A worried mum and janice

Hi ladies

I am in exactly the same situation as you both.

Cynical wifes posts today have reminded me about "divide and conquer" and felt I just had to say how very true this is. Ive been married for nearly 30 years and until fairly recently its been a very happy marriage, things are improving now but for a while I thought it was going to end with us parting.My husband is a brilliant dad, and up until this we agreed on everything where our children were concerned, but this we just argued over constantly.. To me my husband saw everything as black and white, yes or no, he didnt get the gut churning anxiety not knowing what to do that I always had, to me he seemed uncaring but deep down I knew that wasnt true.

In time my other son got involved and that made it even worse, he had different opinion to either of us, so again more arguments. It got to where I was at breaking point and I got counselling through Gamcare and it took that for me to realise that my son was "dividing and conquering" he had us all arguing with each other. My counsellor said its as simple as men and women think differently, women more of the hugs and men are more practical, so both my husband I were right just looking at from different angles. My other son was looking from a brothers perspective and a sons so even more complicated.

Once we worked out was actually happening we've made a huge effort to put a stop to all the arguments and we now agree on what we do and if we cant we leave it go back to it another day. We made it clear to our son that everything we say and do is a joint decision and its most definetly helped. As for our other son we dont say a lot to him about his brother and make every effort not to get him involved.

As a mum your worst fear is what your child might do when they get so low, my son has told me several times that he might as well be dead. Each time hes said this Ive been so scared I would of probably done anything to help him. Ive always felt that Ive been held to ransom over this and it held me back.

One day I decided I just cant let this fear hold me back any more, so the next time he said it to me I gave him The Samaritans and Gamcares phone numbers and told him if hes out of the house when he calls me to tell me that I'll get the Police looking for him. Of course thats far from perfect and Im still scared but hes never said it to me again. When I went to counselling this was one of my major worries but they said as awful as this is he's an adult and makes his own decisions even the ones that scare us the most, accepting that was very difficult but I know I cant control what he does.

We have to be brave enough not to help them, let them sort their own lives out, and in the mean time we have to look after ourselves . We're doing the best we can

Take care