Note: This is a letter to my Mom. It's dealing with all the crap I've had to go through since my parents announced their sepeation. I'm not cetain if I'll ever send it to her. But it was therapeutic to write. It's very long, 8 pages in Microsoft Word
Dear Mom,
It has been almost a year since I convinced myself that it might be possible to save what remained of our relationship.
It took me almost a month to build up the courage to even pick up the phone and call you. I had been hoping that it might have been possible to spend some time together during that Christmas.
I had been happy to learn that you had gone to BC to be with Granny, Your sister and Your neice for Christmas, I knew that it must have felt really good to be able to spend some time with everyone out there. I had hoped that maybe they would have been able to give you some of the support that I hadn�t been able to. I�d hoped that maybe that visit would have made you happy, because that�s all that I had ever wanted, for you to be to be happy.
I know that once everything between you and Dad was over it was hard for you to accomplish that. I know that you needed support then. I know that you expected that support from you family, I know that you wanted your children to rally around you. I know that I failed you. I know that after all the times you had been there for me, I wasn�t there when you needed me that so much. And I regret that.
I made an enormous error in judgment. I�d always seen you as a strong, independent woman that had managed to march head first into the face of adversity. I thought that meant that you�d be able to manage this as well. I was wrong. You needed support. You needed your family there to give that support to you.
But you need to understand that I was being pulled into many different directions. Pulling me in one direction was you, the woman that I believed to be the most self reliant person in the world. I thought that you had Kenny and Brother 2 to help you. It never even occurred to me that you might need me as well.
Pulling me in another direction were my children. There were Eldest Boy, Daughter and Littlest Boy, my three children who were dealing with a sick and dying grandparent at the same time as dealing with your separation and divorce. They were upset, no that�s an understatement, they were heartbroken.
Eldest Boy didn�t deal with that situation at all. He still is feeling the repercussions of that entire ordeal. But at that time he missed a lot of school, he would cry for no reason. He was depressed. The whole thing was harder on him than the other two. He missed about 2 moths of school, off and on. I was on the verge of getting him counseling when he seemed to pull himself out of it. I wish I had gotten him that help anyways. Maybe he wouldn�t still be dealing with it.
I also had a husband who had just lost his father. I know that you don�t see that as a problem, but he is part of my children�s life and when their father is depressed and heartbroken it reflects on their own well being. I had to be there for my husband, for the good of my own family I had to help him. I know that you should be able to understand how difficult it is to deal with the death of a parent. Now, imagine that for that parent�s funeral you didn�t have just the normal grief that comes with losing a parent. Imagine that you had to go to the funeral home and make arraignments to have bouncers present at your father�s service.
My family had to be my first priority. I�m sorry if you don�t understand that I had to choose my children�s welfare over yours. I�m sorry if I decided that I had to be there to assist my children was my duty, one that took precedence over assisting my mother with her divorce.
I know that you can say you didn�t know that this was going on when it was happening. I chose not to tell you. Not to keep you out of the ordeal, but to shelter you. I thought that you had enough on your plate. I didn�t want you worrying about the kids while you were dealing with everything else as well.
In hindsight perhaps I should have. Perhaps I should have added to the burden you were already carrying. Perhaps then you wouldn�t have misunderstood what was happening.
But you did misunderstand. You thought I was pulling away from you. I�m not certain what you thought, if perhaps I was taking Dad�s side or not. I�m not certain, only you know what was going through you mind at that time. All I can say is that wasn�t the case. You can choose to believe me or not.
I�m not certain when it happened but suddenly one day all of our conversations began to centre on Dad. You were certain that Dad was having an affair with one of your coworkers and that they were making your life hell. You wanted me to talk to Dad about it, get him to admit it.
I asked him. He denied it. You wanted me to call him a liar. You wanted me to force the lie out into the open. I tried. But he is still my father, the only living grandfather of my children. I did the only thing that I could. I chose to not get involved in the whole situation. You had me trapped in the middle of a very difficult situation.
What was I supposed to do? Choose sides? Decide which of you were lying and which was telling the truth?
Short of gathering evidence on my own and spying on my parents what was I supposed to do? I had no evidence that either of you were lying or telling the truth. So I decided that I didn�t want to get into it.
I wanted a relationship with my parents, separately. I wanted a relationship with my Mother that didn�t involve my Father and vice versa. I wanted my kids to be able to maintain the relationships they had with both of you.
I tried to remove myself from your struggle. I made one request of you. I no longer wanted to discuss Dad with you, and I made the same of Dad about you.
Then Christmas arrived. This is where everything begins to unravel.
I admit that I made a colossal mistake. Dad said that he wanted to get together for Christmas with us (Hubby, the kids and myself) and I thought that it might be nice if Brother 1 and Brother 2 were given the opportunity to join us if they wished. I did not tell you. I didn�t know how to deal with the whole thing, and as a result I messed things up badly. I know that I hurt you. But you also told me that you wanted us all to get together as we used to. You had invited Dad to come for Christmas day at the house. That was an unrealistic dream you had. Dad was never going to come over, and if he had come it would have made for a very awkward if not horrible day.
I�m sorry for hurting you then. If I could go back and do it differently I would. But I can�t so all I�m able to do now is apologize.
Then we came to your house for Christmas day. Everything was nice, despite the occasional declaration you made that it would have been nicer if Dad had come, or pointing out that we had a nice day despite Dad not being there. I understood that you were working issues out so I didn�t say anything.
But then came the end of the day, when you sat down to have a heart to heart with Hubby. You basically sat there and accused him of knowing that Dad had been having an affair, he had to have known according to you because he had worked on the computer. In your opinion he had to have seen the emails that Dad had been exchanging. Hubby told you that he hadn�t. That it was none of his business. You were cruel in some of the things you said to him, but he felt that you lashing out at him and were basically working through some of the issues that you had been dealing with. He tried not to take it personally and asked me to do the same. Because you have to understand that he is my husband and that when you treat him that way it angers me.
Since then you have gone out of your way to alienate Hubby, to let him know that you do not like him and that you want nothing to do with him. That�s fine, but he is my Husband, the father of my children. The way you treat him makes both me and the kids feel bad. The last time you came over (Valentine�s Day) Daughter even made a comment about it when she asked if you had brought a card for her Dad.
So, you went out of your way to make Hubby feel as unwelcome as you could. At the same time you kept inviting us over to visit. Hubby didn�t feel welcome at your home, so of course he wouldn�t want to go over there. Your response was that he didn�t have to come. So, you�d continue to invite us over on the weekends. But the weekends were family time. It was time for our family to spend together. And you had made it more than obvious to Hubby and me that he wasn�t part of that family in your opinion. And there is no way in this world that I�m going to cut him out of his children�s life to make you happy. I can�t believe that you even thought that was a possibility.
So, yes! You are right, we did stop coming over to your house as much as we had.
Another reason that we stopped coming over was because of the way you made me feel. Almost all of our conversations revolved around Dad, despite the numerous times that I had asked you to not bring him up.
I wanted a relationship with you based on you. Not my relationship with my father.
You started to become unreasonable. You showed up at my house late one night. I had to be up for work at 5 in the morning. You wanted to analyze your marriage with Dad. You started to tell me how you believed that Dad never really loved you. I didn�t need to hear that. I begged you to find someone else to discuss that stuff with. I begged you to turn to Granny, Your sister or to talk to your friends. I couldn�t deal with that stuff. But you refused. Your excuse for not listening when I begged you to stop talking about Dad was that it was the �truth� and that I had to hear it. That you had the right to say whatever you wanted, because it was in search for the truth. I begged you to leave. It was getting late. I needed to be up for work. You didn�t care.
Do you care that I was such an emotional wreck that when I showed up for my new job (I think was about a week two in) that when my new boss smiled at me and said �Good Morning Kathy�, that I burst into tears right on the spot. It was horrible. I thought for sure I�d never make it past my probationary period. But I did. With no help from you. It seemed like on an almost nightly basis you were showing up at my door, trying to rip me apart by talking about Dad.
Finally in August, at Brennan�s birthday party, you pushed me too far. You know that when you stood within hearing distance of me, talking to Nicole about everything that was going on, telling her about the lies and all the people that were keeping it going. That in a non-direct way you were attacking me. It hurt. It hurt that on a day that was supposed to Brennan�s special day you couldn�t let it drop even then.
I reacted badly. But I was hurt and lashed out. I regret that I did that on Brennan�s birthday. My behavior that day was as bad as yours in that respect. I regret not being able to handle it in a more positive manner. I regret making what was supposed to be a nice day into a miserable one. I regret behaving that way on a day that was supposed to be special for Brennan.
I had been warned repeatedly by my doctor to reduce the stress in my life. I was in bad shape. I wasn�t sleeping. I was high-strung. I was beginning to have health issues. I�d been warned that our relationship was a destructive one and that it was partially responsible for my stress. I didn�t care. I loved you and wanted to keep you in my life.
But, the day of Brennan�s birthday I realized that you didn�t care about me at all. All you wanted was to rip me apart. I�d warned you what my doctor said about reducing stress. Did you care? No.
So, that day I decided that since you were that selfish it was time for me to get selfish myself. So I walked away from you. I decided that my kids needed to remember the grandmother you had been. The loving, fun person. Not this woman who screamed and yelled all the time. Not this person that came to their home and called their mom a bitch and accused her of lying all the time. No matter how many times I begged you not to do this stuff in front of them, you insisted that they had a right to know everything.
So, I didn�t give you another thought until last Christmas. Then I began to hope that perhaps time might have managed to heal some of the bad stuff between us. I knew that I was now in a place where I could let it go, but could you?
Last February we met. I told you how I felt. I told you that my stipulation was that we don�t discuss Dad or any of that stuff that dealt with him. I told you that the ball was in your court because I only wanted a relationship with you if you could manage that.
I didn�t hear from you until Easter, when you told me that you had to try for the kids. Because they missed you so much and you missed them. I told you that was fine. But this time I told you that if you wanted the kids to spend time with you, I had to be present because of your breach of trust. I didn�t trust you not to begin to drag them into all that other stuff once again. You had already made it more than obvious that you didn�t care what was said or done in front of them. So, once again the ball was in your court.
You would come over to visit with them, which was great. You came by and left them gifts, vegetables from your garden and other great stuff that they truly loved.
You would ask for them to go off with you, always at times when it was inconvenient for me to accompany or when they had friends over.
Every time you came to talk to me, it was always the same. �I know that this is in the past but,� and then you�d go on about something that had happened between you and I in the past or about something to do with Dad. I told you that I had become really ill. I had to go to the hospital and was only a hair away from going into anaphylactic shock. A couple of times I had really bad relapses. The sickness got so bad that I got to the point where I was hacking none stop and had numerous trips to the doctors where I was prescribed a slew of medications. Benedryl, Codeine cough syrup, nasal steroids and a multitude of antihistamines. All of which made me become highly agitated as well as barely functional. Suddenly I was barely functional and if not for the help of some really great friends I�ve made recently I don�t know how I would have managed. But none of that was known to you, because when you came by you would ask how I was and then go straight into telling me how all of your friends agree you were assassinated by Dad and I. You�d tell me how sad that the lie had to ruin people�s lives. You even said that this all happened because of your politics.
I�ve got news for you. You keep telling me how your friends agree with you that I did all this terrible stuff to you. Do you know something?
I don�t care what your friends think. Of course they agree with you, they are only hearing your side. Do you tell them of all the times I begged you to not bring up Dad? Do you tell them of all the irrational behaviour you displayed when you came to my house to call me a bitch in front of my children?
I never wanted you out of my life. But you gave me no choice and I found it to be very insulting for you to sit there and tell me how much your friends agreed with you. But I wanted a relationship with you. I wanted you in the kid�s lives, so I bit my tongue. Because I knew if I argued back it would end up very badly for us.
Then came September. You came to the house and were visibly agitated. When I asked you what was wrong you screamed at me that I was a bad mother. Right there on the street, in front of my neighbors.
I was a bad mom because I never let you take Eldest Boy. But I had told you that I had to come. So, did you ever call ahead to see if I was available? When Eldest Boy had a houseful of friends, did you expect me to send him off and leave them here alone? Did you ever think of any of that? No. You�d show up here and you�d ask him, and of course his ten year old mind would never think of it being rude to leave his friends.
I explained that to you. You seemed to understand then that it wasn�t personal, that you had bad timing and that you just had to call ahead to arrange the visits. I thought it was solved.
But no. Apparently I was wrong. I thought that we had solved the problem, and if you wanted the kids to come over you would call ahead and make plans with me before asking them. I thought we�d reached an agreement. I was wrong.
A few minutes later you showed up at your Grandchildren�s school. You came there to trap me in a confrontation. With no thought of what that would do to your grandkids, all you could think of was how wronged you were. Once again you were caught up in your selfish cycle. A true sign of your INSANITY. How dare you come there to confront me!! You want to pull me into a fight so you attempt it at my children�s school. You didn�t care if it would upset them, if it would embarrass them. All you could see was how wronged you were and you wanted to have it out in the most public manner possible. I can only assume that your plan was to embarrass me, and that you wanted to make those other parents see how terrible I was. Your plan backfired. As soon as you were gone parents that I had never known before came up to me and told me how sorry they were that my Mother was a crazy. They told me that if you tried to take me to court to sue for visitation, they would testify that you were unstable. That was from a police officer. That had to be one of the lowest things I�ve ever seen you do, and I have to tell you that as of that day I really don�t have any desire to have any contact with you.
You tried then to accuse me of not being there to visit with you during the summer. Well excuse me mom, but I was a tiny bit sick. I guess almost dying wasn�t enough of a reason for you. (You are aware that when you go into anaphylactic shock you can die within minute�s right?)
I didn�t know what had sent me into anaphylactic shock, so I lived in fear for the entire summer. I was afraid of going into shock once more so I basically hid out for the rest of the summer. My children stayed home for the duration of the summer. They didn�t get to go to the pool, and they barely got to go to the park. If not for their friends being able to come over they would have had the worst summer of their lives. I lived in constant fear of having to be rushed to the hospital once again. I was terrified that my throat would swell up and restrict my breathing while I was home alone with the kids. I was terrified of what that would do to my kids.
I was ill and just didn�t have the energy to put into repairing our relationship. It wasn�t a matter of not wanting to do it, I just wasn�t in a place where it was a priority, let alone a possibility. But I didn�t want to call the whole thing off. I told you I was ill. I told you that I�d gone to the hospital. I made the mistake of thinking that you�d understand that when someone is ill they need to put getting better at their first priority.
You accused me of never calling you, and that I wasn�t even trying. But you never called me either. The only thing you seemed interested in was having a relationship with your grandkids, and given the behavior you displayed at the school I�m not certain if that is in their best interest.
I asked you to leave. I didn�t want to have any confrontation at the school. I just kept saying go home. �Mom, go home!� But you ignored me. Somehow you had convinced yourself that you had the right to be at the school and stand there yelling at me that I was a bitch and ungrateful and that I never wanted to fix things.
Other parents tried to tell you to leave. You ignored them. You had your agenda and damn if anyone was going to divert you from it. It wasn�t until I told you that if you didn�t leave the school property I was going to the office to have them call the police to have you removed. That seems to be a common theme when dealing with you because you don�t give a damn what anyone else wants. You�ll stand in a school yard screaming at me, with the chance of your grandchildren coming out the doors at any second. You will stand in my front room screaming at me and calling me names in front of your grandchildren, and make them cry. You force me to threaten to call the police because when asked to leave you refuse to listen to anyone.
We had no contact since that day at the school, until Halloween. You came by to give the kids some candy. You wanted to see their costumes. You made snide comments and were emotionally cold. They pick up on that. Then, you turned to the Daughter and made a comment about her hair. She had colored it red for her costume. She was so proud of that hair and you told her it would be better her natural color. You upset her by saying that. Everyone had told her how nice the color looked on her. she was so happy and so proud and you told her it would look better her natural color. I know that you think you were boosting her self esteem and letting her her know that she is lovely in her natural state. But you hurt her. You don't know her anymore and your comments cut her.
Then you came by at Christmas again, you made snide comments and asked the kids about their grandfather. Asking them if they'd seen him. It made them uncomfortable because they'd heard our fights about not talking about Dad. I'd told them not to discuss Dad with you. And then the Daughter's comment about Dad remarrying made you freeze. You became aggitated and rushed out of there barely saying bye to them. You brought Dad up, and when you couldn't handle what was said you hurt the kids because they didn't understand what had happened. Why did you get upset when you were the one bringing Grampa up?
Then came Valentine's Day. You came over with cards and chocolate for the kids. You gave me a card for Valentine's. All of the cards say how much you love the kids, how much you miss them and wish you could see them. It hurts the kids because they then feel that they've done something to stop you from seeing them. When the Daughter asked why there wasn't a card for her father (a man she loves dearly) you grimaced and stormed out of the house without even answering her.
That left me to answer her question. So I did. I answered it in a manner you would hate, but I feel that it's time the kids understand that your behaviour has nothing to do with them.
I explained to them that you have a problem. I told them that you are sick. Not sick physically but sick emotionally and that you don't mean to hurt them that you just can't help yourself. Their response was "Is that why Granny hates you now? It wasn't us?" You don't think that what you've done has hurt the kids, you've told me that it's all for their good. But how can it be good for them to feel that it was good for them to believe that their grandmother hated their mom because of something they'd done!
Mom, I really do love you and it breaks my heart to see what you have become. You can blame me, you can blame Dad. But the truth is that you are the only person who can help you now. You seem to be stuck in a bad place. I just don�t see you working out these issues on your own. It's time for you to take ownership of your life. The only person responsible for you is you. Things can happen to you, but how you deal with them is up to you. Time for you to accept that and move on.
I understand that in the beginning it's hard, but it's been 4 years now. How long are you going to let this ruin your life?
You still claim that Dad is seeing this woman you work with, you claimed that I knew that he'd been seeing this woman. That I'd met her and had been feeding information to her, so she could use it against you at work. I tried to find out for certain if this is true. I told you that the only woman I�ve ever seen Dad with is the woman he married.
I tried to show a picture of her to you, to end this once and for all. I wanted to finally be able to say which of you was right. When I said I wanted you to tell me if this was your coworker you freaked out and started screaming that you didn�t need to see the picture.
If you want me to judge based on evidence I�d have to say that you don�t want to be proven wrong, you had the option the �reveal the lie� as you always say. You had the moment before you where you could have said �Yes, that�s her!� But you didn�t. Instead you refused to look at the picture.
The only reason I can think of for you to not finally be able to put an end to this entire situation was because you were afraid it wasn�t your coworker. That I�d been telling the truth and that meant that you would have to admit that all this time you�ve been making my life miserable, making my children�s lives miserable, making your own life miserable because of a lie that you created. That you had done this to yourself and that there was nobody else to blame but you.
I always told you that I didn�t want to choose. Even when that happened, I still wanted to repair our relationship. But that time is past.
I�m afraid that you need to seek help. I know that isn�t what you want to hear. You have surrounded yourself with people who tell you how right you are. I�m sorry to say but I believe these people are feeding your delusion and giving you a false sense of superiority over all of this. I truly believe that you have been in the wrong when dealing with this entire situation and the only way that you will get over it is to seek counseling of some sort. I know that isn�t what you want to hear, but that is my opinion at this time.
Until the time that you seek professional help I don�t want anything to do with you. I don�t want my kids to have anything to do with you.
I�m not saying this to be cruel. I�m saying this because I love you. This is the toughest thing I�ve ever had to do. But you refuse to listen to me, and you refuse to alter your behaviour as I have requested. What you are doing is very hard on the kids and very damaging to them. I have them in for counseling and until you can become a positive influence in their life I�m afraid that you can no longer come around them. I have to do what is right for my kids, I have to protect them. It is my duty to protect them both physically and mentally and you refuse to respect that you are damaging my kids emotionally!
I can�t allow you to come near my kids until you have gotten some help in getting over all of this.
You don�t care how many people you hurt.
I keep thinking about what would have happened if the kids had come out of school that day and seen the way you were acting. You would have wounded their souls. You didn�t care who saw you that way. You don�t seem to care how many people you hurt, as long as you get to lash out at anyone who has caused you anger, then your behavior is justified in your eyes.
When you�ve gotten some psychological help and are ready to admit that this whole waiting for someone to �reveal the lie� has been the lie, and that it has been an enormous waste of everyone�s life perhaps we might be able to find some way to mend the bridges that you�ve burned.
Until then I ask you to please stay away from my family.
Kat
12:18 p.m. - 2004-11-07
Recent entries:
March Break Almost Done - March 16, 2006
Annoying and Irritating - March 15, 2006
Hello Mold, How Have You Been? - March 14, 2006
DNA Personality Test - March 10, 2006
Sickness Continues - March 09, 2006
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