I will admit, upfront, that I am a 'fixer.' If someone is in need, I am the first to jump in and want to do whatever I can to help resolve the issue in whatever way that I can. It is a selfish action I suppose, because it makes me feel absolutely incredible to lend a helping hand when another person is in need. Sometimes, most times, things work out fine, yet other times, trying to fix things for others has landed me in some hot water, so to speak.

I wrote yesterday, about how we handled speaking with my adopted stepson about his birthmother, and it got me to thinking about my desire to fix things for others, and how at times, others are so willing to throw me into the middle of their own situations and make me (or at least try their hardest to) be the one to solve not so much their troubles, but the troubles that they make for themselves. Not one for confrontation I tend to be the peacemaker, and this is something that my son's birth mother picked up on pretty quickly, and seemingly had no problems with leaving me to clean up her mistakes.

She would do something to hurt my son, and then expect me to fix it for her. And sadly, in the beginning, I did. I thought that I was doing the right thing, I was a first time parent, and I was in a stepparent situation, and thought that it was my job to make sure that everyone got along as best as possible, so if my [then] stepson was having an issue with his mom, surely I needed to do what I could to rectify it...right? Wrong! I know that now, but then, I honestly thought that I was doing the correct thing, and at first I really didn't mind smoothing everything over for the two of them, in the hopes that they would bond and form a deeper relationship with one another. I know now that it wasn't my job, nor my place to fix things for her, but I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, and thought well, if she just got a little extra support, and saw that we were not out to push her away, but to help her to have a better relationship with her son, that she would not have so much anger and animosity towards all of us.

I was put into the middle several times, and then it became just about every time that they had contact, and then it truly was every time that they had contact, I was either on the phone with her trying to figure out why he was crying, or had locked himself in his room, or I was talking to him trying to figure out why he had hung up on her, and she had called back spitting venom at me for something that had gone down between the two of them that I was clueless to. I would go back and forth between the two of them, getting each side of the story, and then would end up sitting on the front porch, sometimes for hours, trying to explain his feelings to her, while getting interrupted with 'I don't care" and how her feelings had been hurt over something that quite frankly in my opinion, was either not an issue, or perhaps an issue for a child, not an adult, let alone a parent.

The last straw for me had come when I had successfully navigated more issues between the two of them than I can count, only to have her hurt him royally several different times, in a very short amount of time. He had had enough, and flat out refused to have any contact with her at all. At the same time, she refused to see or speak to him, until he apologized for being angry with her, over what she had done. Not only did she refuse to speak with, or see him, but she told me point blank on the phone, 'you need to fix this.' Excuse me? I knew that part of her expectation had been my own fault for so readily stepping in to help out time and time again, but raised with the God helps those who help themselves mindset, I am a firm believer that you have to try to help yourself before asking for help from others. And the fact that I was not asked, but told that I had to fix this, grated on my nerves quite a bit. I don't mind helping when asked, I don't mind helping when not asked but I know it is needed, but being told to do something for someone else, well, that is just a different story altogether!

I asked her what her plan was to fix what she had done, and her response was that she had already done everything that she could do. She was frustrated with how the situation was, and instead of doing something to fix it, she was giving up, which I just didn't understand. I suggested that if they weren't speaking on the phone with each other, that she could write him letters, and I would make sure that he read them, that way she was doing the work, yet still receiving support from us. She refused, stating that she had already done that, which is true she had sent him one letter 9-12 months prior to this particular situation. Every suggestion that I had for her was shot down, and retorted with some form of 'you fix it for me.' I finally put my foot down, realizing that somewhere along the line her view of me had gone from softy to pushover, and told her that this was not something that I could fix for her. I had helped in the past thinking that with some extra support she would be able to work things out with him, but that it just wasn't working that way, and perhaps my support and help was standing in the way. She needed to be the fixer for this, she needed to be the savior of the situation, she was the one who needed to make it right, not me. It was a hard conversation for me to have, saying no to others in need is hard for me, getting into a situation that will result in confrontation is hard for me, yet it was a conversation that was long overdue.

I told her that we would put him in counseling, and suggested that she do the same. She said right away that she just didn't have the money, so I told her we could look into our benefits package (which had many extra services for families) and see if there was something that we could utilize that would cover both her and our son getting some help. That was staunchly refused in a 'I don't need your money or anything from you, if you aren't just going to fix this for me' manner. After that I was yelled at, and then hung up on, which left me sitting on the front porch, now in the dark, exasperated, and chuckling to myself as I said to the night air "well, that went well."

I a still a firm believer in offering help and support to others in need, but I must say that I am a little more picky when it comes to how I will help someone out. That was the first time that I had really been taken advantage of, and expected to clean up all of someone's mistakes, without them trying to change their own behavior. I had thought that I was doing what was best for my stepson, by giving his mom some extra support, it turns out that there were some pretty good reasons as to why no one else was willing to give her a hand. She had already burned all of her bridges, but had found a sap who was too willing to give the benefit of the doubt time and time again and do the dirty work for her, regardless of how she treated me. She knew how much I loved that little boy, and just as she had done to my husband prior to our meeting and marriage, she exploited that love to get things done for her. It was quite an eye opener for me, up to that point I had never honestly met someone who used their child as a 'pawn' to manipulate others, and get things for themself, which is probably why it took me so long to catch on at first that I was being used, and so was my son.




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