No advice necessary, but it's welcome

I am in a situation not at all like yours except that my family is beyond fucked and I have given up trying to help them because they won't be helped and they don't want to change anything ... they like to wallow in the Jerry Springerness of it all. I live a large mountain range away and try to focus on my wife and son.

But, when I visit the thing I have focused on is setting as normal an adult example as I can for my niece (12) and nephew (7) ... trying to give them an idea of how an actual self-supporting adult handles life. When I am in their town, I dedicate about 95 percent of my time to getting them out of their house and into areas where they can be normal kids. I was there for three days earlier this week and took them out each night to different things. I will not be able to undo the damage their home life is doing, but I hope that when they reach a certain age they will see me as an example that, yes, some adults are not self-absorbed freaks hellbent on self-destruction. I don't know that it will do a lot of good, but after years of banging my head against the wall that is my sister, it's the point I have come to and I've become comfortable with it.

 

Out of curiosity, who is taking care of all the kids while the aunt is in jail?
She has four kids - one of which is in the hospital, but what about the other three and your brother? Are they living alone or is grandma taking care of them?

 

Thank you.

My aunt's boyfriend, whom she is living with, watched the kids last night. I learned this afternoon that a relative of his, maybe his uncle, posted the bond so my aunt's out. She sees a judge in January. Today was the last day my brother was staying with them though. Now he's moving back in with my mom, who should get her apartment next week.

 

Take your brother and run. Let the adults mess themselves up.

 

Read the book "Easter Rising" by Michael Patrick MacDonald. Has some things about avoiding a chaotic upbringing by continually skipping town from Boston's rough streets to NYC.

 

I'm just shocked -- SHOCKED I SAY!!! -- that I got a call from my mom this morning to say she's not going to my aunt's for Christmas Eve and to ask if I was stopping by where she's staying on the way to my aunt's today.

I gave her the out last week when I said I could stop by if she couldn't get over there. But this has nothing to do with not being able to get over there ... it's about not wanting to go over there because no one agrees with her decisions and forcing my dad and I in the same room. Fuck this.

 

Mom called today and said she's filing for divorce. Then she says, "I'm sure that makes you a happy camper." *rolling eyes* (Do I have to be the parent every fuckin' time. ... lets get over the childish fuckin' statements, just once. Please?)
I said, "Well, I didn't want this to happen, but in light of recent circumstances ..."

She wanted me to be the first to know. (like it's some special claim I get to make now ... seriously though, at least I'm not hearing it from grandma or aunt.)

So mom is making official a divorce that I've looked at as a divorce for the last 18 months.

 

Free yourself, AFN.

 

She came to this decision last weekend with visiting my dad with my brother for Father's Day.

She said she found new books on the shelves (not sure what exactly that means, but ...) and new Web sites on the computer.

She said she couldn't do it anymore. She doesn't trust him.

Quite frankly, I'm giving it a week. She won't go through with it.