It’s been a weird long weekend. I haven’t buried any hatchets but I have finally been able to put them away. A lot of emotional baggage has fallen by the wayside. I was astonished to learn that I no longer regard myself as a father. My daughter is now just somebody that I used to know. My only interest in her now is to know she’s alright and alive. Shitlibs are too tiresome to deal with beyond that. It gave the wife and I a chance to discuss another family division.
About 5 years ago we got into a barn burner family argument with the in-laws over the kid, and parted ways. I told my wife I didn’t want to see those shit heads in my family again, and she could go with them or come with me… but she couldn’t do both. Her father was encouraging my daughter to attack her family and me in particular. He thought it was funny. Her mother was a braying ass that fancied herself a strong woman and the head of my family. She got her wisdom and information from daytime TV. She watched all the experts like Ellen, Orca and Dr. Phil and The View. It had to stop, and I banished them the way my daughter did with me and thought that was great - we’ll see how they like it, I thought. The result was 5 years of tranquility. I stopped smoking and drinking. The wife adopted the faith and shared it with me. Our marriage improved as we shored up the foundations in our lives.
This weekend the wife went home for the first time in a very long time. Unlike my daughter who is the same as she always was, the in-laws are completely different people. Her father is now a near vegetable from Parkinson’s. He lives in his own little world now with brief intervals of lucidity. He gets around in a wheelchair pushed by his wife and eats through a tube in his stomach. It messes me up - it is hard to be spiteful for someone in those straights; but this son of a whore used to get into the middle of my family and stir up real shit. By the time I ran that jerk out… he was getting between me and my wife too. I hate him with the heat of 1000 suns and feel sorry for him at the same time. The mother in law is still a chicken head… but she treats her husband with patience and love now, according to the wife. She used to drive him bonkers with her shit… which may be a part of why he tried to drive us around the bend too, maybe. But now she wheels him around in his chair, feeds him, bathes him, and does it all with a remarkable patience of a woman that might finally have learned a thing or two. Maybe there’s room enough for us all too take a higher road? If not I am good either way.
There’s two ways to not give a f***. One way is to save your concerns or your f***s for stuff that counts. In my case… I am just out of f***s to give. We are all different people now, perhaps me most of all. All I have now is a cold dead heart that runs on an automated spread sheet. Two columns, for pros and cons. If the pros add up on one side things continue as usual. If they stack up on the negative side, things stop happening and come to a halt with a speed and finality that shocks even me. Tears? Laughter? What are those?
But that ol’ stone heart has mass and momentum, and carefully aimed and focused… it can still be useful. My in-laws will have their daughter back in their lives to help in their final days. I will help too, if necessary. It’s better than they deserve, and it’s a better deal than we will get from our own daughter … but at least we now have a direction.
We deal with a very similar situation in my family but with her mother and also mine . lies , tears , destruction and misery from both sides so I just put the heart on hold and treat them like no-see-ums . The wife is one of those big hearted gals that can forgive and forget a million times and it always bites her in the ass the next time she has any interaction . She never learns her lesson . I forgive but have an inability to forget . It has served me well these many years . They can't hurt when they can't get close is my mantra .
ReplyDeleteLiberal women are are very susceptible to the this cultural hogwash, RO. Like you, I haven’t forgotten anything either. You can’t… and if they are allowed to run with this stuff they will bring the roof down on their families.
ReplyDeleteI’m hoping the outlaws have better things to do nowadays now that their circumstances have changed.
I too no longer consider myself a father. My daughter is someone I used to know. I don't even know why. I do not have your level of acceptance as I now watch friends fawn over their grandchildren. Very distressing.
ReplyDeletehi Glen , know what you mean on family...had an older brother that caused lot of heart ache ... but I have a daughter and son in law plus 2 grandsons that are really nice people...helpful in my autumn years...but like you said forgetting is not forgiving...brother put family in living hell for over 10 years ... then younger brother was killed , dad died , and mom moved 2500 miles away that stopped him , Patrick
ReplyDeleteWhatever you do don't let your guard down lest you get burned again. And you will in the most unexpected manner even if you think you have all the bases covered. I went through it with my own parents and am still dealing with that CF today.
ReplyDeleteYah, been there, done that, more than once. If I have to be in the same room with them, so be it. But as soon as I can escape, I'm gone.
DeleteWe need to stick together. I have by no means patched anything up … but we understand each other now. Like you guys, I will protect myself and no bones about it. They can’t hurt me because I don’t have a heart that cares anymore. It’s a burnt out cinder and you can pour as much gas on it as you want… it ain’t gonna burn. I am at peace no matter what comes. Best of luck to you and yours. There was a time when we all were better people… and maybe on some level we can be again? Who knows… it’s not all up to us, it’s not all our fault and we are all adults that can go our separate ways at any time.
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DeletePeople are messy.
ReplyDeleteWe all can have family or close friends who for some reason feel it is ok to interfere with your life and cause heartache and discontent. They seem justified in their own minds to do this out of a false righteousness that is often borne of ignorance of facts and of personal boundaries.
ReplyDeleteI have been separated from my family for over 35 years. I chose to take a path that pursued truth and an honest assessment of how things were at that time. Since that time, my parents have died and the estrangement with my siblings continues.
One of the prime rules in life that so many ignore is you do not have the right to insert yourself into someone else's life. Your experience with these difficult people is representative of their violating this rule. It is due to a lack of respect for you.
I can tolerate anyone who offers respect for me and my opinions even if we disagree. I cannot, however, tolerate someone who cannot leave that alone and has to push their agenda or opinions on me. I do not dislike or hate them. I simply will disavow their existence. In essence, they cease to exist and I will waste no more of my time on them.
In essence you did the same perhaps with more emotional aggravation than one would have liked. Some people do not take the hint very well when you shut down the avenue of communications. Apparently this was the case.
People who cannot let go of situations like this often times suffer a malady or other outcome that seems to be poetic justice.
I would simply say that their bellicosity may have led them to this fate if only because they were so negative and hateful throughout their lives. I do not celebrate such things but accept that fate, God, or whatever you want to call, it has a way of leveling the playing field eventually.
Except for a sister, all of my near family is gone. No brothers, no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, and only a few cousins. The most liberal cousins are now avoided. The others are too far away to even wonder how they look at the world. I only have in-laws, who have a similar opinion of the world that I do. My existence is peaceful, and I like that.
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ReplyDeleteHere is the way these things can be handled ( with lyrics)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqRC5tquyU0
Glen, what you describe about your in-laws is something I always try to keep in mind - and especially after the experience with my parents.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that at some point, we do not get to make right on the things we may have done wrong. Your father in law will never now have the opportunity to perhaps apologize or make things right; the same is true of my parents as well (although they have nothing to make right to me at this point; I still owe them).
I never want the last taste in someone's mouth of me to be anger or bitterness or something else that I cannot change their opinion of, even if it is something we disagree on. If there has to be any regret, I would that it was on their side that an olive branch had been offered and ignored.
To be honest, this is like what happened to my brother-in-law (my sister-in-law's husband). Great guy, had problem with drugs at what time, but cleaned up his life and became a devoted NA member. His children drifted away from him for whatever reason on their part, to the point that the refused to see him the last year of his life although he reached out to them. Then, he passed away from a heart attack. Now, they can never try and make things better. That is a burden I do not know I could live with.
TB, if that guy was magically transformed to a healthy 30 year old… I’d have him at my throat again and in our family trying to stir up chit and I’d have to kick him out all over again. You and I make mistakes and regret them. He and his idiot wife do not. Just thinking about the past and those two idiots makes me want to start drinking again.
DeleteI may not pop a beer and buy a round for the house when my father in law passes, but I will consider it a blessing. Sure, I wish things could be different but for whatever reasons, they are what they are just as we are. My daughter is the same way they are. I suppose she’ll be having a party when I die and go to hell too.
Some differences are just to complicated to solve in this life, and will have to be addressed in the next one. I wish it weren’t so.