I was paying the cellphone bills and checked in on the usage. Damn it. He's still talking to Paige. How did that happen? What's worse is that it is very apparent that it is he who is pursuing her (he always makes it seem the other way around). The bill details show that he is making call after call after call to her until he finally talks to her. A conversation can last anywhere from 2 to 12 minutes - and then his obsessive attempts begin again.
This is far from healthy behavior and, I'm seriously worried for him. This is the same obsessive behavior that was reported to me by Danielle's friend (Danielle was his first girlfriend).
I pulled up to the house at lunch a few days later and caught him in his truck, door open, finishing a smoke. I walked around to seize the moment. "Well, well, well..."
"What?" he responds flatly.
I informed him that I knew he was talking to her and asked what's up with that. He says he doesn't know (as if he doesn't understand either). He has no explanation and tries to convince me that they only talk on and off, whenever she feels like she's missing him. However, I know better.
I assure him, "You don't have to tell me what you think I want to hear..." and then simply change the subject.
Later, I recall our conversation when he'd last called it off between them - he had given me specific instruction that if he tries to make-up with her that I am to intervene - but, I'm afraid I know what to expect as a response from him today, in his "renewed" frame of mind. I don't think he's still on-board with that intervention.
This man returned from serving two tours - one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan - and they were very traumatic. He experienced some rough stuff and he had more than his share of close calls. He came home a little more than a year ago and the only thing he's done is sit behind the closed door of a borrowed bedroom and play x-box games, and gives one excuse after another as to why he isn't working or going to college (usually he blames Paige). I wonder if he thinks we are actually buying into these excuses.
What's worse to me than his continued conversing with Paige is that he continues to sit behind his closed bedroom door day after day after day after... I think, that if he would just get out and get a job, it would not only bring in some income for him (so he can continue to pay his bills), but he would also feel better about himself and his future, and he would get some (hopefully, healthy) socialization in. It's a win-win really.
At this point, Roy and I are simply enablers. We are being put in a position where we are going to have no other alternative except to exert some tough love. Why? Why? Why can't he take the initiative and get his life back on track?
He is so (academically) smart and he is such an old soul. He truly contemplates things on a thoughtful, soulful level.
What to do...?
What to do...?
One thing is certain - doing nothing is becoming less of an option. I have plans this year for the home and I refuse to watch this truly amazing person sit behind that damned door and waste time.
Tough love always means that heads are going to roll - unfortunately. And I better not get my life threatened again but an un-involved, knows-nothing, good-for-nothing at all, gang-wielding absent parent!
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