Pam - I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the book too. Thank you for your comments, Georgysmom and Murraysmom. Murraysmom, I read The lovely bones a couple of years ago and I really liked it. In fact, perhaps I'll read it again because a book is always different on a second reading.

Like Popi, I don't know if you want suggestions or just to vent. If you need to vent, my heart breaks for you in your situation. I haven't been in your situation, but I have had one family member with substance abuse issues, one family member with depression, and another family member with head trauma. In every one of those cases, the outcome for my family member either has turned out great or appears to be turning out great. Still, it was so very hard for both the family and the person with the issue. It's hard, and everyone in my family carries some scars and baggage from those times, but we grew and became better people as well, so there's hope. My first suggestion is that you find a chapter of NAMI near you, or whatever they have that's similar where you live. If they have any support programs for spouses, it would be great if your husband would go, and your kids, too. You shouldn't feel guilty for your mental illness or your breakdown. However, you and your family might need some help understanding the trauma that everyone went through and how to deal with it constructively. The next thing I'm going to say is in regards to him wanting to take the phone and you don't. I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who has sort of been in your husband's shoes. I was mom and dad both for awhile, responsible for keeping the family together during a horrible time. It's hard to put that toothpaste back in the bottle. It won't kill your daughter not to have a phone, and if your husband is this frustrated and stressed perhaps it would help him to be able to make this decision without argument. If you have come back from your breakdown and are doing fine, it's understandable and fair to you and your hard work that you slip back into your normal mom role. But they are not the same people they were before, and you may not be able to slip back into that role in the same way, even if you deserve to be able to do that and would be good at it. Another thing I would say, and only because it's an easy thing to address. It's certainly not the most important thing. Are you sure you want to fight that battle with a 14-year-old and the leggings? Is it something you hate or is it not allowed by the school? Pick your battles. There are family dynamics that change when a parent has a mental breakdown or an injury that changes (even temporarily) a parent's ability to reason. I say this with all the compassion in the world. You have no idea how much. As much as you can, use this situation to teach your children how to cope and overcome overwhelming circumstances. If you can keep from getting angry, getting overwhelmed with guilt, stay calm, etc., then do it. Remember that everything doesn't have to be addressed right then. Let's think about it and discuss it later is almost always an option. For example, if your daughter is going out with leggings. This is not a life-threatening and in my opinion morally threatening situation. If it's a tense time, you can always say nothing to your daughter at the time. Then later, privately, when you and your daughter are calm, you can discuss this with her calmly. Talk to her about why you think what you do, hear her out and give her a chance to talk to you about her thoughts. If you decide to continue holding this position, set consequences. Make sure your husband is on board. Then don't argue about it with either of them. When she sneaks out with leggings, enforce your consequences. When the family situation is tense and difficult and there are teens in the home, as much as you can stay calm, logical and consistent and deal with problems when things are calm, it's my experience that's best. If she's about to get in the car with a drunk kid, it can't wait. That CAN'T be decided later. But if she tends to go out with inappropriate clothing, then discuss that with your husband during a calm time, discuss it with her at a calm time, set your consequences and enforce them calmly. I know that it seems crazy when all about you is crumbling. And sometimes we moms just can't stay calm, no matter how hard we try. My thoughts are with you.

"...cindylou, imagine if you can what it would be like after all you and your husband have experienced with your MIL if your own children grew up and estranged you..." If I had a child who estranged me, I would not think it had anything to do or not to do with my MIL. I would not think that they owed me a relationship because I tolerated my MIL (maybe I misunderstood what you meant by connecting my MIL into that idea). If my child estranged me suddenly and with no warning and if I asked and they said, "You know", and I truly didn't, I would make the assumption they didn't quite didn't know themselves. That they have feelings and upsets they don't quite understand themselves and that they needed time away from me to work them out. (This is assuming there's no mental illness or addiction. If there is mental illness or addiction, then I do know and frankly, maybe I'm just getting too old, but I've seen the hopelessness and heartache of addiction and mental illness, and I think I'd just be grateful for being cut out). More likely, I would have been told the answer. And I'd accept it, even if it didn't make sense. "Because you wore blue to my kindergaren graduation." Huh? Ok. I don't think I'd argue. I can't imagine arguing with an adult child. They are an adult. I barely argue with them now. My parents didn't argue with me, I never saw them argue with their parents. My aunts and uncles on both sides didn't argue with either their adult children or their parents. It's just not done. I can't imagine it. There are differences of opinion and hurt feelings and misunderstandings and on rare occasions, conflict between adult members of my extended family. Of course there is. But everyone seems to understand a basic rule. I live my life and you live yours, and I can offer my opinion and it's fair if you don't follow it. The person who's business it is, gets the final say. The person who has the most responsibility gets to decide. The person who takes the biggest risk chooses. We are none of us perfect people; but we don't squabble and manipulate and gang up on each other and form one alliance and then another to force family members to do what we want. And we don't stab each other in the back. That's such a bizarre concept to me. And we are very close--without melodrama. There's not a lot of conflict. So if a child told me, "I don't want contact from you because you wouldn't let me go to Aruba on spring break." I'd respect that. I'd figure sooner or later they'd understand. Or if not, sooner or later it wouldn't matter any more. I would absolutely believe that eventually they'd come back. Not the way they were, it wouldn't be the same relationship, but had we stayed close, it wouldn't be the same relationship at 30 as it was at 20 or 10. Would I miss them and be hurt. You bet. But I'd be comforted that I would see them again and focus on the other blessings of my life while I waited. I truly believe that if you love something you let it go, and if it loves you, it will come back. And if it doesn't come back, you never had it to begin with. If after 10 or 20 years there was still no contact, I'd have to face the fact that it's probably for the best. We didn't have the relationship I thought we had; I didn't know them, and we obviously weren't a match even if they have half my DNA. Do I hope to have close, intimate relationships with the families of my adult children? Of course. But I will be happy with any non exploitive relationship my children feel comfortable with. I may want more contact or less, depending on the personalities, but perfection doesn't happen in relationships; it's like tension between togetherness and individuality that has to be worked out in a marriage. When your children are adults with families, you renegotiate your relationship, and if it REALLY doesn't work for someone, you might have to walk away. Sad, painful, but realistic. I have a coworker who is retiring and moving to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. They are delighted to have her. On a recent house hunting trip she was dismayed that her daughter seemed to expect/demand a lot of babysitting from her. She's not moving there to take on the responsibility of babysitting her grandchildren, altho she does hope to see a lot of them and participate in their lives. Things were tense as she attempted to come to understanding with her daughter. She came back and asked if things don't work out in the other state, can she have her job back. I sometimes in the past had wondered if she's a meddling MIL so much does she talk about her grandchildren. But I see now she's got a life outside them and is not exploiting her daughter's family to fill the emptiness (if any) in her own life. And she's not going to allow herself to be exploited by her daughter however much she loves her family. She sees her standing up for herself may result in a cut off; and I respect her handling of this delicate situation. I'm sure it will all work out, but I can see myself in her place; in any relationship, there's always the possibility that you or the other person will walk away for whatever reason. You may think, oh yeah, you are so philosophical, just wait until it happens to you. Well, like anything, what choices do you have: you either accept with grace or you don't. How does not accepting with grace help anything? The ends don't justify the means. Bullying, manipulating, harassing, yelling...none of that is going to help. If you accept with grace, while you are waiting for the problem to resolve itself enough so the child talks to you again with a willingness to compromise, at least you can still have meaning and pleasure in your life. It also gives you time to reflect as well. It might not be that you did something WRONG, it's just that you don't mesh well. And you can measure in the absence how you and your adult child's family don't mesh and what you are willing to compromise to make the relationship more pleasant for EVERYONE. "Mom, you can never be unsupervised with my kids." "Why?" "Because you are a taurus". Huh? Well, that makes no sense to me. But why jeopardize my supervised visits with my grandchildren which can be wonderful by arguing if being a taurus prevents one from being a good grandma or not. Why fill that time with strife and anger and posturing and demands and righteousness and counter accusations when I can be on the floor playing Candyland and angling for the chocolate swamp or coloring in Barbie coloring books or stacking Lincoln logs as high as the sky. Who cares if DIL is glaring at me when my darling grandson and I are holding our breathes to see if we can make a Pixie Stix teepee? I believe letting them go gracefully gets them back eventually, and if it doesn't, the relationship would have just caused heartache all around anyway, estranged or not.

You say you've threatened to call the cops if they physically hurt their sister... it sounds like you may have to do more than threaten if it ever happens again. Physical abuse is a crime, and I don't think you have to be 18 to be accountable. There is a very clear line of what can and can't be condoned, talked through or otherwise worked out and physical abuse is over that line. The boys need to know very plainly and in no uncertain terms that if they hurt the girls or anyone else, they will be picked up by the cops. As for the other stuff (lying, refusing to do chores), well, obviously that's harder to deal with because it's more vague. But I think it's safe to say that in most human dealings, the best way to influence or improve somebody's behavior is to make it real unpleasant for them to continue what they're doing... to make it in their interest to change their behavior. And let them know the deal so there is no surprise or uncertainty so that if they choose to misbehave they have no one to blame for the repercussions they suffer but themselves. It may not prove a foolproof method, but I'd guess it's worth a try. Like for example: "Dude, you are NOT going to like what happens if I hear you call your sister a bad name again, because you're not going to like scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush and vinegar at 5:00 in the morning. Your choice." Or: "yeah I know you don't really feel like doing the dishes. And I don't really feel like cooking you dinner or paying for your phone either. If you back out on your promises and contributions to the family, I guess others in the family have a right to back out on their promises and contributions to you. It's much better for all of us if we all pitch in and do things to help each other out. But again, your choice." You as the step-parent who isn't even living full-time with the step-kids REALLY don't have to do anything for them. Their mom obviously has to provide a basic decent level of care and make sure there's food in the house for them to eat, etc. But at their age she doesn't have to cook it! There are plenty of "extra" things you and she can leverage and refuse to do for them until they learn to behave decently, without running the risk of being negligent parents. In the meantime, though, do proceed with family counseling. Even though the boys' behavior desperately needs changing, it sounds like there are some genuine adjustment problems and anger issues that need to be addressed. Especially with the older boy, who sadly sounds like he has had a lot in his life to be angry about. He just can't be allowed to continue expressing it in the ways that he has been.