AboutEugenia Springer, Ph.D. Expertise I can answer your questions on how to stop being a victim, and/or how to stop being an abuser. My ability to help you, however, would depend on your willingness to assume full responsibility for helping yourself.
Experience From the 1970s to the present, my life has been a search after knowing my purpose, knowing myself, and knowing God. I talk about this search in my 2002 book, "Further Insights Into the Journey".
After years of teaching biology at university, I became a radio Family Life Counselor, and a newspaper columnist, responding to callers on radio, and replying to letters from the public, in the newspapers.
My book for the adolescent girl, "Girl, It's All About You"(Review & Herald Publishers 1980, and out of print) was my attempt to marry my field of training--biology, and my adoptive field--interpersonal relationships.
"Further Insights Into the Journey" is about my search for personal freedom--a search for freedom from external controls; for freedom from fear. Through very instructive experiences, many sorely trying, I uncovered that freedom within me, and found myself progressively experiencing increasingly greater measures of peace.
To get your copy of "Further Insights Into The Journey" email me at hftpproductions@tstt.net.tt.
Currently I am the host and producer of two weekly call-in radio programs. You can access our station online at www.power102fm.com. My programs are:
(1) "Life & Living/Soul to Soul", Wednesdays, 11:00 AM to 12:00 Noon; and
(2) DIALOGUE, Wednesdays 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. DIALOGUE connects our national radio audience with our Trinidad & Tobago/Caribbean Diaspora, and other listeners beyond our shores.
Access Dialogue by going to www.power102fm.com from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM local Trinidad and Tobago time on Wednesday nights. Communicate with callers and studio personnel through our message board; or call any of the four telephone numbers listed: Toronto, London, Miami, and New York. Call through the number nearest you.
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Question QUESTION: I am a 50 year old woman; mother of three grown children from my first marriage. Three years ago I remarried a man who has two son's still in the home. Before we married, I explained where I stood on this matter. I didn't want to be "mom", but I was willing and able to be a partner to him as he raised his sons. He accepted this and agreed with me and told me..these boys are my responiblity. We married. Three months into the marriage things started to change and he became someone I didn't know. Yes, I seen signs before the marriage but chaulked them up to "bad days". Once we were under the same roof I seen more and more "bad days". His anger was always right there just waiting for a reason to explode. He'd back me into corners screaming at me, refusing to let me out of the room for hours. If I was sleeping when he became angry, he'd wake me up to listen to his rants, refusing to go to bed or let me. I was finally able to convince him something was wrong and he went to talk to someone...we were finally told he was biopolar. Meds were started. Meds didn't work...new meds..those meds didn't work, more meds...it was hell. Total and complete hell. Each med brought with it a new reaction. In the mean time the screaming and intimidation continued. I packed my stuff and left. Promises were made and I returned..it continued...I left...promises made and I returned...the patterned formed. In the mean time he lost his job and found a new one but this one took him away from home for days on end...leaving me with the responiblity of his sons. One who displays signs of bipolor himself. I expressed over and over about my feelings about this before we married and again before he took the job. It didn't matter..he felt he was doing what he needed to do to support his family. He lost that job and took another which also kept him away for days or weeks on end. In the mean time, I'm responible for his children regardless to how I felt about it. Each time I expressed my dislike to him about this, I was told...You live here, you eat here..I do this for you...I do that for you...it was like who I was, what I wanted, what I felt didn't matter as long as he felt he was doing what he "had" to do. The more I expressed my feelings the more I heard what he was doing for me..I bought you food, a roof, I put gas in your car...etc. It became very ugly. If I expressed a desire to go have lunch with my daughters or friends..that was a issue too. The stress and my anger of this finally took a toll on me. My health started to suffer. After standing by this man through his bipolor and meds drama...now it was me who was sick. Fibromyalgia set in and I lived in pain. He viewed me as weak and it was a mind over matter deal and I should just get over it. I asked him to read the stuff the dr gave me and he pushed it aside. After laying on the couch for two months unable to live life. It then became physically violent. I made up my mind that if that ever happened, it was done. Funny now when I think back on it that I drew that line, but the rest was acceptable? I knew I had some work to do on me. I packed my stuff...sold my car and moved out when he and the children where gone for the weekend. I now live on my own, returned back to work myself and slowly the pain as gone away and I'm learning that stress played a huge part in the pain I felt, not to mention the anger. Since then the promises have returned....he'll do this if I take him back...he's sorry..he understands now. He'll keep the job that keeps him from home but would like me to come back. I just don't want that responiblity. I've raised my children and I raised my siblings due to both parents having serious drinking issues..I'm done raising kids. I've asked him to leave me alone so that I can sort out my feelings on the past three years and he calls, he comes by....he wants to talk..he misses me. He agrees to give me time one day and the next he makes contact. If I refuse his calls, he keeps calling...12-14 times a day. If he can't keep that little promise, he'll not keep the big ones. Not to mention that there is no trust in this marriage due to his cell phone games and internet games. I know that this is doomed because I don't want it. I can't change what he does but I can change what I do. In the long run I know this isn't his problem it's mine for I've allowed this and each time I returned to him I was in fact telling him it was ok...regardless to the promises he made. Where do I start sorting out my feelings and thoughts? I hate the idea of being divorced the second time but I hate even more calling this my life. BTW...this is he's fourth marriage.
ANSWER: Valerie, you are right, this is your life, and you deserve to be happy.
If you married this man without the awareness that he was bipolar, and frequently out of control, then I wonder if you do not have grounds for an annulment. Ask a lawyer.
The man you married might be nice when he is on medications. That was evidently when you were charmed by him. Look, this is a painful condition for the person who has to live with it. I know a couple bipolar persons who so regulate themselves that they live a fairly normal life. But this man has a pattern that causes you pain, so it is up to you to do what you know you must do.
I am saying that I support you in the steps you have been taking to take care of yourself; and you need feel no guilt about getting your life back on track again. Next time do some thorough background search before you choose a partner with whom to walk up the aisle.
My heart goes out for this man and the boys, but you know, as much as you care, and as much as I feel for them, you are not responsible for them. You are responsible to take care of your life, and if taking care of them means putting your life at risk, the choice is obvious.
Dr. ES
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Dr. ES,
Thank you so much for your quick response to my concerns. I would like to ask a follow up please. Another of my concerns is the fact that he packs his bags and leaves for days at a time, leaving those two boys home alone. Ages 14-11. He has made arrangements for the boy's uncle to come in every night after 9 to spend the night in the house and then leave in the morning. These two boys are home alone 3-4 days a week on average and sometimes longer until 9 at night. They cook their own dinner and the roam the neighborhood. I am fearful for them not because they can't cook, but because they don't have the wisdome that comes with age to handle such responiblity without adult supervison. I believe it's just a matter of time before this goes bad..real bad. Like I said in my earlier letter, the oldest shows signs of being bipolar also. I feel no guilt for leaving as I truly believe they are not my responibilty, however I deeply disapprove of their father's choice. In your opinion....is this wise? I know when I lived in the home with them and their father it was common for the local police to show up with some concern regarding issues with the boys or the boy's mother showing up drunk with her drunken b/f. Recently she paid them a visit drunk and scared them and refused to leave the home. The neighbors had to step in and remove her from the home. This is another reason why I made the decision to leave..the constant drama and crisis....I don't live that way and it was never ending. They however seem to thrive on it.
Answer Valerie,
Unfortunately this is the life these boys' parents have made for them, so, as I am sure you are aware, they have to adapt, and if they seem to thrive in this environment it is because they feel this is the only way to survive.
Children worry. Children become distressed. They ofttimes wish someone would come and make things different for them, but if no one turns up, or if it is always the police turning up, then, not to appear soft, the children sometimes give the appearance of being tough. But within every child is the awareness of whether the way they are surviving is what they would choose, or what they wish they did not have to live with.
Well, with this follow-up you answered a question I had about their mother. So she is in no position to provide a home for the boys. And sometimes institutionalizing children that age makes it worse for them, unless it is a home where they would be worked with and cared for.
It's tough for the father also. I guess he has to take work wherever he finds it. At least he is not abandoning the boys. Where are the churches in the community? They should be looking out for the boys. Why not contact a few of them, and ask them, even as they keep your reaching out to them confidential, to befriend the boys, get them out to their camps, and other re-creational activities. Do churches today still look out for the down and out, and try to lift them up?
This situation is tough. Here are two precious lives that could be saved from wastage, if proper intervention is made. It is sad, but still it is the father's responsibility to make proper arrangements for the boys' supervision. And as you indicate, you are not an option. The Social Services need to look into this. What about their schooling? Do their teachers care? Does anyone in the family interact with the school?
This family needs help. The mother is a mission field all by herself. If a church group, or some other caring community group, would reach out to her, we can never tell how great an effect that might have. The family needs help. Not bundles of clothes nor bags of food and other stuff, but human interest, time with other caring human beings. They need to know that some folks out there care. If you could point some helpers in their direction, you would be doing what you can without getting your life tangled up again.
