Enabling, Protecting, and Resenting the Single-Parent Feeling

Following up on my last post, I can say that there's no way I'd let H live with her natural father. No, it would not be the best thing for her...for all sorts of reasons. She'd feel like I gave up on her, she'd feel like an outsider moving in to her Dad's "re-made" family, and ultimately, it would absolutely break my heart to be apart from my child. Like a piece of me floating out in the unknown, afraid and hurt, and feeling abandoned by the one person who'd been the constant factor in her life. It will never happen, and I'm ashamed for even thinking of it.

That said, after our incident last week, I talked with a neighbor, who happens to be a counselor at our university, and he offered some extremely helpful insight into our situation. He gave sound advice for a two-prong approach to helping H devlelop an internal motivation for making the changes that are needed for both her academic success and her emotional development (not to mention her relationship with me). The first step is to establish one of her school counselors as H's "Coach"...kind of like a life coach, except this will be to keep her on the right academic path. This might include having her stay after school for the study sessions that are offered 3 times a week, rather than having me help her with homework. The second step is to get her into counseling with someone who works with kids. We have a person in Doha who has many years of experience (in the US and here), and we've met her before. I like her a great deal, and I think she could have a lot to offer Hannah.

It's a fine line that I'm walking between wanting desperately to help Hannah stay organized, be successful in her academic work, maintain healthy friendships, and protect her from the nasty bullies that live in our compound and make their rounds at her school AND resenting the fact that I feel like my ex-husband is getting out of all this shit scot-free! He doesn't have to fight, argue, negotiate, and battle with Hannah over homework, clothes, time on the TV, her attitude, etc. He's living the farm life on the fucking Ponderosa, and I'm left with the hard ass work that is parenting a child (one with ADHD at that)! While Hubby is wonderful about being a co-parent, when it comes to Hannah, she very often will only "deal" with me. She prefers me to help her with homework, she looks to me for the "final word" on house rules, and it's me that she pushes to the edge with her backtalk and attitude. It's a dynamic between her and I that, I'm afraid, will turn into something toxic over the next couple years. Even more importantly, I'm terrified of the decisions she might make as a result of that dynamic.

At the end of the day, I'm doing the best I can, but I always feel like it's never enough.