witzend
Well-Known Member
Most of you know that my family and I have been out of contact for about 9 years. I didn't like that my parents and sibs actively recruited my teenage children against me, into a stupid disagreement about my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, and they told me that they would do what they wanted when they wanted because they were good and everyone knew it, and I was garbage and everyone knew it.
L stills sees my family for holidays, and one or two times a year besides. I am not invited. She's going for Thanksgiving this week. I'm fine with that. I hadn't asked her to come to our house because she never does. It was always her dad's holiday in SF Ca.
From time to time there will be some big huge extended family thing, and I will get an invite in the mail. The same one that 40 or 50 other families of distant relatives got. A month or so ago I got an invite to an August 2008 family reunion for my 79 year old mother's side of the family. It went out with a list of known family members who also got the invite and a request for people who might have been missed. I sent my mom a note and said I would try to be there. I don't know that it will still be happening, given my mom's advanced age. I don't consider it much of an invite, considering it went out to every nutcase relative of my Mom's, including my schizophrenic cousin who bludgeoned a little old lady on the street to death for her purse and spent 15 years in the state mental hospital and has lived in a halfway house for the last 12.
husband and our therapist were not pleased that I said I might go. My thought had been that I should be able to go someplace and hold head high and have my husband and my daughter treat me like I deserve respect in front of these people. That is my condition upon them for me to go. Without it I won't. It's a long way to go, and it's premature for advice on this at this point. We all have time to work on it.
But here's where the "What do you think?" part. Would it kill them to invite me to Thanksgiving or Christmas? They couldn't hold it together for an hour or two and put a good face on it? Do they really think that inviting me to a family reunion every 5 years counts me in as a member of their family? Me and the bludgeoner?
When I talked to L yesterday, and she told me she was going to my mom and dad's for Thanksgiving, I told that I wouldn't worry about her being alone. (This is true.) She had been all excited because they had invited me to the reunion, and I had said I would try to go. I pointed out to her that it might actually mean something if they invited us to Thanksgiving or Christmas. I could go for an hour and be polite, and I think that's what they are afraid of. I can't be the boogey monster if I can control myself at Thanksgiving for an hour. I told her that it had nothing to do with her, and that I wasn't upset or meaning to make her upset, but that I was taking a hit from husband and the therapist for even thinking about going to a reunion under the circumstances.
L wants to call me back this afternoon to talk about it, because she was at someone's house when we talked yesterday. I don't really have much to say. This thing is moving at a glacial pace. I'm not rushing to any decisions here. It's just a fact of the matter that I'm good enough to ask to a family reunion to make it look like they've got a nuclear family, but not good enough for Christmas. It almost makes it easier to go to the family reunion because there's a lot less pressure to pretend that I'm anything important to them, or they to me.
L stills sees my family for holidays, and one or two times a year besides. I am not invited. She's going for Thanksgiving this week. I'm fine with that. I hadn't asked her to come to our house because she never does. It was always her dad's holiday in SF Ca.
From time to time there will be some big huge extended family thing, and I will get an invite in the mail. The same one that 40 or 50 other families of distant relatives got. A month or so ago I got an invite to an August 2008 family reunion for my 79 year old mother's side of the family. It went out with a list of known family members who also got the invite and a request for people who might have been missed. I sent my mom a note and said I would try to be there. I don't know that it will still be happening, given my mom's advanced age. I don't consider it much of an invite, considering it went out to every nutcase relative of my Mom's, including my schizophrenic cousin who bludgeoned a little old lady on the street to death for her purse and spent 15 years in the state mental hospital and has lived in a halfway house for the last 12.
husband and our therapist were not pleased that I said I might go. My thought had been that I should be able to go someplace and hold head high and have my husband and my daughter treat me like I deserve respect in front of these people. That is my condition upon them for me to go. Without it I won't. It's a long way to go, and it's premature for advice on this at this point. We all have time to work on it.
But here's where the "What do you think?" part. Would it kill them to invite me to Thanksgiving or Christmas? They couldn't hold it together for an hour or two and put a good face on it? Do they really think that inviting me to a family reunion every 5 years counts me in as a member of their family? Me and the bludgeoner?
When I talked to L yesterday, and she told me she was going to my mom and dad's for Thanksgiving, I told that I wouldn't worry about her being alone. (This is true.) She had been all excited because they had invited me to the reunion, and I had said I would try to go. I pointed out to her that it might actually mean something if they invited us to Thanksgiving or Christmas. I could go for an hour and be polite, and I think that's what they are afraid of. I can't be the boogey monster if I can control myself at Thanksgiving for an hour. I told her that it had nothing to do with her, and that I wasn't upset or meaning to make her upset, but that I was taking a hit from husband and the therapist for even thinking about going to a reunion under the circumstances.
L wants to call me back this afternoon to talk about it, because she was at someone's house when we talked yesterday. I don't really have much to say. This thing is moving at a glacial pace. I'm not rushing to any decisions here. It's just a fact of the matter that I'm good enough to ask to a family reunion to make it look like they've got a nuclear family, but not good enough for Christmas. It almost makes it easier to go to the family reunion because there's a lot less pressure to pretend that I'm anything important to them, or they to me.