I wish I could like this more than once. A good therapist can provide insight and experience and support as you navigate this. You continue to be in my thoughts and my prayers.

Praying for you as you face this challenge.

Yes. After a while, it becomes hard to know what's real yourself.

((Moonhawk)) I'm praying for all of you, your dh included.

Hugs. Angry is normal. Angry is good...it will keep you protecting yourself and the kids. Operating from your head and not your anger is wise. More prayers, for wisdom, clarity, safety, strength, peace. You've got this.

Yes. I enjoy my tattoos and what they mean to me. I hope that when I am elderly, whenever that is, that my caregivers aren't secretly judging what they look like. To me they are symbolic of a life well-lived. I have plans for another also. :) It'll be a reminder of challenges I've overcome, just as my other two have marked significant transitions in my life. Maybe I'll be sure to let me caregivers know the significance so that they understand it's about more than a pretty decoration. If I care what they think.

I try to frame it as balance rather than priority. Down time is important too, and following the routines so that we can all (Mom included) enjoy our down time is an important part of working and playing together, and of learning to live life. And yeah, I agree with Ellie that it takes a lot of nagging.

😄 To be fair, topics do tend to circle around, so unless we're really paying attention, it's easy to just think someone's asking the same question again. That's what I thought when I read the thread title: Seems like there was a discussion about this a while back. I want to know, too...did the OP get the tattoo?

((Moonhawk)) I am so sad you're facing this. You may not feel this way right now, but you sound so brave and strong and willing to keep yourself and your children safe. You can face this, whatever comes your way. When you get a chance to focus on something beyond the immediate, some ongoing counseling might help you sort through some of this. It has been invaluable for me--providing some stability and a place to share things I don't feel comfortable sharing with people in the "real world." Sorting through it all is going to take time and be an ongoing process, but you will know when it's time to get to do that. Love and prayers.

😲 When dh and I married, same insurance company kept denying my claims for 2 years. He had to call every time to remind them we'd gotten married and the date. Gah!

Because every few years they call asking for proof which insurance is my dd's primary insurance. (It's her dad's.) They want copies of custody papers. They want dates. They want to know the contact information for the other insurance company. I give them the information, except the custody papers, every time, while politely mentioning that they already have it several times over. "But I'm from the coordination of benefits department, so I don't have that. That's a different department." Which is so not my problem. Not to mention that I don't believe for a second that they don't have a state-of-the-art record keeping system. And, I can recite the birthday rule and the custodial vs. stepparent rule in my sleep by now myself. It's not rocket science. They must get something out of bugging people about this stuff, right? Surely they're not paying the perfectly pleasant woman to just call on Saturdays and irritate people by asking for information that should be already in their system....

Many hugs and prayers.

Yes. I don't talk about it much except to trusted members of my support system, because it is not my issue to reveal and my family member feels deeply ashamed (and possibly does not accept it). But I need some support around how it's impacted me. (I also see a therapist for this reason.) My dd has anxiety and depression in addition to her autism diagnosis, but is quite open about her issues, and is an advocate for openness and destigmatizing mental health disorders.

My kids get water balloons, bubbles, silly string. Sometimes things like quarters for the arcade or Nerf darts. A little candy, too, but they like their traditional silly string fight each year, and have a massive water balloon fight after the weather warms up.

We do! We dyed and hid 4 dozen. The egg hiding and hunt goes pretty quickly, so unless the weather is really warm we eat them too. We'll take deviled eggs to MIL's this afternoon and eat egg salad sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner tonight. :)

Kellogg's Breakfast. It's an orange slicer. Yum! And Sungolds and Sweet Million for cherry toms.

There's a difference between personality trait--striving to be better/best and noticing how things (and people) can be improved--and behavior, the actual critiquing and offering unwelcome feedback. The behavior can be changed. Learning to understand others think differently and respecting their boundaries is an important interpersonal skills, as is learning how, to whom, and when it's appropriate to offer feedback. The noticing and wanting to critique/correct might not go away.

It's hard to juggle work, home, homeschool. But for me the pros (work experience, extra money, satisfying work, identity outside the family, friendships I've formed) far outweigh the cons. :) I am grateful, also, that I went back to work when I did. Our family circumstances are changing significantly, and having work experience to get me in the door to a full-time position if I end up needing it is a weight off my mind.

I don't text past 9ish. I think it is respectful to understand that someone may not appreciate a text past that time. (Most people who know me well text me until 11ish because they know I'll be awake.) I voted that I should tell people not to text me that late, but only because I had to vote and there's no Other. I've got my phone set to Do Not Disturb with family/emergency numbers set to ring through anyway. So I don't hear late texts/calls past 11 unless they're from someone who might call me in case of emergency.

Of course! An apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze. ;) Cheese ice cream, though, that sounds...not so yummy.

Cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and orange or lemon juice and zest. Sometimes a pinch of coriander, too.

Yes. Tree maintenance seems expensive until you look at the cost of a limb or a whole tree coming down on the house or the car. One of the best investments we made when we moved to our home was finding a good tree guy. Same with our new neighbors, who had their long-neglected trees taken care of a week before we had an ice storm. Limbs still came down, but the huge ones over the house had been already removed. Whew.

Hugs, hugs, hugs. Except...that it is. It may not be okay with HER. But that's kind of the point. Her hissy fit over any boundaries set by you is (probably unconsciously for her, to be generous) intended to make you believe that it's not all right to set boundaries. You say no thank you to whatever. She has a fit, whatever that looks like for her. You learn, especially as a person who wants to please her, that if you say no, she will make you miserable. So she learns a fit will get her what she wants, you learn to stop saying no. Now, her *potential* fit over a boundary is enough to make you stop setting it. If you don't really want the dresses (or whatever other boundary you might want/need to set), you are well within your right to say no thank you. She is well within her right to throw as obnoxious a tantrum as she chooses. You are free to respond to that in whatever way you think best...but in that response you are not obligated to soothe, please, or "fix" things to make her feel better. She's a grown woman. Not your job. And I say that with loads of compassion and kindness because I know how hard it is. I do understand.

I just tracked down the podcast and listened. Fascinating. I already kind of understood intuitively the part about the way poverty can impact "windfall" spending, but was fascinated by the way that kind of scarcity tunnel thinking can apply to more abstract ideas like loneliness and time. So interesting. I find myself facing an uncertain financial future after having been pretty secure for quite a long while, and I find I have to be careful not to try "stocking up" and spending on things I might not otherwise buy now as a kind of hedge against the future. It's pretty hard to even identify that kind of thinking, much less change it. (I was weeding the garden today and followed with another Hidden Brain podcast on lying and on how hard it can be to identify self-deception. :D )

Yes, this. When I think about changing my kids' behaviors, I try to teach the replacement behavior. What do I want to see? Same with myself. What do I want to do instead? I want to replace the negative words with positive ones, try to speak in a spirit of teaching, support, compassion. Frame feedback in terms of moving forward and helpful (helps us meet our goals)/not helpful (hinders us from meeting our goals) behavior. I struggle with this with my impulsive attention-challenged oldest also, by the way. When I get exasperated and say something critical, I try to say out loud, "Oops. That didn't come out the way I intended/in a helpful way/the way I want to speak to you. I apologize for (specific apology--being sharp, sounding impatient, etc.) Let me start over. What I want to say is...." And honestly, sometimes a good old fashioned, "Oh for heaven's sake, knock it off," is appropriate to the situation, as is setting a clear boundary: "You may not speak to me like that." So I try not to beat myself up too badly. And good job, momma. Apologies and a fresh start in the morning is modeling gracious reconnection so that when they grow up to be human just like us, they know how to apologize and re-do. That's what I tell myself.... :P