicopter parents that are only in it to control you?  I can’t let that go.  Normally, I just eat the shit sandwich.  I'm not hungry today.

Let’s be clear here - you shut yourself off from us.  This is of your doing - not mine or your mother's.  You blocked us from your phone.  You de-friended.  We didn't.  You’ve published that.  This is exactly my point about finding the fault somewhere else. 

Think about it - you blocked us from your phone, but go on to say we don't want anything to do with you?  How does this make sense?  How is it that you say “Fuck this house, I’m never coming back” and we don’t want you in our lives?  It doesn’t make sense. 

We never told you to get out of the house and don’t come back.  We didn’t block your phone number.  I’m sure victim mentality people will agree with you.  I just don’t get it. 

The debt is forgiven.  I'll take care of it.  Should have followed my own advice and understood that it’s a gift and not a loan because you should never expect to get it back.  I don't want your money.

You can't continue to blame someone else because you had a knee jerk reaction.  It was your reactions that led us here.  Was Mom out of line with the Blog about that comment?  Yep - and I told her so.  Hopefully, you will learn from this and think about it before you conduct yourself the way you did yesterday.  Perhaps show a little bit of respect.  Perhaps not paint us in the light that you did in your blog.  Maybe take a step back and review the situation before jumping. 

We've tried to help, both emotionally and financially.  We get shit on when the newest girl strolls in.  Then we don't trust you, we don't believe you, we don't this or that.  We control your life, we don’t treat you fairly, etc.  I don't think we've said no very often – many times go above and beyond of our own free will.  But then we are treated this way regardless of what we say or do.  We can probably chart out the exact time that you will say we don’t trust you every time a new relationship begins.  It’s a pretty static timeline – about 2 weeks in. 

We both love you very much and you are not a waste of space or a burden or a failure.  We're not sorry you were born.  I think you need to get your head out of the pussy and start thinking for Richie.  We’re frustrated seeing what road you are taking – and it’s a long one.  We’ve traveled it making a lot less money.  And 2 kids.

I’m still here and your number isn’t blocked.  Can’t say that for the other way around.

The Winding Road Ahead

As anyone that knows me can attest to, I tend to forgive pretty quickly.  Not sure if I can do that here.  This might take me a while.  It’s going to hurt not talking to him, but again – I was blocked by him so it’s apparent he wants to cut ties.  He and I are father and son, but also used to be friends as well.   

I’ve been shit on multiple times through this.  I’ve had my nose rubbed in it, even though it wasn’t my shit.  I’ve been emotionally hurt and financially hurt.  But I keep going back to it.  I just don’t think I can do it anymore.  When things were on the outs with the girlfriend just a couple of days ago, I was actually developing a plan to help him out (yeah – I know…I can already hear a couple of people asking what Dave would do.....) where I would purchase a property and he would rent from me.  His own place and he had the responsibility for it.  I never brought this up to him and waited to see how things went.  I’ve already abandoned that idea and burned it to the ground.  No need to take that one any further and take on more debt that would blow up in my face. 

At this point, I guess there is only one thing to do – stop helping. 

It’s tough as a parent to see what is going on and not dive into the middle of it to protect your kids from making potentially horrible decisions.  Guess that’s the unconditional love that parents have for their children.  We don’t want to see them fail and after protecting them all their lives and it’s hard to turn that switch off and watch them fall down.  We used to kiss their boo boos and bandage them up.  Now we’re expected to walk away and not care.

By the way, you guys forgot to delete me from your Facebook.  You did the wife, but not me.  No need to spend the time – I think I’m going underground for a while and suspending my account.  I haven’t decided yet.  Somehow I think this social media is the root of it all and I think I need to take a break from it.  From the other side, why should I let someone dictate what I do with my social media pages.  Decisions, decisions. 

I just can’t get shit on anymore.  So I’m done with it, done with helping, done with giving advice.  Not that my advice was worth anything anyway.  Remember, I’m a drooling babbling idiot.

Off to the drug store for more Prozac.

Dollars and Common Sense

See, the story doesn’t end there.  There’s more:

At 9:50 I sent him a text - "What's your email address?  Need to send you your credit card balance due as well as need to know what you are doing with the phone.  Bills are in."  As of 11:55pm, no response so I sent another text:  "I'll presume from your lack of response for 2 hours that you are not interested in sharing your email address and that I will not be getting an answer.  I would also presume that since you were notified before Easter that these were in you have no interest in paying your obligations under our gentleman's agreement.  Remember that you received monies for schooling through the military that is now on my credit card.  Those monies were spent elsewhere.  It's cool.  I now know where we stand.  I'm fucked with the extra payments but at least I know where we stand and what direction I need to take going forward."

See, we had a gentleman's agreement that he could stay on my phone plan since I have a pretty attractive rate package.  For full internet, unlimited texting, and pretty much unlimited calling - $40.  But alas, this is not good enough.  Had to go out and buy a new phone on the girlfriend's plan so we didn't have "anything hanging over him."  Could have done a transfer of billing responsibility, but it was too late.  Now there's a $175 contract cancellation fee.  Despite asking several times what we were doing with the phone, we never got an answer.  Guess we know now.  I have my direction and get to eat $175.   

The credit card is for his semester at PNC where he dropped two classes and failed the other.  The military funded most of the cost of tuition and the rest were to be picked up through student loans.  The story is that the person in the financial aid office wasn't doing her part and the loan paperwork was all screwed up on her end.  Now that my other kid is in school - I wonder what really happened here.  Perhaps the online webinar you are required to do wasn't finished, or the promissory note wasn't signed.  It's all online so I'm not sure what happened here.  But anywho... 

The military money went to buy a car – that ended up blowing up.  Despite us having four vehicles.  As you can imagine, since the school didn't get paid - ever - he was sent to collections.  Me wanting to help out made a speakerphone call to the collection agency and we put it on my credit card to keep a 19 year old out of collections.  Nice way to start your credit career.  Now I know that was a mistake and should have followed my own advice that you don't do business with family.  Lesson learned here since I now have to pay off the remaining $2667.19.  Exactly what we needed - more debt.

But let’s take a walk down memory lane shall we?  When the breakup with the “ex” happened, we scrambled to get a room done in the basement for him.  That way he could have his own space.  Framing was done and drywall was already hung but not finished.  Thankfully a neighbor was willing to come over and finish the drywall for me – I’m not exactly a wizard with a mud knife.  From there, installed trim, carpet, and a drop ceiling along with doors.  All to the tune of $2500 or so – which we didn’t have.  If we did have it, I might have done my office first where I spend a good majority of my work day.  But alas, I still have concrete floors and insulated joists over my head. 

This living situation lasted for a couple of months when the girlfriend, girlfriend’s fiancé, and the son got into a whole nasty mess of a relationship.  I think that one’s still posted on the girlfriend’s blog – not sure and really don’t want to look it up.  I already had the feeling that he was going to move out there before it happened.  He was just looking for something to blame it on.  He got his wish on Superbowl Sunday with a big blowup.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been blocked or had no way to contact him.  I didn’t get his phone number for over a month after he moved in with the girlfriend. 

The move in with the girlfriend actually happened over one reason as well.  My wife and I didn’t want girls sleeping in his bed under our roof.  I’m pretty sure that any of the parents reading could understand this.  Hell, probably most people would get this.  But it happened anyway.  Multiple times despite our simple request to respect our house.  Talk about shitting in your own cage and then blaming something else. 

With the military money car blown up, he had no vehicle.  To help him out, we let him drive one of our cars.  All the way from South Bend to Whiting for work – after the whole blow up.  Talk about miles on that vehicle now.  We even paid for what I believe to be the only oil change in the car when he returned it. 

So this whole fiasco has now cost me over $5000 in order to try and help him out.  You can see the appreciation in his posts.  See, things are fine if Son gets what Son wants.  Things are fine when there’s no girlfriend.  As soon as there’s a girlfriend – things change.  Then we don’t get it – we don’t understand – we are trying to control his life – we are blah, blah, blah. 

Where’s my Prozac?

 

It's Tough being so stupid....

I know I was told repeatedly by friends that my intelligence level would go down as my kids got older.  At this point, I'm surprised I can even hold my head up straight or wipe the drool off of my shirt.  Because - man - I'm stupid.  I just don't get it, I don't understand, I've never been in this situation before, etc.

I've remained pretty quiet on this whole situation - especially haven't blogged about it until now since I really don't like airing my dirty laundry in public.  But since I have no other methods of contact, and it must be the way all the "other cool kids are doing it" these days.  Did I mention that I'm not cool either?  Must be the dribbling drool out of the corner of my mouth.

I'll spare you all the background.  I have a funny feeling this is going to be long enough anyway.  You can read the background here:  http://jkwgup.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html and here:  http://thestayathomewoman.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html  If for some reason a post or two get taken down, I can post them to my google docs in pdf format.  I know one post was for sure taken down from the second link.  Hopefully, I can just figure out what the heck a google doc is.  I think it's where you park your boat, but not sure.

For those of you that have children over the age of 13, I'm the father of the author of the first link.  Second link is the girlfriend.  For those of you who have children over the age of 17, it doesn't matter.  You've forgotten how to read much like I have.

So let's clear up some issues and accountings in the first link. 

Yep - my wife posted some song lyrics.  Song lyrics from a country artist with the music awards being over the weekend.  So - the girlfriend sees this as a shot over the bow and writes a blog.  Was the girlfriend tagged in the post?  Was she mentioned in the post?  Nope.  They were freaking song lyrics.  Maybe it was directed at someone else.  Maybe it was a general comment.  Maybe she was listening to it on the radio.  But somehow this is a no questions asked a shot at the girlfriend.

Next, wife posts different lyrics with a comment of "Blog about that".  I told her she went too far on that one.  But the damage is done.  In essence - a facebook post and a blog have lead to all of this.  I'm not going to comment on the issues between the wife and the son.  That's up to them to figure out.

There's a very important detail that has been left out of the accounting of the day.  I was working my second job (more on that later) when all of this shook out.  When I get home, wife tells me what happened and one particular phrase stuck with me:

"Fuck this house.  I'm never coming back."

Being tired of dealing with this whole situation and having bigger fish to fry, I made my facebook comment at 8:31.  "Well, I'm officially in the don't give a shit phase. I'm done with all of it."  Pulled my profile pictures, etc.  At 9:32 I get a text.  This is the one where I flip out on him according to the account presented in the first link.  Here's the exact transcript of the text string.  I can take the photos and post if proof is needed:

Son:  So what happened between you and mom when you got home?
Me:  Nothing.
Son:  So you two are good?
Me:  For the most part.
Son:  Well at least I haven't completely ruined every relationship.  Just most of them...
Me:  Guess it was nice to see you this weekend since fuck this house and I'm never coming back.
Son:  And at this point I'm bowing out.  Love ya.
Me:  Don't want to stand behind it?  You said it.
Son:  We're done here dad.
Me:  Your call
Son:  Please stop.  Its not helping.  Just like the things mom said weren't helping.
Me:  All I said is what you said along with two and three word answers.  Guess we're done here before this becomes my fault somehow.

Man did I completely freak out in the first text string or what!  Holy Crap!  I'm a CRAZY man!  Pretty sure the Bellevue Orderlies and Nurse Ratchet are coming to get me this afternoon for that flip out!  I'm quite certain that I was blocked before two other texts went out. 

More on that in the next posting.  I have to go take my Prozac.