We went up to CT for a meeting with his mother, my wife and the family he is staying with.

It was pretty difficult for us. The dad seems to have all kinds of preconceptions about us and went into a very preachy mode with us. My wife got really upset and ran out... I went out after her and then I asked the mother of family he is staying with to talk to her. She's been through the entire step mother experience before and my wife gave her a lot of information my son and everyone else seemed to with hold. Basically they've made a lot of judgments about us that aren't really fair. Its very complicated... We are just telling ourselves that at least he has a place to stay right now... and they seem interested in him... I think they are greatly oversimplifying the issues... There are so many places to assign blame... My wife may well be the most objective one of all of us... and she feels like we've been run over by a steam train. I'm caught up in a lot of guilt...

I feel pretty flat. I'm ok I guess. I don't feel impulsive or anything... I'm hoping I'll get accepted into graduate school... My wife and I are talking about doing some counseling together which is probably a very good idea...

On a positive note we stopped into see my mother who is going to be 85. We had pretty much stopped talking to her because she had gotten very abusive... but she made a very kind gesture of friendship recently, and she's been sober for a few weeks... (she is a much nicer person when she is sober)... and we had a really nice time with her.