Tears, Screams, Hugs, Snot and Guns Ruled the Day, but Don’t Forget the Police!

What is a mother to do when both of her sons break up with their girls on the same day?

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Sometimes, you just don’t know how a day is going to end. You can make all of the plans you want, but things just don’t work out the way you want them to.

It was just last week that I got myself ordained to be a minister. Why? So I could marry my son and his fiancée. They have been together for at least four years and living together for two. They got engaged at Christmas, and all of a sudden they decided to do a quick courthouse wedding this month while her dads were visiting. When that didn’t work out, I got myself ordained at my future daughter-in-law’s request.

I had been mentally planning my speech. It was going to be epic.

Both my son and his fiancée are adopted. What a coincidence. However, my son has been with me and his dad since he was three weeks old. His life has been pretty typical. He never lacked for stability and had everything he needed and most of what he wanted. My extended family totally embraced him. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have some issues with being adopted, but we dealt with it with counselors.

His fiancée was adopted by a family member and his husband after being removed from her mother by the state. As a child, she was passed around to different family members until she ended up with her dad’s. The longer I knew her, the more horrific stories she told me about her life. I can’t possibly repeat them here. This contributes to what happened today.

It’s pretty sad. Her early years have definitely affected her.

July 4th was a pretty typical day. My husband and I were asked to keep our grand dogs because my son and his girl were going to several parties. They were concerned about the dogs being alone during fireworks.

I was sitting on the couch surrounded by sleeping dogs and at least one cat when I got the call. My future daughter-in-law alerted me that the police were on the way to their house. Her story scared me, but it turned out to be different the way my son told it.

The common denominator was the gun.

The argument began at a party, and they were kindly asked to leave and work out their issues at home. Once they were home, things got out of control. My son removed his gun to keep his fiancée from grabbing it. As he left, she jumped him — which is the part she neglected to tell me.

My son took the gun to the neighbors. I accidentally met the neighbor when I pulled into the wrong driveway. It was dark, and the blue police lights were blinding me. He asked me to take the gun. He didn’t want to be involved.

Who could blame him?

Things got worse before they got better. My son’s friend picked him up, and I ended up spending the night with his fiancée. The police were inclined to arrest her, and none of us wanted that.

The next morning, I picked up my son from his friend’s house and waited in the car in case they needed me. My son broke up with his girlfriend, and she was so distraught the police were called again.

I offered to take her to the hospital, and she turned me down.

My husband picked up my son, and I went home. We left his fiancée alone at the house to cool down. Maybe that wasn’t the right decision, but I had to remove myself.

Since then, both of them have been in counseling and are trying to decide whether their relationship could work after all this. My husband and I have told them we will support their decision, however it will go. I have private thoughts, but I’m keeping them to myself. They go again tomorrow.

Once I got home, I spent the rest of the day napping and resting, and when my younger son came home with a big smile on his face.

“I’m single!” he announced.

He had been dating a woman 14 years older than him who had three kids. Like my younger son, she too was adopted and was removed along with her siblings by the state. She and the siblings were adopted by a couple who loved them and did the best they could even though there was trauma. She recently had found her birth mother, and the whole family was going to visit her this month. My son was supposed to go as well.

My son was getting increasingly antsy in the relationship. He was not ready to be a stepfather at 22. Instead of telling her, he had begun to party with his friends. It seems she had gotten wind of some of his activities and broke up with him. He was glad, even though he was supposed to go on the trip to San Francisco with her this week.

After she broke it off with him, he immediately took off with friends, with the complacency of a 22-year-old with no cares in the world. I was not happy with him. I had been telling him for months that if he wasn’t happy, he should break things off as kindly as he could.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and my husband answered it. It was his girlfriend. She was upset and wanted to see our son. My husband had to tell her he wasn’t home.

An hour later, the doorbell rang again, and this time my husband said she wanted to see me. I went to the door, and there she was, crying and looking like her world had ended.

I held out my arms, and she grabbed me and hugged as she sobbed and sobbed. For the second time that day, I had to comfort the girlfriend of one of my sons. She cried so much and wiped snot on my shirt.

By then, I wanted to snatch the hair out of both of my sons’ heads!

Being the blunt person that I am, I told both girls that if my sons didn’t meet their expectations, then they were not the men for them. My 22-year-old is not ready to take on an older woman with three kids. He wanted to party and be a man about the town like the immature guy he was.

My 30-year-old son doesn’t know how to deal with his girls’ frequent breakdowns and anxiety about her past life. He was beyond frustrated. However, his willingness to go to counseling with her is a good sign. He also told me he might go on his own.

That’s the difference between a 30-year-old and a 22-year-old, I guess.

I’m doing my best to stay out of things, but there are issues that I can’t ignore. My niece is living with my son and his girlfriend because of family problems. I know somehow, I will be drawn into that as well. I guess it’s my job as a mother, and for the niece, well, I get called on a lot to solve family issues.

Who knows how things will turn out. A breakup isn’t easy when a couple is living together. There is a house involved, along with other financial issues.

We’ll see.

Thanks for reading. Keep in mind, all of this happened in a 24-hour period. I’m still reeling.

Hope your 4th was better than this!

Love

Ruby Lee