I'm not sure how I made it, but this blog entry is proof that I got through last weekend. My son and my wife began the weekend amicably enough, but by Sunday noon they were at each other's throats. I was hard-pressed to keep order. More than once I had to separate them and talk them down from making a real scene. It didn't help that my wife is in her rag week, and my son is a hotheaded 18-year old with no focus.
Part of the trouble is that my wife is the unforgiving sort. Once she forms an opinion about a person, that's the way she thinks about him. After six years of living with and trying to raise my son, her view of him is fixed and unflattering. She expects, and therefore gets, the worst from him.
The other part is, of course my son. His mother's influence has taught him to lie, BS, and exaggerate incessantly. It's almost impossible to get a straight answer from him about anything. He will say and do anything he can think of to escape blame, even when there is no blame to place. Because of that, he comes off as shifty and untrustworthy. He can unflinchingly lie, but he cannot keep track of his lies and therefore gets caught up in them. We were making good progress with him and his treatment, but all that came to an end when he turned 18 and chose to go back and live with his mother and half-brother. Now everything we had accomplished has been undone. He has no structure and no direction. I'm afraid he will become a leech on society, just like his mother.
Well, enough of that.
At least we finally know when the movers will arrive: Wednesday at 7 AM. My wife and I have an extra day to prepare.