I can only forgive NM if I don't have to see her. That's my stance now. If I don't have to see her and talk to her and put up with her bullshit, I can at least pretend to let go of the fact that I'll never get closure from her under any circumstances. I can at least not send her vicious thoughts from inside my head on a daily basis.
Every time I've seen or talked to her in the last year (which I can easily count on both hands), it's been exactly like ripping off a bandage stuck to an old, crusty wound, and making it bleed again, and then pouring rubbing alcohol on it.
Some months ago, I started telling the abbreviated story of my life. Feels like it's time for more to be added.
I got laid off from my job during the time my parents were separating for the final time. I didn't make much money, but it was the first full-time job I'd ever had, and I was doing something I liked to do, although the job was a den of hate and mismanagement. I took advantage of a misplaced worker's program our state offered, and three months later I started college full-time.
During this first semester, I felt so much better about school than I ever had as a teenager. I was learning shit. I landed a job as a part-timer at a law office and felt like I was heading in the right direction. I never had to share any of my personal problems with the people at the place I worked at. I didn't know them and they didn't know me and I discovered I was great with starting with a blank slate.
Several months later, Mom and Dad's divorce became final within the same month my sister's apartment house burned down, Dad had a significant truck accident, and Mom had her major stroke that led to open heart surgery. This was the last week of my first semester of college.
During the time Mom was in the hospital, which was most of that summer, I only went to visit her a few times. I know this earned the ire of certain family members who couldn't possibly understand the family dynamic. I was working two part-time jobs and going to college full-time and trying to figure out what was going on with my little boy.
Mother was released from the hospital and slowly recovered, and Dad continued to try to manipulate my favor as the best parent of the two. They both phone-bombed me, usually within a couple of minutes of each other. It was fucking eerie. I hated talking to them but felt guilty about not answering, so I always gave into my guilt.
Time goes on, and I graduate from college a couple of years down the road - a modest AAS degree, but a milestone nonetheless. During this time, the father of my oldest son was recovering from his meth addiction in a controlled living situation and I kept bending over backward to get him to come see his son on his weekend furloughs, which seldom happened. He completed the drug program and got clean, then knocked up his 19 year old girlfriend. Then he moved a couple of states away, presumably to get away from the same drug culture and friends who helped him get into the drug culture before, and he was an ass to his girlfriend who moved back to the state with their kid. God, I was pissed. This was the 3rd child he had created (one before me, one after me) with a girlfriend that he fucked off after making a kid, and then irresponsibly put his needs before any of his kids.
Then he died. He was in a motorcycle accident that rendered him brain-dead, and, thankfully, his family decided to donate his usable organs. That was, bar none, the most noble thing that had come from his life. But he died happy, doing what he wanted to do. I had to tell my 15 year old his dad was dead and watch the ex's family put him on a pedestal. I had done my best over the years to stay in close contact with his family so my boy would know them. After he passed, I couldn't go visit without seeing altars to the ex and conversations about what a wonderful man he was, a HERO. I get it. They loved him. They didn't see the consequences of his actions on his kids. Still makes me want to bring him back to life and fucking smack him. And hug him. I didn't hate him, except for when he hurt my son's feelings. I just didn't understand him much at all.
At the time he died, I was married to my husband and had my little boy. My husband never really bonded with my oldest son because he never understood him, either. He loved him but couldn't relate to him on any level. It's been a long few years. I helped my dad through his final stage of living as much as he would allow it while trying to keep my protective boundaries in place. My mother had it in her head that she had to come see him and bug him, I think to make herself feel better about having affairs while married to him. She became a martyr to her cause, refusing to remember the hell he put us all through.
When I told her not to go see him, she did anyway, behind my back, and then pretended she was his current wife when she snuck into the nursing home and held his hand, then requested to talk to the nurse. They caught on and called me. I wanted to KILL her. She apologized that I was upset. So, non-apology. Dad was pretty close to gone then and I think he thought she was me since he told a nurse his daughter had just been to visit him. He still HATED her and talked shit about her to me every chance he got. But then he talked shit about me to to anyone who would listen, so whatever. All I can think is she wanted what she wanted, consequences be damned, like this was some fucking Lifetime movie where everyone kisses and makes up and she feels better about being a whore instead of being a strong woman. If he had freaked out on her, she would have come bawling to me and he would have come bitching to me, and who would have had to clean up their goddamned mess? Yeah.
As it was, she went bawling to my father's sister, the only family member I am fond of, because I yelled at her. I knew she would do it, too. I found out about that some months later while talking to this aunt. I'm sure mother thought this would get her some sympathy and have dad's family down on me for yelling at her poor, fragile self. Fucking bitch. Like this time wasn't difficult enough. She got her divorce, she got the fuck away from him, and I was left doing all the dirty work (that she wouldn't have been strong enough to handle anyway, so it was coming to this). Her getting away is not what I begrudge her. I was the one he hated for three years for having to put him in assisted living and take him to doctor's appointments and take his truck away from him. She wanted to be his warm-fuzzy there at the end after not being there for the worst of it, after all the shit both of them had put us through over the years.
Yep. Don't want to see her any more. Will I? Yes, if only to keep my relationship with my sister, whose husband thinks we are "ridiculous" and should just "let it go" as regards our feelings with Mom. I know he doesn't understand. But we weren't all brought up in loving, enlightened families, now were we?
I got laid off from my job during the time my parents were separating for the final time. I didn't make much money, but it was the first full-time job I'd ever had, and I was doing something I liked to do, although the job was a den of hate and mismanagement. I took advantage of a misplaced worker's program our state offered, and three months later I started college full-time.
During this first semester, I felt so much better about school than I ever had as a teenager. I was learning shit. I landed a job as a part-timer at a law office and felt like I was heading in the right direction. I never had to share any of my personal problems with the people at the place I worked at. I didn't know them and they didn't know me and I discovered I was great with starting with a blank slate.
Several months later, Mom and Dad's divorce became final within the same month my sister's apartment house burned down, Dad had a significant truck accident, and Mom had her major stroke that led to open heart surgery. This was the last week of my first semester of college.
During the time Mom was in the hospital, which was most of that summer, I only went to visit her a few times. I know this earned the ire of certain family members who couldn't possibly understand the family dynamic. I was working two part-time jobs and going to college full-time and trying to figure out what was going on with my little boy.
Mother was released from the hospital and slowly recovered, and Dad continued to try to manipulate my favor as the best parent of the two. They both phone-bombed me, usually within a couple of minutes of each other. It was fucking eerie. I hated talking to them but felt guilty about not answering, so I always gave into my guilt.
Time goes on, and I graduate from college a couple of years down the road - a modest AAS degree, but a milestone nonetheless. During this time, the father of my oldest son was recovering from his meth addiction in a controlled living situation and I kept bending over backward to get him to come see his son on his weekend furloughs, which seldom happened. He completed the drug program and got clean, then knocked up his 19 year old girlfriend. Then he moved a couple of states away, presumably to get away from the same drug culture and friends who helped him get into the drug culture before, and he was an ass to his girlfriend who moved back to the state with their kid. God, I was pissed. This was the 3rd child he had created (one before me, one after me) with a girlfriend that he fucked off after making a kid, and then irresponsibly put his needs before any of his kids.
Then he died. He was in a motorcycle accident that rendered him brain-dead, and, thankfully, his family decided to donate his usable organs. That was, bar none, the most noble thing that had come from his life. But he died happy, doing what he wanted to do. I had to tell my 15 year old his dad was dead and watch the ex's family put him on a pedestal. I had done my best over the years to stay in close contact with his family so my boy would know them. After he passed, I couldn't go visit without seeing altars to the ex and conversations about what a wonderful man he was, a HERO. I get it. They loved him. They didn't see the consequences of his actions on his kids. Still makes me want to bring him back to life and fucking smack him. And hug him. I didn't hate him, except for when he hurt my son's feelings. I just didn't understand him much at all.
At the time he died, I was married to my husband and had my little boy. My husband never really bonded with my oldest son because he never understood him, either. He loved him but couldn't relate to him on any level. It's been a long few years. I helped my dad through his final stage of living as much as he would allow it while trying to keep my protective boundaries in place. My mother had it in her head that she had to come see him and bug him, I think to make herself feel better about having affairs while married to him. She became a martyr to her cause, refusing to remember the hell he put us all through.
When I told her not to go see him, she did anyway, behind my back, and then pretended she was his current wife when she snuck into the nursing home and held his hand, then requested to talk to the nurse. They caught on and called me. I wanted to KILL her. She apologized that I was upset. So, non-apology. Dad was pretty close to gone then and I think he thought she was me since he told a nurse his daughter had just been to visit him. He still HATED her and talked shit about her to me every chance he got. But then he talked shit about me to to anyone who would listen, so whatever. All I can think is she wanted what she wanted, consequences be damned, like this was some fucking Lifetime movie where everyone kisses and makes up and she feels better about being a whore instead of being a strong woman. If he had freaked out on her, she would have come bawling to me and he would have come bitching to me, and who would have had to clean up their goddamned mess? Yeah.
As it was, she went bawling to my father's sister, the only family member I am fond of, because I yelled at her. I knew she would do it, too. I found out about that some months later while talking to this aunt. I'm sure mother thought this would get her some sympathy and have dad's family down on me for yelling at her poor, fragile self. Fucking bitch. Like this time wasn't difficult enough. She got her divorce, she got the fuck away from him, and I was left doing all the dirty work (that she wouldn't have been strong enough to handle anyway, so it was coming to this). Her getting away is not what I begrudge her. I was the one he hated for three years for having to put him in assisted living and take him to doctor's appointments and take his truck away from him. She wanted to be his warm-fuzzy there at the end after not being there for the worst of it, after all the shit both of them had put us through over the years.
Yep. Don't want to see her any more. Will I? Yes, if only to keep my relationship with my sister, whose husband thinks we are "ridiculous" and should just "let it go" as regards our feelings with Mom. I know he doesn't understand. But we weren't all brought up in loving, enlightened families, now were we?
