It's interesting to read different perspectives on the same post. For me, it comes to mind that my mother kicked me out my senior year of high school due to her own emotional immaturity. I was on the honor roll, worked full time, my room was clean... She was jealous of the relationship I had with my boyfriend, would be first husband's family. This actually came up last week during some emotion work I'm doing with someone-abandonment age 18. I seriously didn't think it bothered me. I had moved into a safe home with a friend and she offered for me to move back a few weeks later. I declined.
Now let me state the difference for your situation. You repaired the relationship. We all make mistakes and yeah some are big. Working with a child on responsibility vs needing to be in control and punishing. My mother will never have the capacity that I wish and that's a grief I have continue to work through. Your son is blessed to have you.
As always, I look forward to your posts. It's not just your writing ability. It's the growth and vulnerability you show to us and what we gain in ourselves by your sharing. 🫶
Far out, thank you for sharing with this. Eighteen and on the honour roll and doing everything right, and still shown the door!!! , that’s its own flippin’ specific wound, and I’m not surprised it surfaced in the work you’re doing. I reckon the ones we’ve filed as “didn’t bother me” often tend to be the ones that did! And …You described the exact distinction I was reaching for the whole chapter: responsibility versus control, teaching versus punishing. Such a fine line, and most of us don’t get shown which side we’re on until much later! …..The grief you talk about, the parent who will never have the capacity you needed, is a hard and specific kind I imagine, because there’s no repair coming and you have to make your peace around the gap rather than through it. I’m sorry that happened to you :(
Thank you for reading , and for what you said about the growth. That goes both ways more than you know. 🥰💕🫶
This one really annoyed me. Sorry. It just fucked me off. I was a lot younger than your son when I broke down like he did — and of course I don’t know the details but whatever else was going on he was depressed. And I can tell you this with almost absolute certainty you couldn’t have done anything for your son at this time. In fact by the sounds of what I’m hearing you actually keep him safer by not doing what you feel you should have done. That sounds counterintuitive but Caleb was a bully. And clearly a had seriously fragile ego. I can’t work out what he was. There’s narcissism, there is pyschopath, sociopath, vulnerability but nothing really fits. I’d guess the answer lies in his own childhood and maybe even relationship with his dad, You say you carry it and always will and I understand that but the story that I’m hearing you were actually keeping him afloat. I needed a father and boys do need a Dad. I don’t care what people say. And Caleb was not only failing to be a father, he then rejected him and mocked him. A lot of his behaviour and changes as you described that’s also possibly a cry for help. Most boys will look up to their male role models. Usually dads and rejection is the worst. I am waffling along but the reality is when you say your son was drowning - he would have drowned no matter what. You can’t save a person fully anyway and with the type of dynamics you had it looks to me like if you had of “undermined” (that’s so no the right word) Caleb it would have got so explosive ir would have made things far worse for you son. To me. It sounds like you protected the situation and everyone in it. I could blame my mum for so much and trust me I was half the age your son was when and she’s gone missing - but she had to do what she had to do. Her priorities were to keep her family in a house, with food, clothes, warmth. So there is blame to go around, although no one in my family accepts any because they are… doesn’t matter…. But anyway. You did what was right at the time. I’m still baffling on with my drivel 🥲🥲🙃🫠🥹
Ahh my goodness me - thank you for this. I can feel where it’s coming from, and far out I’m so sorry you were carrying that at such a young age.. it’s just pure cruelty. I’ll be honest, I can’t quite take the full absolution, only because the not-taking-it is sort of the whole point of the book for me. But you’ve said something I do absolutely believe, and it’s taken me forever to realise…that speaking up that night might have made him less safe, not more. I didn’t get that at the time and can see now. And what you said about needing a dad, and rejection being the worst of it. Yep…That really is the wound underneath the wound, and you named it so much more plainly and simply than I managed to in a whole chapter!
Your waffle isn’t waffle one bit and Im really so privileged you would take the time to share it, its so helpful for me- helps me understand better xx
I think the irony is Caleb was saying your son had to be a man in the exact moment he is proving to be anything but. A man would have been a father in that moment (and more). I also think maybe women (and I’m saying this with zero evidence because who would I know - Ive barely spoken to one (f2f) in 20 years, but many boys look up to in fathers (not at 18 but younger) is not some moral superiority or intellectual guru, it’s things like how tall they are, the size of their muscles, they are fast, they can carry heavy shit, build stuff, smash shit with bit hammers - ok this sounds off - maybe because your son was more the creative type and loved the arts, the music, etc and Caleb didn’t attempt to show an interest in those things as a father should if their son had different interests that disconnect probably hit him a lot harder when he was rejected because (I’m talking out loud here - and trying to say how I would feel because I have total disconnects to my family) you don’t feel like you belong and it not only questions your value to your loved ones but also your place and Identity in the world. If that makes sense. I’m probably waffling and confusing you.
But I also think (and we see it on here all the time and this is by no means a criticism because it’s very real to women) there is very little talk ever about the effect hormonal changes have on men. At his age 18, a lot of changes also happened to him from age 14 onwards, and I know not having a father involved and missing those conversations or help or understanding I definitely struggled. Even if he stupidity of the meaning (I’m guessing) behind Caleb saying he’s a man. He’s 18. He’s not a man in the sense Caleb is using the word. Assuming I’m right. He’s just an older boy. The notion you are a boy at 16 and a man at 18 is nonsense.
And on the subject of hormones completely off topic there is zero conversation about what happens to a man around 40. You hear so many people say my partner or husband is so morose now, or doesn’t want to do anything, grumpy - I don’t care what the science or anyone says there is a correlation between the most likely age men take their own life 45-50 and testosterone levels. (Please don’t think I’m reducing the complexity of that simply down to one factor) but testosterone is not just not sex drive - it’s you as a person - it’s your mood, your energy.
I’m off on a tangent here but my point was linked to testosterone levels and hormonal changes for your son too.
lol… You’re not boring off, and the first thing you said is so true xx Caleb demanded he be a man in the same breath he was failing to be one himself!! A man would have been a father in that moment. I might steal that.!!!
You’re right about the belonging but too- the disconnect is over who you actually are, your interests, your temperament, rejection doesn’t just bruise your confidence, it really unsettles your sense of where you fit and whether you’re worth anything to the people who are meant to be your people. My son is creative to his bones, and his Dad never once tried to learn that language, and I think you’re right that the rejection landed harder because of it.
Interesting re hormones… I don’t want to hand any grown man a biological reason for how he treated a child, but there certainly could have been. , and yeah for sure an eighteen-year-old is an older boy and not a finished man, and that nobody walked him through any of what was happening to him, thats so true too.
Oh wow. Your line about registering him going the way you register weather through a closed window? That figuratively floored me like a sneering snoot-boop from Mohammed Ali. I've done exactly that with someone I love, felt the change, then filed it under "phase", because I was too swamped with my own mess to open the window. Geez. We live and learn, don't we. Thanks for writing this!
This one breaks my heart too, Eva. For you and for your son. I still cannot find one ounce of empathy for Caleb, and I keep asking myself what in the fuck was wrong with him.
It was already clear how much you were sacrificing to keep him happy, and how little he cared about what it was doing to you. But seeing his behavior hurt your son must have hit differently. Sometimes we can minimize what someone is doing to us, but when we see it land on someone we love, something shifts.
You may not have been in a place where you could act yet, because he had you so controlled by then, but you saw something you couldn’t unsee. He was not kind. And maybe that was the beginning of realizing he was not worth fighting for after all.
sending you so much love and hope you and your son have healed some by now...🧡🧡🧡🧡
Yes you’re right it hit differently for sure and twisted the relationship further.. and it was the beginning of me realising something was really not right with him xx thank you so much for reading and commenting. It means so much xx
Oh Eva, I felt this heartbreak in my core. You and your beautiful boy. 💜
Every word you wrote weaved together the story so beautifully, but this line was the gut punch for me, “The cost was my son learning, in his own home, over the worst two days of his young life, that his mother’s voice could be switched off by his father’s face.”
I know this one was especially hard for you. It’s also such an important piece of your story. A mother and a wife trying to hold it all together and thinking you’re putting up a brave enough front that no one—not even you—would notice how much everything was falling apart. How much of you was being given away in an effort to fix it, and at times taken from you without your consent. Then to find out later that your boy could see it before you even could. Thank you for sharing all of this. I’m sure so many can see themselves in your story, and can feel less alone in their own. 💜
Oh Eva this one broke me, i am so sorry for you and for your boy! I felt this one deeper than any of the others because as a mother i understood what it all meant and how painful it must have all been! My heart breaks for you honestly it does because none of this was fair or okay but i suppose you know that now and i am so glad you do!
Sending you all the love in the world, ill be back next week for the next and honestly for the first time i am happy there is a week between these chapters, for me to fully digest this one. Thank you Eva as always for sharing such an intimate and difficult piece of your story with us 🙏🤍
Thank you lovely xx and I’m sorry it landed so hard. It was difficult to write. It made me cry reading back. As a mother you’d have felt exactly where the ache was :( Ido know now, you’re right. It took a LONG time. And I felt the same about the gap between chapters while I was writing this, in fact I felt like I couldn’t keep writing! Lucky I know that it twists back somewhere beautiful xx you’re the best, thanks for sharing this xxx
Well i can understand exactly why it may be difficult hunny but it is brilliant so please keep writing even if you dont share it here! You are doing an amazing thing and i am so glad to have found you and your story! Thank you as always for being so lovely and continuing to write and share even when its hard 🤗🩷🌸
It's interesting to read different perspectives on the same post. For me, it comes to mind that my mother kicked me out my senior year of high school due to her own emotional immaturity. I was on the honor roll, worked full time, my room was clean... She was jealous of the relationship I had with my boyfriend, would be first husband's family. This actually came up last week during some emotion work I'm doing with someone-abandonment age 18. I seriously didn't think it bothered me. I had moved into a safe home with a friend and she offered for me to move back a few weeks later. I declined.
Now let me state the difference for your situation. You repaired the relationship. We all make mistakes and yeah some are big. Working with a child on responsibility vs needing to be in control and punishing. My mother will never have the capacity that I wish and that's a grief I have continue to work through. Your son is blessed to have you.
As always, I look forward to your posts. It's not just your writing ability. It's the growth and vulnerability you show to us and what we gain in ourselves by your sharing. 🫶
Far out, thank you for sharing with this. Eighteen and on the honour roll and doing everything right, and still shown the door!!! , that’s its own flippin’ specific wound, and I’m not surprised it surfaced in the work you’re doing. I reckon the ones we’ve filed as “didn’t bother me” often tend to be the ones that did! And …You described the exact distinction I was reaching for the whole chapter: responsibility versus control, teaching versus punishing. Such a fine line, and most of us don’t get shown which side we’re on until much later! …..The grief you talk about, the parent who will never have the capacity you needed, is a hard and specific kind I imagine, because there’s no repair coming and you have to make your peace around the gap rather than through it. I’m sorry that happened to you :(
Thank you for reading , and for what you said about the growth. That goes both ways more than you know. 🥰💕🫶
This one really annoyed me. Sorry. It just fucked me off. I was a lot younger than your son when I broke down like he did — and of course I don’t know the details but whatever else was going on he was depressed. And I can tell you this with almost absolute certainty you couldn’t have done anything for your son at this time. In fact by the sounds of what I’m hearing you actually keep him safer by not doing what you feel you should have done. That sounds counterintuitive but Caleb was a bully. And clearly a had seriously fragile ego. I can’t work out what he was. There’s narcissism, there is pyschopath, sociopath, vulnerability but nothing really fits. I’d guess the answer lies in his own childhood and maybe even relationship with his dad, You say you carry it and always will and I understand that but the story that I’m hearing you were actually keeping him afloat. I needed a father and boys do need a Dad. I don’t care what people say. And Caleb was not only failing to be a father, he then rejected him and mocked him. A lot of his behaviour and changes as you described that’s also possibly a cry for help. Most boys will look up to their male role models. Usually dads and rejection is the worst. I am waffling along but the reality is when you say your son was drowning - he would have drowned no matter what. You can’t save a person fully anyway and with the type of dynamics you had it looks to me like if you had of “undermined” (that’s so no the right word) Caleb it would have got so explosive ir would have made things far worse for you son. To me. It sounds like you protected the situation and everyone in it. I could blame my mum for so much and trust me I was half the age your son was when and she’s gone missing - but she had to do what she had to do. Her priorities were to keep her family in a house, with food, clothes, warmth. So there is blame to go around, although no one in my family accepts any because they are… doesn’t matter…. But anyway. You did what was right at the time. I’m still baffling on with my drivel 🥲🥲🙃🫠🥹
Ahh my goodness me - thank you for this. I can feel where it’s coming from, and far out I’m so sorry you were carrying that at such a young age.. it’s just pure cruelty. I’ll be honest, I can’t quite take the full absolution, only because the not-taking-it is sort of the whole point of the book for me. But you’ve said something I do absolutely believe, and it’s taken me forever to realise…that speaking up that night might have made him less safe, not more. I didn’t get that at the time and can see now. And what you said about needing a dad, and rejection being the worst of it. Yep…That really is the wound underneath the wound, and you named it so much more plainly and simply than I managed to in a whole chapter!
Your waffle isn’t waffle one bit and Im really so privileged you would take the time to share it, its so helpful for me- helps me understand better xx
I think the irony is Caleb was saying your son had to be a man in the exact moment he is proving to be anything but. A man would have been a father in that moment (and more). I also think maybe women (and I’m saying this with zero evidence because who would I know - Ive barely spoken to one (f2f) in 20 years, but many boys look up to in fathers (not at 18 but younger) is not some moral superiority or intellectual guru, it’s things like how tall they are, the size of their muscles, they are fast, they can carry heavy shit, build stuff, smash shit with bit hammers - ok this sounds off - maybe because your son was more the creative type and loved the arts, the music, etc and Caleb didn’t attempt to show an interest in those things as a father should if their son had different interests that disconnect probably hit him a lot harder when he was rejected because (I’m talking out loud here - and trying to say how I would feel because I have total disconnects to my family) you don’t feel like you belong and it not only questions your value to your loved ones but also your place and Identity in the world. If that makes sense. I’m probably waffling and confusing you.
But I also think (and we see it on here all the time and this is by no means a criticism because it’s very real to women) there is very little talk ever about the effect hormonal changes have on men. At his age 18, a lot of changes also happened to him from age 14 onwards, and I know not having a father involved and missing those conversations or help or understanding I definitely struggled. Even if he stupidity of the meaning (I’m guessing) behind Caleb saying he’s a man. He’s 18. He’s not a man in the sense Caleb is using the word. Assuming I’m right. He’s just an older boy. The notion you are a boy at 16 and a man at 18 is nonsense.
And on the subject of hormones completely off topic there is zero conversation about what happens to a man around 40. You hear so many people say my partner or husband is so morose now, or doesn’t want to do anything, grumpy - I don’t care what the science or anyone says there is a correlation between the most likely age men take their own life 45-50 and testosterone levels. (Please don’t think I’m reducing the complexity of that simply down to one factor) but testosterone is not just not sex drive - it’s you as a person - it’s your mood, your energy.
I’m off on a tangent here but my point was linked to testosterone levels and hormonal changes for your son too.
I’ll bore off 🤣🤣🤣
lol… You’re not boring off, and the first thing you said is so true xx Caleb demanded he be a man in the same breath he was failing to be one himself!! A man would have been a father in that moment. I might steal that.!!!
You’re right about the belonging but too- the disconnect is over who you actually are, your interests, your temperament, rejection doesn’t just bruise your confidence, it really unsettles your sense of where you fit and whether you’re worth anything to the people who are meant to be your people. My son is creative to his bones, and his Dad never once tried to learn that language, and I think you’re right that the rejection landed harder because of it.
Interesting re hormones… I don’t want to hand any grown man a biological reason for how he treated a child, but there certainly could have been. , and yeah for sure an eighteen-year-old is an older boy and not a finished man, and that nobody walked him through any of what was happening to him, thats so true too.
Oh wow. Your line about registering him going the way you register weather through a closed window? That figuratively floored me like a sneering snoot-boop from Mohammed Ali. I've done exactly that with someone I love, felt the change, then filed it under "phase", because I was too swamped with my own mess to open the window. Geez. We live and learn, don't we. Thanks for writing this!
This one breaks my heart too, Eva. For you and for your son. I still cannot find one ounce of empathy for Caleb, and I keep asking myself what in the fuck was wrong with him.
It was already clear how much you were sacrificing to keep him happy, and how little he cared about what it was doing to you. But seeing his behavior hurt your son must have hit differently. Sometimes we can minimize what someone is doing to us, but when we see it land on someone we love, something shifts.
You may not have been in a place where you could act yet, because he had you so controlled by then, but you saw something you couldn’t unsee. He was not kind. And maybe that was the beginning of realizing he was not worth fighting for after all.
sending you so much love and hope you and your son have healed some by now...🧡🧡🧡🧡
Yes you’re right it hit differently for sure and twisted the relationship further.. and it was the beginning of me realising something was really not right with him xx thank you so much for reading and commenting. It means so much xx
Oh Eva, I felt this heartbreak in my core. You and your beautiful boy. 💜
Every word you wrote weaved together the story so beautifully, but this line was the gut punch for me, “The cost was my son learning, in his own home, over the worst two days of his young life, that his mother’s voice could be switched off by his father’s face.”
I know this one was especially hard for you. It’s also such an important piece of your story. A mother and a wife trying to hold it all together and thinking you’re putting up a brave enough front that no one—not even you—would notice how much everything was falling apart. How much of you was being given away in an effort to fix it, and at times taken from you without your consent. Then to find out later that your boy could see it before you even could. Thank you for sharing all of this. I’m sure so many can see themselves in your story, and can feel less alone in their own. 💜
😌 thank you xx my beautiful boy.. I still ache for him and wish I could magic it away x
Oh Eva this one broke me, i am so sorry for you and for your boy! I felt this one deeper than any of the others because as a mother i understood what it all meant and how painful it must have all been! My heart breaks for you honestly it does because none of this was fair or okay but i suppose you know that now and i am so glad you do!
Sending you all the love in the world, ill be back next week for the next and honestly for the first time i am happy there is a week between these chapters, for me to fully digest this one. Thank you Eva as always for sharing such an intimate and difficult piece of your story with us 🙏🤍
🥰💕🙏🏼 thank you lovely xx you’re a very good cheerleader!!
Thank you lovely xx and I’m sorry it landed so hard. It was difficult to write. It made me cry reading back. As a mother you’d have felt exactly where the ache was :( Ido know now, you’re right. It took a LONG time. And I felt the same about the gap between chapters while I was writing this, in fact I felt like I couldn’t keep writing! Lucky I know that it twists back somewhere beautiful xx you’re the best, thanks for sharing this xxx
Well i can understand exactly why it may be difficult hunny but it is brilliant so please keep writing even if you dont share it here! You are doing an amazing thing and i am so glad to have found you and your story! Thank you as always for being so lovely and continuing to write and share even when its hard 🤗🩷🌸