Last night, Bart came home utterly exhausted from the funeral. I was trying to do everything that I could to make things peaceful. John did what he does best when he can sense stress in the house -- he attacks me verbally with all he’s got. He knows it is a prime time to get a reaction, and he prods and pokes at me emotionally, trying to get me to bite.
At first I tried just repeating the phrase over and over “I am not buying you any more clothes this summer.” Sometimes this works and I don’t get sucked in. But last night he was more hard core.
For 35 minutes he badgered me while I tried to reason with him. He used literally every swear word in the book over and over again. He brought up everything he could think of. Finally, after 35 minutes, i just stopped talking. I knew better than to try to walk away, because he would follow me. So I sat and listened and did not respond as he threatened to steal all our money, sell drugs, disobey our rules in many ways, not go to bed. He managed to throw a curse word into every sentence. I sat and did not respond.
After 20 full minutes of trying everything, he decided to try this one, “You know, Mom, I think you are the one with the anger issues.”
It took all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. I remained straight faced but thought to myself, “kid, anyone with anger issues would not have been able to sit through this calmly.”
I slept anxiously reliving the conversation in my mind, wondering what to do. Reasoning doesn’t work. Consequencing doesn’t work. And I don’t think I have it in me to be verbally abused for an hour a day without responding.
He marches out at the end saying, “SORRY! Now I’ve apologized to you so you can’t bring this up again.”
Heavy SIgh.
At first I tried just repeating the phrase over and over “I am not buying you any more clothes this summer.” Sometimes this works and I don’t get sucked in. But last night he was more hard core.
For 35 minutes he badgered me while I tried to reason with him. He used literally every swear word in the book over and over again. He brought up everything he could think of. Finally, after 35 minutes, i just stopped talking. I knew better than to try to walk away, because he would follow me. So I sat and listened and did not respond as he threatened to steal all our money, sell drugs, disobey our rules in many ways, not go to bed. He managed to throw a curse word into every sentence. I sat and did not respond.
After 20 full minutes of trying everything, he decided to try this one, “You know, Mom, I think you are the one with the anger issues.”
It took all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. I remained straight faced but thought to myself, “kid, anyone with anger issues would not have been able to sit through this calmly.”
I slept anxiously reliving the conversation in my mind, wondering what to do. Reasoning doesn’t work. Consequencing doesn’t work. And I don’t think I have it in me to be verbally abused for an hour a day without responding.
He marches out at the end saying, “SORRY! Now I’ve apologized to you so you can’t bring this up again.”
Heavy SIgh.
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