Monday, October 27, 2008

my feeble attempt to sort though my emotions

So, building on last night's post...(forgive the redundancy, my feelings are tumbling around and I am thinking of the same things again and again - just trying to get them out so they can be sorted)

The ex wants to give up parental rights, we are just holding out on that because we need the child support money to help pay for braces and music. (Terrible that moneyhas to play into it, but that's reality).The therapist talked to Christopher and me and told us basically that the ex's behavior and his broken promises to Ashley are creating this emotional stumbling block. She thinks that Ashley needs to let go of the false hope, that the ex has had more than enough chances to become a part of her life and that at this point, having him in her life would be more emotionally damaging than just cutting him off.

When we heard that, Chris and I disagreed. We don't like the Ex or how he acts, but we felt that Ashley still needed him. The more time that passes, the less he sees her. In the last 2 years, he has seen her 4 times only. Keep in mind that he lives less than an hour away. The more I think about it, the more I come to realize that the therapist is right. It's like we are encouraging Ashley to hold onto something that just isn't there.

By us letting this go on, we are teaching Ashley to hold onto relationships that are unhealthy. We are telling her that she needs to just hang on, and maybe things will change. If she carries that over into other realtionships with boys it will not end well and she will end up being clingy and staying stuck on a boy who has no interest in her. We have to look at the bigger picture and show her that it is okay to end a relationship when that relationship is one sided.

That's not to say that some time in future that relationship can't be re-established. He can reach out to her or she can reach out to him when she is grown up, but right now, we need to give her the tools to move on.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry Jason is being such a butt. Ashley deserves a real dad, like Christopher, who has been in her life since she was little. I hurt for all of you. It's not only hard on Ash, but also on you and Christopher.

I hope that whatever decision your family makes, it turns out okay. I do tend to agree that hanging onto this relationship (or non-relationship) Ashley has with her father is not healthy for her. He is giving her false hope for a relationship, and it's not fair to her. She doesn't understand why he is doing what he is doing.

Tell Christopher he is doing a very good job raising Ashley - he needs to hear that right now.