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God Save My Marriage

Working to heal and win my wife's heart


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Tigger,

A most bussy day. I just had to stop and say I Love You, because you are willing to takecare of yourself by going to the doctor instead of being supper woman. Thank You!!! I need you here with us.

 

I Love you and have completed the filling and pulling of the old stuff for the year end change. I look forward to quite time tonight with you. POOH

 

C2 & Aslan's Child,

I will have to get time later to respond.

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Tigger,

 

I love you for your care of our children. Thank you for the time to get some dtuff outside done. We had a productive day. I know you are tired so I will get he children to bed so we can go our self. You are a blessing thank you for keeping me accountable.

 

Pooh

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Tigger,

 

I hope you got some more rest. I am deeply sorry that you are not sleeping well. Try to take it easy today. I know you love the progress we are having in the house. You need to rest or you will crash. I love you for caring about our home and how it appears. You are truly a blessing to me and I hope to be a blessing to you. I hope the day with the eldest is good to day. I am praying for our family. I will call you later. I have pondered the attitude I had this weekend and all I can come up with is frustration about the children and their lack of effort. I am truly sorry that I was not more caring when I was redirecting them. I understand how that affects you when it deals with your children. I am sorry and have already talked with the boys this morning. All My Love. Pooh

 

 

C-2 & Aslan's Child,

 

Thanks for the support.

 

Pooh.

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You're welcome! Take great care of my big sis!

 

As far as the lack of effort of the children, can you make a game or come up with a reward/consequence system to get them started? For example, who can put their toys away the fastest? A star on the calendar for each day the dishes are done, and then 10 minutes "Daddy and Me Time" one on one if they get 5 or more stars. Things like that. I don't know how old the children are or the details of what they're not doing, but Tigger knows. This is another way you can connect with Tigger. She may not be able to physically be there 100%, but you two are still a team. If you're having trouble, talk with her about it, and together, work on finding the solution.

 

This was one area that drove me crazy in our bad days ~ I would ask for help and LO would suggest I go work out so I could manage better. What I needed from him was for him to ask what I needed, not tell me what to do. Do you see the difference.

 

Good job on posting 3 out of the 4 past days! Keep up the good work! :D

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Dear AC,

 

FYI: Oldest is 13-boy, 11 3/4-boy, 10 1/2- girl (who just officially entered the realm of womanhood yesterday :cry: ), 2 years old-boy, and 1 year old-boy. This is our little family, as GOD has it designed right now.

 

He is not doing all of his homework, so if you took notes last Thursday night, then maybe you could post him a note with ALL of the things he is suppose to be doing. Thank you for your help in this matter.

 

I have not been on for several days, as I have been sooooooo sick. Thanks for staying with us here, even when I fall off. I have children getting wild around here so I must close; I can't concentrate.

 

BLessings,

 

Your Big Sis,

 

Tigger

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Tigger,

 

I had a nice day with you today. I stopped in and checked up on things. I willhave to be short. The children are wild and dinner is on. I sent the pictures that were needed. Hope you have rested well. We need you well. I love you for being able stopand take care of your self.

 

AC,

 

We are tring different things we have not hity the correct combo yet.

 

Pooh

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Anyone,

 

Tigger and I have identified that I definitely have mother son issues. Dose any one know where we can find some more info on this. We are interested in learning more and dealing with these issues. Thanks for any help.

 

Tigger,

 

I hope your day is enjoyable and the children are diligent and good. I will be out of the office today. I love you.

 

Pooh

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Pooh, can you give us a little more detail on what it is the kids aren't doing?

 

Tigger just doesn't sound like she's getting blessed. You are her source of life, source of strength. Are you focusing on her FEELINGS?

 

I ditto what AC said, instead of telling her what to do (go rest) ask what she needs (emotionally).

 

You started to open up for a while but you seem closed again, very distant and to yourself.

 

It is a pleasure to help. So glad it does.

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Sorry, Pooh, somehow I missed your post above when I responded.

 

I love the way you said,

 

Tigger and I have identified ...

 

That phrase sounds like you are working as a team. Yes!

 

Try speaking out loud, Tigger is Not my mom. Tigger is my girlfriend (or wife) whichever sounds more romantic to you. Paul Hegstrom is big on speaking out loud. It helps reprogram your brain.

 

Give it a try and let us know.

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C2,

 

Thank you for your words and for staying with with us here. I feel like we sometimes are like the dog that keeps chasing its tail only to keep chasing, because it can't catch the tail. POOH will get it some, then he just seems to get lost. I don't understand why this is so hard. I tried to ask him that last night why it was so hard. I don't feel like I got any kind of answer.

 

For a while, about 2 weeks ago, I felt that he was making an emotional connection. Now it just seems gone. On my thread, Faithworks said that no one can "force" their H to do this. I know this is so true. I wish I could just turn a switch and he would just get it and move forward into an OHM. I would not even mind working through the process and the time that it takes, just so long as he would be consistent and move forward.

 

Well I am not in a great place tonight, so I will just sign off for now.

 

BLessings,

 

Tigger

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C2,

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try the verbal retraining. as for the children they wont do what they should (chores, school work) and do all the thing they shouldn't (fight, yell, and steal food ( all sugar loaded stuff)). They are causing a lot of wasted time (constantly having to redirect them every 3 -5 minutes) and stress. I do have to say it is mostly the eldest son, then a small amount for the middle son, the youngest girl is great, and the babies are babies. Maybe this is some of the boy / girl thing. The oldest just seems to run from anything that would be good and have a possibility to serve God. I know that satin wants the first born. We hope that something will eventually reach him.

 

Tigger,

 

I am missing you. I can not wait to get home and be with you. I am sorry that everything blew up last night and we did not have time together. We can do something Friday night. We can try tonight if we are not out to late. I will do everything I can to be on time. I will keep you informed as the day progresses. I love you because you warm my heart with every thought of you. You are truly a blessing to me.

 

Pooh

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Dear C2,

 

I too wanted to address the issue of our children. I just could not cope very well last night. I did not feel like I was able to make any kind of sense on the few posts that I was writing. I felt called to address this issue of our children.

 

POOH rather nailed it with his brief assessment. It all comes down to our oldest child. He is really the basis of all the problems around here. That sounds rather harsh, but oh so the truth. He is his own worst enemy, we can do nothing that he does not already do himself.

 

He is having to spend time in his room because he is stealing so badly, that we can not trust him. He has taken to stealing his sisters clothes, which is really freaky. He is always stealing food, which cause a health hazard in his room; he shares a room with his brother, so that is not good for more then just him. He is stealing money now too; worse part is that he stole money from our 2 year old, that is really sad.

 

He also keeps destroying things. He goes in the area where I keep gifts for people and he just steals stuff and destroys them. He is too harsh with his siblings as well. He can just be plain mean. You are not walking in the Light when you are doing these kinds of things. It is like he does not believe that he deserves to walk in the Light of the Lord, so instead he is walking in darkness. This is so hard.

 

This is a child who has had years of counseling, which never seemed to make things better; it actually seemed to make things worse. He is belligerent and hostile. He is not trying to keep up with his school work, and he can do it just fine!! He is just trying to stir up trouble. I have gotten to the point where I have told him that I will not push him. If he does not finish and has to work all summer, then so be it; he will have no pool time until all of his school year is complete. He loves to swim, he is the biggest pool person in our family- bar none.

 

I also told him if he does not finish before the end of the summer he would be held back and he would be in the grade with his younger brother. Our daughter is staying up with her school year and they are in the same grade. She has even worked ahead. She is frustrated because neither of the boys are trying this year, so she does not have anyone to do things with. I actually think that this is part of our oldest son's problem.

 

He is always against his sister. Anything he can do to hurt her he does. It is her he is most aggressive against, mean to, and hurtful towards. He constantly is distracting our son who is aged between he and his sister. This 2nd son has very severe attention issues and it does not take much to get him off track. If son #1 can distract son #2, then son #2 can't go out to play with his sister either. It is controlling and manipulating. He does not care about what he is doing to his brother, just so long as he gets his way---> That he hurts his sister!!

 

URGH!! You can tell this is a big issue. I feel like I am yelling my way through this post. He is really causing problems and is trying to destroy our family. POOH has been very humble and has gone to our children and given them permission to call him on his "yelling". Now the oldest son is trying to use this against his Dad. He is manipulating and lying; this I am sure of because I have been present. We also have a rule that Mommy is the 3rd party referee. I make the final decision as to if Dad is being too harsh.

 

I also know that the other children testify to the fact that son #1 is being dishonest with his dealings about his Dad. Now I know POOH has made many mistakes, he is owning that too now, but this son is trying to take advantage of POOH's "getting things right with GOD and us" as an excuse to misbehave. Quite frankly the other children are really sick of this brother. They have gotten to the point that they wish he was not here because he ruins so much around here!! There is so much time, attention, money, etc. spent on this son that the other children suffer. They are tired of him stealing from them, both money, items, and quality time.

 

I know I have gone on long. This is a really big thing, very passionate about what has happened in our home. Some of the problems with this son is that he had always had his Dad wrapped around his little finger. POOH did not realize, even though we told him. Now we have this disaster on our hands. I know that several have said that once we get the marriage fixed things will turn around for the children. We are trying to work on the marriage, while we are doing this, this son is trying to destroy all of the effort and hurt our other children in the process. He can not stand not to be the center of attention.

 

POOH is working to do things right, not to yell and to handle things well. The more POOH does things right the more this child acts up and pushes things further. SOOOOOO as you can see, this is a big stressor for us. This takes so much time and effort that we are often left without time for us. We can not just go spend time talking and leave him to do whatever down here on his own. We can not abandon our other children that way, so how do we still make time for us?? Any suggestions??

 

BLessings,

 

Tigger

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My goodness, you two have your hands full! The teen years have got to be the toughest of all years to get through (except getting through arrestedness, I think that's harder). I'm no expert with teens. Young children, I can help with, but teens, you need LO. He worked at a boys ranch and has a degree in Corrections, I think. It's been many years since he worked with teens, but he remembers alot. I think his advice to you would be to wear your son out. Give him lots of activities to keep him too busy to get into mischief. Sports clubs would be perfect. If that's not financially possible, when he misbehaves, LO would say to send him out to run around the block.

 

If you can get on the call tonight, LO can give you more ideas. If not, I'll try to ask him within the next day or two for more ideas and post them here. I think you're going to need alot of tough love, which is the hardest kind of all.

 

As far as Pooh's homework ~ ahem, Pooh? What happened? You were doing so great! I know it's hard with all the troubles you both are having, but you can't slip! You have to stay the course. You are fighting battles daily, probably hourly. It's ok to lost one once-in-a-while, but a loss does not make it okay to give up fighting to win the war. Get back on track, here, quick!

 

as for the children they wont do what they should (chores, school work) and do all the thing they shouldn't (fight, yell, and steal food ( all sugar loaded stuff)). They are causing a lot of wasted time (constantly having to redirect them every 3 -5 minutes) and stress.

 

Something really jumped out at me when I read this. Pooh, I'll be as gentle as I can here, ok? Do you realize, that this is exactly what you are putting Tigger through? Do you see the parallel? She has to constantly remind you to do your homework. It wastes her time and her precious energy and causes her tremendous stress. How old do you think you are being? When's the last time you two emotionally connected? Yes, it's hard when she's sick and the kids are wild, but that's when she needs it the most.

 

LO used to expect me to wake him on time, then he would lay in bed until the last minute, then get up and rush to get to work on time. Not only that, but he would snap at me and expect me to make his breakfast and do whatever he needed done irregardless of what I needed to be doing to get myself ready for work. Now, he gets himself up and ready for work without asking me for anything. Even if he's running late, he doesn't ask me for a single thing! HOWEVER, (and any husbands reading this take note) I will often help him if I am ready for work because I have seen how hard he is working. I am proactively responding to his agape love! And let me tell you, we are both so much happier!

 

Pooh, your homework was:

 

1) Post everyday (which it looks like you are doing). :D

 

2) Keep your voice under control with the kids. (I think you're doing better, yes?) :?

 

3) Compliment Tigger everyday. (Even when the kids are wild, a quick smile to your bride can do wonders. Try it!) Are you complimenting her? :?:

 

Remember, if you are doing great in some areas, that's awesome. The key is to keep doing great in those areas, get them going full steam, and start working on something else, without letting the first areas fall apart. We learn our ABC's, then we learn how to write them, then we learn how to put them together to make words, then we learn how to make sentences. Even after we've mastered cursive and great writing skills, we still know our ABC's. If we didn't, we wouldn't be able to write at all.

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Aslan's Child & C2,

 

Thanks for the support with the children. We keep trying different things. Sometimes he gets his act together for a little while then he falls apart again. We have exiled him to the camper for a few days before but that did not streight him out for long. We have not given up yet. We will take all input and keep trying.

 

As for supporting each other. Tigger always backs me up. I know that I have not done as good of a job in backing her up. I am working to ensure that I do better.

 

Pooh

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POOH,

 

Thank you for your post. I am in the most weird place today. I hope that your day is going well. I have gotten the food out of the freezer for dinner. Your suggestion was a good one. I will make spaghetti sauce after the babies go to bed and get everything ready to go in the oven. What else would sound good to go with the Chicken Parm?? I hope I will be able to make it taste good, so you will like it well enough.

 

KIT is trying to fly a kite in the house right now, it is kind of funny. It started to rain before she could get outside with it and both the babies are just getting into EVERYTHING!! She will be really ready for them to go down for their naps. She has been so helpful with me not feeling well today. I am totally blessed by her. She is the greatest gift that GOD has given me and I praise Him for her life.

 

Our #2 son has been working in the den, but I have not been there to grade, so I guess I should go do that. KIT thinks it is really strange for her to have a day off when you are at work; this is too weird with you being gone on a Friday. Well all I can say is that I am weird today too, maybe it is the weather, maybe it is you being gone on a Friday, but whatever it is I am just weird. I will talk with you later.

 

BLessings,

 

Tigger

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Pooh, you said:

 

As for supporting each other. Tigger always backs me up. I know that I have not done as good of a job in backing her up. I am working to ensure that I do better.

 

Taking responsibility and not letting Tigger take the heat, very chivalrous of you.

 

Tigger did the same for you:

 

POOH has been very humble and has gone to our children and given them permission to call him on his "yelling". Now the oldest son is trying to use this against his Dad. He is manipulating and lying; this I am sure of because I have been present.

 

You two sound like you've got each other's back.

 

One other thought on the stealing. My son once stole a dollar from a boy in grade school. My first reaction was the typical parent response, my son would never do anything like that! Well he did. There was proof. I drove my son to the kid's house and made him give the money back sevenfold like it says in the Bible. And it came out of his own hard earned money which was a lot in grade school.

 

Years later when they both ran back into each other in high school, they both remembered the seven dollar lesson. Some of my son's friends in high school got involved in counterfeiting but my son wanted nothing to do with that one.

 

What is a daily thing your oldest son likes to do? God has put him on my heart so I am praying for him. What is his name, if you're comfortable giving it out here.

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Dear C2,

 

I don't have alot of time but I will quickly answer about our son. We all have 100 acre woods names. He is Owl or you can call him JB- which is the initials of his first name; he has a double first name like we all do.

 

He loves to read. He has no real money at this point. He has such debt that he may be paying it off until he is 20 at the rate he keeps ruining things. He keeps stealing things from our pantry, so how can we get him to return something 7 fold. Unfortunately, if someone told us he stole from them we would automatically believe them because Owl has stolen sooooooooooooooo often and sooooooooooooooooo much.

 

He was told by the manager at Wal*Mart that he stole again in his store he would turn him over to foster care. That put the fear of GOD into my son and he has never stolen from there again. Each time he was caught he had to go, confess and make restitution. The third time I told the manager not to go easy on my son, because he had done this before and he was not learning his lesson. It is and hour and a half to drive back to the Wal*Mart so this is a big thing for us to have to do. That manager did a GREAT job.

 

His counselor had us go to the police station and have an officer talk to him. The officer was just too nice, the Grandpa type He did tell my son though that he (my son) would never make in juvy, he told him that they would eat him alive. That was the one good thing that did come out of that.

 

We have tried many things, all to no avail, thus far. I don't want to sound like I am giving up on him. It is just a matter of him deciding that he is not going to do this any longer. Just like a drunk will not stop drinking just because someone tells him he has a problem, he has to own that he addicted, then and only then can he get help. Owl has a problem, he is addicted to the rush of stealing and the feeling of "getting away with it".

 

Well I said I would keep this short, but have not. I have a husband who is patiently waiting for me, so I will close. I did not want to ignore your loving kindness towards our family. Hope this finds you well.

 

BLessings,

 

Tigger

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Tigger:

 

Thanks for the specifics. You are very talented at making a clear point with just enough details.

 

I love to read also. What is book is Owl reading now? I am praying for Owl.

 

One of our employees stole from Wal-Mart. He can never go back in Wal-Mart again. I'll have to ask him for sure but I think that's for the rest of his life. Can you imagine never being able to shop in Wal-Mart, ever?

 

Too bad you don't live closer. I used to work with a resource officer. the kids LOVED but he was oh so tough. I had trouble once with a gang of students who would come down my hallway and cause trouble. He staked himself around the corner and caught them all running. He had the whole gang of them kneel down on their knees in the grass while he "read them their rights". Wish I'd had a picture. I never had a problem with those kids in my hallway again.

 

When that resource officer left a new one came in that just turned his back on everything. All chaos broke out and he didn't care. It was too much trouble to be arresting kids all the time. The other officer never hesitated to arrest a kid. If that kid got defiant, he got arrested.

 

The "good" officer also talked to the kids all the time and took a personal interest in them. He always had a group of kids around him. But when it was time to be tough, he was there to protect. He took many a kid down to juvy to get a peek into their future. We were able to turn some kids around but like you say, others just pick the really hard path in life.

 

If they only really knew. Their little brains aren't quite developed yet so they just can't see around corners very well.

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Tigger,

 

I had another great day with you on the 14th. Sorry I did not make here to post. The day got away from me. I hope that I made your valentines a good one.

 

How was to day? I think that I may have not completely blessed you in all of our errands. I am deeply sadden if I let you down to day. If you could let me know what the problems were I will work on them.

 

I truly thank you for a wonderful family. You all make me proud.

 

I love the way the house is starting to look you are doing a wonderful job.

 

I love you deeply. Your Pooh.

 

C2,

 

Thanks for the prayers and help with the children. All information and recommendations are welcome. The book he is currently reading is the Bible. It is the only one we are letting him have right now.

 

Thanks,

Pooh

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Homeschoolinhogans wrote:

 

Yesterday I spent time with J., our oldest son trimming the apple tree.

He shared with me how he felt like he's not as important as the rest of the chilren. I could see the hurt in his eyes.

 

I'm not sure with five children how to pull this off, but if you were to spend time alone with Owl and ask him if he feels like a part of the family what would he say? What would he see as his role in the family?

 

I once had a breakthrough with my rowdiest class ever when I had them write a paper answering five questions. I can only remember two of the questions now but they were:

 

How do you feel about the behavior of your classmates?

How do you feel your behavior contributes to this class?

 

They seemed like such simple questions, it seemed a little ridiculous to even ask. The questions were not my idea by the way. I couldn't believe it actually got these kids thinking and their attitude changed. I gave them the questions after five months of removing privileges almost daily. I think it was a combination of both that worked. Someone suggested I try it and I kind of thought, dumb questions, but I was desperate to find something that worked with this class.

 

A little background on that class. All my other classes got to do labs. This class would get two minutes into the lab if that, they would get out of hand, and I'd give them seat work instead. Once the lab was removed, no going back. They eventually all got sick of each other ruining their fun.

 

 

All my other class periods had fun. If it was one or two students I dealt with those kids individually but once I had about 5 or 6 causing a ruckus, they were about to take over my class so lab was cancelled.

 

Asking questions and letting them talk, or even write gave me a glimpse into their world. Some of them did the bare minimum to answer the questions I mentioned above but most of them kind of poured their heart out about how they were sick of their classmates ruining their fun. I actually read some of their writing out loud (keeping their identity private).

 

The disruptive kids were shocked that so many of their classmates did not find it fun or funny. They even named some of the troublemakers and I read their names out loud. You could just see the troublemaker sink in their seat. They thought twice about messing up the labs after that. That turned into my best behaved class. I was so proud of that class when the assistant principal would walk in and everybody was on task. I knew they had it in them.

 

One other thing that worked for me. I never took away more than one day's fun at a time. Each day they started off with a clean slate and each day I had something fun built into the class period. (That was my bribery.) It had no effect whatsoever if I said, "You're not going to have a lab for the next two weeks." They would simply give up. Even in 6th and 7th grades they could only see the pain of a consequence one day at a time.

 

Is it possible to give Owl one chapter, or 20 minutes to read a day even if he blew it big time yesterday? If he blows it today, no reading today? Just an idea.

 

Also, you might consider something as simple as a paragraph about stealing. When he steals food, have him write the paragraph. Be prepared, type out the paragraph ahead of time about stealing and why it is wrong... For this one, don't make him think it through and come up with reasons on his own. Just have it ready. Five sentences or less. It almost sounds too simple but I found a simple consequence that I could enforce easily was better than a detention or something I had to keep up with.

 

Same thing with fighting with the siblings. Have a paragraph ready. If you want, I'll even write the paragraphs for you.

 

I had 20 - 30 kids in a classroom at a time so I know a little bit about how complicated things get when multiple kids start to go wild at once. I don't think I could deal with it day and night.

 

Praying for Owl.

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C2,

 

First I wanted to say thank you for your prayers. I am very glad to get suggestions. I am not saying I would use your paragraph, but I would sure love to hear it so that I might glean some insight. I might then incorporate that with things I know personally about Owl. Do you follow what I am saying. I think hearing how, someone who does not know him, would address this might give me better perspective. Well thanks for the help.

 

BLessings,

 

Tigger

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POOH,

 

How come I am not even getting a post today. I know it was a long day, but that is no excuse. Today of all days, with you being away, you need to post. This hurts. It is after 9 and I am not even a blip on your radar. Split apart and bleeding to death over here. You are NOT trying to heal my heart when you act like this. Your assignment is not just for days you are home.

 

You took a computer with you, so what is your excuse this time. How is the TV in your room???????????????????? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

Me, Tigger, your ignored wife ::xx ::xx ::xx ::xx :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

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