Dear ME:

We communicated a little back in February 2017. At the time, you lived in a 3-bedroom home with your husband and two children, one of whom is your current 19-year-old son, then 13-years-old. A year before (Aug 2016), your husband’s parents and brother moved in with you for two months, a total of 7 people in a small home. This is what you wrote back in regard to your mother-in-law having lived in your home: “I did not realize how bad of an alcoholic she was. After a couple of days she got super drunk got in my son’s face (while hubby was here) proceeded to tell him how he’s not right and there is something wrong with him… More than a few times she would call me a sl*t, cu*t, and bi*ch, (pretty much every time she drank) this would happen in front of my children…disturbing my kids emotionally“.

At one time, this mother-in-law from hell (my characterization) physically assaulted you in front of your children, and all through, your husband supported.. not his wife or his children, but his mother, fighting with you: “She started yelling at me and them and then started shoving me… I told my kids to lock the door and tell the police she was hitting me… the kids jumped out the window and ran across the street…  Both of my kids are in counseling due to the grandma and fighting in the home…  My husband gets mad and yells at me when I say I don’t want my kids around her.. My kids are both now in counseling to help with all the trauma this has all caused. I am the one taking them and are there for them when they need to talk… I feel like I’m walking on egg shells to keep my kids from hearing the fighting“.

Fast forward 6 years and 8 months, your traumatized 13 year-old son is now 19,  met a girl about three years ago (at 16) while online gaming, then met her in-person (at 18), and a year later, three months ago, he moved out of your home and into his girlfriend’s parents’ home 13 hours away and he is  “not talking to his friends, his family, even his own sister now. And every time anyone has talked to him on the phone since he left, the girlfriend is always there, so no one can have a real conversation with him. He isn’t acting normal at all, and we miss him very much . Please help!!! “-

-I am sorry about the pain you are experiencing. You went through a lot of difficult times and this is one of these times.

I was wondering: it possible that your son is having a better life in his girlfriend’s parents’ home.. away from the fighting between you and your husband (if it’s been going on before he left 3 months ago), or away from the bad feeling left in the home after all the fighting of the past?

If his move and isolation from his family is good for him, it’d make you feel better about it, wouldn’t it?

anita