My older son was dating a girl for a year and a half, or something like that. I knew this girl before: she was one of my students in the class I taught at church. She seemed sweet, and I was thrilled that the two of them found each other. Of course, this was “teenage love”: I knew that it will be hugely passionate and life changing, and then suddenly stop. What I didn't realize? My son was continuing his father's tradition of "crazy girlfriends".
The girl was incredibly demanding of my son’s time and was very manipulative. He fell for it for a while, and then a “switch” was flicked in his head and he was DONE! He broke up the correct way: he broke off all contact completely. She was hurting, and he didn't care! Oh, by the way, she liked faeries and cutesy stuff. And she loved Leah.
The other day, she wrote to me on Facebook, and essentially defended Leah. I did respond to her, but I avoided going point-by-point. I read some of her remarks and thought “HUH?” I went to my older son and asked: does she have memory issues? His response: her memory is about as good as she needs at a given moment. If poor recollection is what she needs at some point, that’s what she had.
She spoke, for example, about my kids not doing chores and treating Leah like their personal maid. Did she forget how, during the first half of their relationship, my older son did Leah’s dishes several times a week? This continued until I halted it, because Leah was being too hypercritical. And Leah did NOT pick up after the kids: where was she getting this from? She spoke about how we all went out to dinner together on Fridays. Um . . . no we didn’t. She spoke about how Leah and I only went out to eat by ourselves once or twice a month. First, how would she know that? And second, no! We went out to eat a lot more than that!
I actually asked my older son about some of these facts. Perhaps I was remembering it wrong. Was there a period of time when we all used to go out to eat every Friday? Nope, he confirmed. We might go out now and then, but this was definitely not a regular thing. I remembered how she was rarely ever at my home. She kept insisting my son go to her home, and spend hours there. She did come to my home a few times, but it was exactly that: a few times. Heck, I remember Leah calling him repeatedly ON MY BIRTHDAY before she finally allowed him to come home. He confirmed this as well: from the start, she rarely spent time at my home.
I made clear to her. Leah badmouthed me until I received a death threat. Leah badmouthed every ex-boyfriend she has ever had. If she believes that Leah has suddenly stopped badmouthing me now that we are no longer together, I have bridge to sell her!
In the end, I just wish that I had that “on/off” switch my son seems to possess. I wondered, when he broke up with his girlfriend, how heartless he was being. He cared about this girl, after all. This girl was his life. And . . . click, and his feelings for her were gone. I now realize he was doing this correctly. I wish I could do that!
By the way, she and her family are planning to come to Pennsic this year. I don’t anticipate any problems between her and my son: there are 12,000 people at Pennsic, after all. It will be nice. One thing she will need to watch for, however: I will be at the dance pavilion a lot, as is always the case for me. They know me there. They like me there, they are my friends. She used to be very critical of my dancing. If she hasn’t learned some restraint about that, she will suddenly find herself very unpopular. They don’t mind people joking around there, but they do NOT like people seriously knocking another person’s dance!
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