Posted by sid on January 13, 2002, at 11:19:48
In reply to Re: divorce one's family?, posted by Gracie2 on January 12, 2002, at 22:34:37
I'm sorry to read your story, but glad you found a solution.
When my father died my sister insisted again and again it was my role to help my mother. I had become the "strong one" and I never lived my grief myself, or anyway, it took years. I am not sure I am done with my grief, and it's been almost 11 years now. I discussed all this with my mother, 9 years after my father's death, and we had some very nice talks. My mother never meant for me to be so taken by her, and the only grudge I still hold is towards my sister. And her husband, for the sexual crap he made me go through most of my life. To him it's all jokes, humour, laugh, it's funny! I touch you somewhere inappropriate, laugh, it's funny ! Hello! You could have gone to prison for this! Especially since it started when I was 8 years old. I tend to consider him as sub-human, so it's not too bad. I ignore him as much as I possibly can and I'm fine.
But my sister insists on us (at a minimum her and I) having a relationship although we are extremely different, and she is rather judgmental of my choices, which are opposite to hers. Anyway, it gets difficult to manage at times. I am not ready to split from her yet, especially since she called me a few days after I hung up on her in anger, and we talk as if nothing ever happened. She's weird that way. I firmly believe that she suffers from anxiety, even more than me, but she does not realize it. So she's hard to deal with and she does not realize she could get some help. I also do it for my mother who's still alive and endured enough crap in life.
Anyway, thanks for your message. I do believe the same as you: we don't choose our family and if they are a hinderance to our well-being, we should cut them off. I may do it some day. And I'll try very hard not to feel guilty!
> I agree with Sarah, if one or more of your family members really makes you miserable, it's time to draw the line.
> I had to "divorce" several members of my dysfunctional family. The worst, particularly in the guilt department, was my mother. I moved back to my hometown after 7 years to be near my mother after my brother was killed because I was so worried about her. She made my life hell for years...she was understandably depressed and angry, but for some reason she took it out on ME.
> I just couldn't do enough to please her. No matter how much we did for her (my husband and I)-
> and she expected A LOT - or how much time and money we spent on her, she was always furious with both of us. She did things like - because we had given her a key to our house - let herself in during the day and take whatever she wanted; cookware, tools, even personal stuff like linen and photos. She did it all the time, and never returned anything. If I dared to stop by her house and ask for something back, she would stomp off, return with the offending article and, according to its weight, either slam it down on the table in front of me or throw it at me.
>
> Finally, after enduring this for a very long time, we changed the locks to the house. Oh my God, was she pissed! But I refused to give her a new key, so she started an assault by phone. She called day and night, constantly, to yell at me about something, and she wouldn't stop until I was in tears or so angry myself, my whole night was shot. Even when that didn't happen, she called so much that I could never finish my dinner or watch a whole movie. She was absolutely ruining my life. So we got an answering machine and a Caller ID. After awhile I stopped listening to her messages because they were just so nasty.
>
> When I didn't return her calls, she started calling me at work. When I asked the secretary not to relay her calls, she started showing up at the front door every night until I told her that
> I wouldn't let her in anymore. You can imagine the scene that caused, but she stayed away and she stopped calling. I felt sad and terribly guilty at first, but I knew that it was HER fault, that she had forced me to defend myself in that way. I should have made a point to stand up for myself right from the beginning, but I knew she was suffering from my brother's death. Which, incidentally, I was suffering from too, although she would never comfort me...her stance on that was, until I lost a child, I could never begin to understand the depth of grief and the daily pain that she experienced. Maybe this is so -
> if I lost my son, I don't know if I could live with that - but I'm sure that the one thing I would NOT do is to turn on my other kids and rip them to shreds.
>
> I apologize for going on so long...16 years later,
> I'm still quite emotional about the horrible way she treated me. After I shut my mother out, she eventually packed up her stuff and moved to Dallas to torture my sister. I could have wept with joy, although I felt sorry for my sister. Fortunately, the edge was off Mom's anger, and my sister is no doormat. They still had some clashes, and a couple of years later my sister moved to Hawaii -I guess she figured that was far enough.
>
> There is no way I could have continued to endure my mother's hatefulness and and abuse. As it was,
> she turned me into a real mess. These days, I send her a Christmas present and I call her on her birthday. Otherwise we have no contact except at family weddings and funerals. It makes me sad to have no mother, but she controlled our relationship by her actions. I never wanted it to be this way, but my life is peaceful now.
>
> -Gracie
poster:sid
thread:16577
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020112/msgs/16707.html