Tom

I go back and forth in my thinking about Tom and what effect this whole thing has had on him. For the most part, he seems fine. He has good friends, he's doing fairly well in school, and he is, in many ways, a very mature, together kid. But he used to be a very happy kid, too, and he doesn't seem that way to me, at least not at home. There are a lot of things going on here, of course. He's sixteen---aren't most 16-year-olds sort of permanently pissed off at their parents? Also, a lot of his friends's families have a lot more money than we do. That means that he spends more time at their giant houses than they do at our townhouse---I feel perpetually behind in hosting. This would not have been any different if we'd stayed in the house with Mark; it was smaller than this place is. We probably should have thought more about entertaining and other things when we rented the place, but to be honest, it took Steve so long to find something he liked that I just jumped at it. And it is in a great location; it just doesn't have a basement or any other space for easy entertaining.

So Tom stays over at his friends' houses and then comes home and sleeps the day away. I never know how much is surly 16-year-old and how much is that he feels out of place down in the living room with us. When Alex comes over, he spends some time downstairs with us, watching TV, etc. Tom, who lives here most of the time, spends that time in his room.

This is one of those things that I should have understood/thought about more fully when Steve and I decided to live together. Steve, and especially Ann, run a much tighter ship than I ever have. I also tend to make allowances for circumstances, probably too much, while Steve does not, particularly. Well, he makes allowances for Alex, but not for Tom. That's to be expected since Alex is here so little (Ann is a master of making sure it's as difficult as possible for Alex to be here, while pretending to be accommodating.)

Tom was a remarkable young child. This is not just mother love. He got noticed wherever he went. He talked exceptionally early for a boy and was very good at starting conversations with everyone. He is still amazingly good at interacting with people. He is not quite so good at working hard. A lot of things came easily to him when he was younger, and although he's getting better, he still does not see the relationship between work and reward. If you criticize some writing or something that he's done, he takes it as a personal criticism of him. But that's really just with me---he's great with his teachers.

The thing I feel guilty about is that I did what many people in bad marriages do---what my own mother did. I compensated for the lack of a relationship with my husband by paying an incredible amount of attention to Tom. So now, when I have a normal relationship with Steve, Tom feels like he's not getting enough attention, even though I still do an incredible amount with and for him---well, more for him these days, but that's his choice. He'd rather have Mom drive him and his friends to the movies than go to the movies with Mom. But for Mother's Day, he went with me to see Iron Man 2.

These relationships with our kids are part of what make Steve's and my relationship so much more difficult. Our relationship has to be really great to compensate for all the upset we've caused ourselves and others. It's a pretty tall order. But so far, most of the time, I still think it was worth it. And most of the time, I think Tom will be just fine, we'll be just fine.