Climbing into April

[newstart]

April is coming up soon. Allergies are in full swing. Tomorrow my husband's relative will be here for 5 days. The plans I made for my solo cruise are not going to work out, the ship was sold out. I read and re read all the comments on my last post. New Leaf, you wrote about your toxic father in law and how your husband wanted him in his life and you wrote 'it was stressful but I go with the flow'. And then your husband died. After deep prayer I have decided to 'go with the flow' and do my best. I got the spare bed ready with clean sheets, lots of good food and made the house comfortable. I am still upset but have somewhat of a peace about going with the flow. Since I have made peace with all of that my husband has stepped up his behavior a lot. He has been very helpful and I have not heard him complain much when I ask him to do all the extra things that I need done.
I have a bunch of my deceased son's shirts that I am going to make a quilt out of. My sister made the most beautiful quilt from some of his clothes and now I am going to try and make one. That is a project I am going to work on while my husbands relative is here. It will keep me very busy. I kept a lot of my son's clothes because I just was not ready to let go of them but they are just dry rotting. It will be emotional to cut his clothes but it will also be good for me to do something with them.
My daughter had a better week. She is suppose to go out of town with me to see the total eclipse of the sun in April. She stood me up on the last Nov lunar eclipse so I do have back up plans. My daughter did apologize for her behavior and she tries to make things right quickly because she knows I do not have the patience to tolerate her nonsense anymore. If I have one thing to say to other parents not knowing what to to after trying everything to help their wayward child, the only and best thing that I did was blow my daughter off completely for 3 months. I even took my voice off of my answering machine. Absolutely NO contact with me at all. After a while the
first thing I noticed was the belligerence was gone. The other stuff like the lying was still there but I am thinking it is a mental illness all on it's own.
I then got an apology letter for her awful behavior. I guess life without me in it was not as fun or nice as she thought it would be.
So now when she wants to get ugly with me she back tracks and tries to make it right quickly because she knows I can break off. It took me years to get to that point it was either do that or lose myself. I believe had I not done that she would still be as horrible as before. I had to make the drastic change, she would never have done it.

 

[DazedandConfused]

HI newstart,

You have a solid plan for your husband's relative's visit. Good for you. I hope creating a quilt from your son's clothing will shelter you from the relative's visit and bring you emotional healing. I admire the solid boundary you have constructed with your daughter. I hope to be in that place with my son someday. His narcissism and how he tries to use it to gaslight me is formidable. I've gotten wiser, so I am less susceptible to his traps. However, I sometimes still get caught in his guilt trips and attacks. He still lives at home, which makes our situation very complicated, both emotionally and legally. In short, I cannot just throw him out. I have to evict him legally, and I do not have the emotional strength right now to fight him (he vows to fight any eviction), work full-time at a demanding job, and take care of his disabled dad. So, I avoid him as much a possible for now.

Here's to a peaceful April for all of us!

 

[lovemysons]

Hi Newstart…

I’m glad you’re at peace with your decision to go with the flow re unwanted visitor. And I’m so glad to hear your husband stepped up and is helping so much too. Less resentment that way.

I think the quilt will definitely keep you busy and you’ll be doing something from your heart. That was a great idea newstart.
I gave what few clothes I had left from my son to his children. I also printed and then laminated all of his texts he sent me the week before he died. Someday I will give those texts to his children. I keep them in my Bible for now.

Your daughter must have learned her lesson after you put up a firm boundary. I’m glad she values your relationship now and wants to do what she can to keep you in her life.

All in all you sound good. I hope the week will go smoothly for you and your husband.

Love,
LMS

 

[New Leaf]

Hi Newstart,
Oh boy, I hope the visit will go smoothly……

April is coming up soon. Allergies are in full swing. Tomorrow my husband's relative will be here for 5 days. The plans I made for my solo cruise are not going to work out, the ship was sold out. I read and re read all the comments on my last post. New Leaf, you wrote about your toxic father in law and how your husband wanted him in his life and you wrote 'it was stressful but I go with the flow'. And then your husband died.

So sorry your cruise did not work out. Yup, my father in law was a doozy. The thing was, he was not awful all of the time, but he did some awful things and I knew too much. I was outspoken about his abuse to my mother in law and he bluntly told me one day that “people like you get shot.” So yes, there was that. I think the hardest part with extremely dysfunctional families is the covering up and moving on like nothing happened. I did have my moments Newstart, because some things are just intolerable. But, I knew that it was a losing battle trying to fight having him around here and there. I did lay down some ground rules.

After deep prayer I have decided to 'go with the flow' and do my best. I got the spare bed ready with clean sheets, lots of good food and made the house comfortable. I am still upset but have somewhat of a peace about going with the flow. Since I have made peace with all of that my husband has stepped up his behavior a lot. He has been very helpful and I have not heard him complain much when I ask him to do all the extra things that I need done.

It is not easy to set aside our own feelings and trepidation for our partners sake. I am glad you have made peace with the situation and hubs has noticed. Hopefully he will understand how you feel and communicate with you before opening up your home to others.

I have a bunch of my deceased son's shirts that I am going to make a quilt out of. My sister made the most beautiful quilt from some of his clothes and now I am going to try and make one. That is a project I am going to work on while my husbands relative is here. It will keep me very busy.

What a lovely idea, Newstart.

I kept a lot of my son's clothes because I just was not ready to let go of them but they are just dry rotting. It will be emotional to cut his clothes but it will also be good for me to do something with them.

I had a hard time letting hubs things go. Then I didn’t. It was a bit healing to go through his things and give to our children what they wanted. I think you have an awesome plan.
I’m glad your daughter learned from the boundaries that you set.
The week is nearly over and I pray that it was tolerable and your guest behaved!
Hugs
New Leaf

 

[newstart]

Thank you Dazedandconfused. You have had your hands full with you son but also having gone through leukemia with your daughter. I am happy to hear she is doing ok.
Lovemysons. Thank you for your continue support. I am sure you are finding many ways to honor your son. It is always healing to do things for their spirit.
New Leaf, Your insight was wonderful. My husbands relative came. I knew my husband would need help with driving back and forth to the airport, cooking meals and making his relative comfortable. Well miracles of miracles happened. The relative has been blessed with a grandchild that has severe disabilities so he has grown spiritually a lot. He wanted to make amends. He wanted peace. He was not the person I knew that would talk down to you or be so distracted he could not be bothered with what ever we had to say. He did say that now that he has this grandchild, he had no idea how trying or awful it is to have a child that is not healthy.. Like many people that I meet, they are appaulled at their own behavior of how they treated us because they had no idea what it is like. I have been through this many times with people until it happens to them. So we talked, really talked, no surface BS. Because of all the dysfuntion of 'covering it up' and acting like nothing happened especially after they abuse you and then say 'it's because you are so sensitive'.
Nothing like an ill child to bring a person to their knees.
But in true fashion of his family, we can have a good visit and the next time they see you they are mean as a devil. But for some reason I think there will NOT be any back tracking with him. I did tell him that what I saw from his family is pure evil. He did not deny it. So as far as that particular relative is concerned the air is cleared with both my husband, myself and our daughter.
Our daughter at first did not want to come over, but she ended up coming over and they had a good visit. My daughter brought over a large chocolate Easter egg, it came with a little hammer and when you hit it open it was filled with candies. I never saw anything like that. So I had a good Easter. Good as I can considering my son's death date just passed and it is alway hard. I enjoyed the peace while it was there.