Amaze -
When you read this I really want you to "GRASP" what I am trying to get across to you. It helped me THE MOST when I was trying to recover from my x and his familes treatment of me. Really helped me get over the shock of the depths they were willing to go to to hurt me and my son.
First of all - YOU ARE a LOVELY person.
TODAY - YOU are a good mom, a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister and a caring, intelligent, warm, loving person. So many years ago when you met your x - you were very young, naive, sweet, and out to be the best wife, mother, daughter in law, happy and loving life. The world was great and everything in it was fixable. You at least had the support of your family on some things and tried to take how you were raised into your own family and improve on the things you thought could do better. So take a mental picture of YOU in a paper doll fashion and put yourself away from others.
Now picture your X - He was raised in a home by a family that either unknowingly or uncaringly perpetuated a cycle of addiction, enabling, violence and somewhere along the line found a level of tolerance for those behaviors. Picture him as a person you hardly know - maybe you cut him out of a magazine - and put his paper doll person - out in the yard- leave it at the supermarket - take a trip and put it under a rock 500 miles from you - because in essence THAT is how far apart you should be. That family and their support system while similar on the outside looked like a typical family - a little different than yours you may have thought, but workable in the naive head of a young girl. And so without further ado you married. You are NOT married in heart any more.
When you marry - you usually marry someone similar to your background, income, education etc. And that's what you thought you did. Things looked similar but couldn't have been MORE different from how you were brought up. I don't know about you - but I feel I was manipulated and may as well have signed on to be a crew hand for the Flying Dutchman.
What I learned in therapy was not a prejudiced statement - but I kept thinking of my xmil and my x as equals to my intelligence, my love, my capacity for forgiveness, my patience and they are not. Never will be. And ALL OUR LIVES we are taught - to make things fair, equal, don't judge, don't be prejudiced. So we don't tend to look down at our inlaws -in our minds we make them equals. If they behaved in a human manner then we could. But when they do and say and behave like your xmil does - we are shocked - and ACTUALLY GIVE her credit for being our equal when we are shocked by her behavior.
She is not your equal - she never was - she never will be. She's a sad, hateful, manipulative, miserable, possibly mentally ill, woman who has existed and continues to perpetuate her hate EVEN in her words to her grandchildren. If your children were precious to her - she wouldn't say a thing about their mother. But nothing is precious to her.
If you BEGIN to think of her in this light - her words will matter less and less to you. She won't stop saying them - but eventually you'll train yourself to watch her mouth move and not listen to a thing she is saying. Tell yourself OVER and over when you get angry - I do NOT give you that POWER to ruin one minute of my life, NOT one.
Take the POWER that she has OVER YOU - away -
She counts for NOTHING........
and yeah - I have sent a few brooms in my life - lol.
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