will

nlj

Well-Known Member
I've posted before about my mother. I don't have a loving mother/daughter relationship with her. She's not a very nice person. I've continued to visit regularly for many decades despite her behaviour and despite the fact that my only brother refuses to have anything to do with her. I'm the target for all her moaning, whining and 'poor little me' routine and have been since I was a little girl.

She's made a will. I'm not mentioned in it. She leaves everything to my brother, the one who hasn't seen her for a decade.

I was reading SWOT's post about estrangements this afternoon. One of the points mentions "petty" reasons for estrangements. Writing a will leaving everything to one of your children and ignoring the other isn't a petty thing is it. It's pretty nasty, not only in its primary intent, but also in its secondary intent, which is to cause a breakdown in the relationship I have with my brother, a lasting legacy to drive a wedge between us.

I have no idea why I still bother visiting and phoning her. The only reason, as someone wrote here somewhere, is that she may be unworthy of me but she's the only mother I have.

I've been thinking again about this will of hers. If I made a will like that I wouldn't expect any of my children to have anything more to do with me.

I phoned her yesterday. It was very tiring. Maybe I should become estranged from her. Why do I think that I couldn't do that? I can't be arsed to have anything to do with her and yet I seem unable to stop having anything to do with her.

It's a mystery.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
she may be unworthy of me but she's the only mother I have.
Hi Nij

SWOT, Cedar and I have been dealing with mother and sibling issues on the Watercooler thread with the words Cedar, and FOO problems. You raise many very important questions that raise even deeper questions. We are working on that thread together to find answers.
If I made a will like that I wouldn't expect any of my children to have anything more to do with me.
You need to remember that you are not like your mother. Having been raised by her, to complement and to serve her needs, you are different than she is.
Maybe I should become estranged from her. Why do I think that I couldn't do that?
Again, your hesitancy in separating yourself from her could stem from guilt or a belief that you do not deserve better, a sense of yourself which you developed in relationship to your mother. While this way of being could feel comfortable, it may not serve you or your best interests.

and yet I seem unable to stop having anything to do with her
Think about participating in that thread. I feel sure that when you read about our experiences you will identify with them.

There is no right or wrong thing to do in terms of our relationships with aging parents. Each of us is different and our parents are different. At the same time, we need to recognize and acknowledge when our parents have deliberately hurt us. The goal is to act on the basis of the reality of our lives, not distorted by a sense of ourselves formed in relationship to highly inadequate and destructive parents and mistreatment by them.

My mother had 2 daughters. My mother many years ago did something very ugly and illegal involving the will of a family member. I chose to separate myself, my sister kept a relationship for many years. Eventually I built a relationship with my mother. When she was dying I cared for her. My sister chose to distance herself completely in the last 10 mos of my mother's life.

I tell you this because each person responds differently, even to the the same parent, and adult children change over time and according to circumstances. There is no right or wrong way to be.

What is wrong is that you have been wrongly, deliberately and cruelly treated by your mother. What makes it especially cruel, is that you have done your best to stand by her. What she is doing is abusive. You know this.

But you are left with all the questions that you began with. They are worthy, important and necessary.

The hope is that by naming and voicing the truth of our relationships with our mothers, we become aware of and capable of changing their toxic legacy in ourselves, especially with our children. Join us in trying to find answers.
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
It's pretty nasty, not only in its primary intent, but also in its secondary intent, which is to cause a breakdown in the relationship I have with my brother, a lasting legacy to drive a wedge between us.

I agree. Only I think the primary intent is to create the breakdown. The money, the public and private humiliation in having been purposefully excluded ~ even in this final act of your mother's life....

I am deeply sorry this is happening, nlj.

In my FOO, we all scares ourselves silly over the when of the death, over the what of the Will. That is a weapon a mother may wield too, if she chooses. We are defenseless in the face of responsibility to an aging parent. This is an ethical question. In our response to our aging parent, we name ourselves forever. "I did the right thing." versus "I turned away from my own mother when she needed someone to help her and there was only me. And I turned away." If we choose incorrectly, if we turn away and realize too late that choice is not something we can live with after all, that decision will haunt us, maybe even define us to ourselves, for the rest of our lives.

Cedar
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
N l j....I'm so very sorry. This is a no win situation if there ever was one. It is hurtful, mean and one could say thoughtless...but like you said, there very well could have been thought put into it and it isn't nice. She could think you are visiting her because you want her money, and at least your brother is "honest." And if you stop visiting her, then she could say "see, I was right!" She is likely paranoid, possibly narcissistic, suffering from low self Steem, jealous...etc. My father was similar and it was disturbing, draining and painful.

I'm not sure what the answer is, expect maybe to REALLY LIMIT your association with her to the bare minimum that you feel is ok as a daughter caring for an elderly mother. And if you don't want to see her at all, so be it. If she is unkind to you when you visit, that is very likely the way to go!!!!!!! Do what you think is best...do not hesitate to do what is best for you.

Maybe your brother will help you with any major life expenses like college for a child or large medical bills, if the will ends up staying as it is. I wouldn't count on anything at all. This is likely one of those "it is what it is" situations and it sounds very painful. I'm so sorry.

I wouldn't count on anything with reference to the will, future money, any future kindnesses.

I would pray for guidance....my apologies if this sounds corny or trite. I had a similar situation and I let it go entirely and to my shock and deep gratitude, things changed at the very end and went well for me.
I didn't plan on it, nor count on it. I consider it a miracle.

Bottom line though, I spent many many many years learning to let go of my father's peculiar and often mean spirited abusive, disturbing ways. Letting go is the healthiest way out, in my humble opinion. Be strong.
 
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Copabanana

Well-Known Member
We are defenseless in the face of responsibility to an aging parent.
Cedar cuts to the quick. And I am grateful for it.

NIJ, there are no easy answers. I speak to myself, here. You continue to see your mother, I think, because that is who you are, a good person. The problem for us, is this: We are called upon to be good people to ourselves. And that is not always easy, because in the case of an elderly, dying parent who happens to be our mother, the loyalties are often not clear. After all, loyalty to my mother also in the end turned out to be loyalty to my best self.

Did it almost kill me? Yes it did. Sometimes, I think I will never recover myself. But consider the alternative, please:
In our response to our aging parent, we name ourselves forever.

It comes to a decision about who are are and choose to be:
"I did the right thing." versus "I turned away from my own mother when she needed someone to help her and there was only me. And I turned away."

Cedar is so gracious and so loving. She chides me because I do not properly own that I at great cost put aside my weaknesses and my fears and my resentments and took care of my mother. I made mistakes, and for a period of a couple of 2 months I chose for myself, resulting in great misery all around. But I changed course, and forever I will know that when my mother needed me, I was there.

More than that, really. I was there for myself.

There are great stakes here nij. And the risks are even greater of a poor decision. While I have pride in myself, I am not one hundred percent sure I made the right one. It is approaching 2 years since my mother's death and 3 since I began to care for her and I have recovered maybe 10 percent of my prior force and functioning as a person.

If we choose incorrectly, if we turn away and realize too late that choice is not something we can live with after all, that decision will haunt us, maybe even define us to ourselves, for the rest of our lives.
So I am left with the question, the same question I asked my mother 7 months before she died: Is your life worth more than mine?

What I learned if anything is this: When it comes to a mother and a daughter, there is no either/or. In the final months of my mother's life we were one. Had I separated from her, I would have cut off a part of myself. All of the damage that she could do me had turned in the end to a scream that I would abandon her. I learned that to do so was to abandon myself.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
She's made a will. I'm not mentioned in it. She leaves everything to my brother, the one who hasn't seen her for a decade.
This is a gigantic red flag that in spite of how you are the one visiting, she dislikes you enough to stick it to you.

If I had known about my mother's will (she disinherited me) I would have cut off contact immediatally and not even tried. I never really thought about her will. Or what she'd offer when she died, which was not even a memory she may have had that we shared. I guess there was NOTHING there in her heart for me. It was not the other way around, but after she disinherited me, the love stopped. The longing for her approval had been a waste of my time I can't get back.It was not the money. She didn't have much. It was what it meant. The message she sent.

I do not feel like my mother is a part of me. DNA is an accident. Love comes from who treats you with true love and respect. If I felt otherwise, I could never have adopted my children.

Lucy, my mother didn't call me for about a decade. May have been more. I called her, thinking it was the right thing to do. This is in spite of her totally disregarding not only my own birthday and any other holidays, but those of my children, who had done NOTHING to her...she never really knew them.

I look back and ask if I would still play these games, trying for love and never getting it. I am sorry I did. Must have swelled her head to think I was chasing after her while she was pretty much renouncing me as her daughter. She was a mean thing and probably really got a bang out of that. I have to say, she was mean to me. She loved her Golden Child and I believe she may have loved my sister, as much as she was able. So they both think I was treated well and it was me who didn't treat HER well. she was a divide and conquer lady and she got her wish. I am now cut out. And I am happy with that too. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone who thinks she was fair and equal to me or that I was the problem. Makes me sick to think of any part of my DNA on my mother's side (and I consider both sibs a part os her side, not my fathers). She got what she wanted. Now I'm going to live a wonderful rest of my life.

At times I argued with her and we had shouting matches, but disowning a family member is the ultimate of meanness. I did not abuse her, hit her, steal from her, physically touch her or wish ill on her, to her death. But I believe she was well aware that I was sensitive and that not even saying "For reasons known to only her, my daughter is being disinherited." She just ignored me. I never saw it, but bet I was not even in her obit.

Lucy, you have to do what you think is right. Understand your mother...she WILL play games that hurt you.

If you still wish to see her and have contact with her, do it on your terms and only because YOU want to do it, not for her.

If I could do my life over again, and my life DID turn out pretty good, I'd still have been smarter and dumped my entire FOO as soon as I got married. I was the black sheep and could do no right to any of them. Who needs t hat on their mind?

I didn't do it so that just made more bad memories of all of them. Finally, finally I am pretending they do not exist anymore. I can talk about them without thinking about them as even real. But I want no more of the hurt and heartache and will never let them destroy the good life I worked very hard to build for myself.

I am sorry.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
she may be unworthy of me but she's the only mother I have.
She gave birth to you. That's all. Was she ever really a mother to do in the sense we were to our kids?

I look back and think of my mother as more of a traumatic problem I had. Motherly? Almost never. So, in a sense, maybe we have never had mothers.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
N l j...I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer here. I chose a sort of middle ground with my father, who was violently abusive to my mother and myself, as well as emotionally abusive, profoundly draining and damaging etc. and NEVER apologized or showed an ounce of empathy or care. He actually once told me when I asked him about all of the abuses that it was "no big deal." The abuses were extreme and I won't out them here.

As he aged, I would check up on him periodically (once or twice a year) to see if he needed anything. Fortunately, he enjoyed good health until the last three months of his life. When he truly needed help at the end, I made sure he received good medical care, spoke with his doctors and medical team, provided whatever he needed, visited regularly (but not terribly often) and at the very end, even fed him a few times. I was pleasant and polite.

At the beginning, he was VERY unkind at times, but I did my best to ignore it. I did not go overboard with my help, nor try to get an apology for his long term abuses (although I secretly, perhaps in a childlike way...longed deeply that he would apologize).

I was as pleasant as I could be and helped whenever I could. I was working at the time, and if I had to work, I didn't come to see him. If I was sick, I didn't come to see him. He had friends that helped. But, I did come when I could. It would have been a very different story if this was my mother. His end days were probably not ideal for him, but I don't think bad either. He died peacefully. My husband says he was darn lucky to get what he got.

Later, it did did bother me greatly that he never took any of those moments to apologize, but it is what it is. I'm glad I helped him when he needed it most, but at the same time, I'm glad I didn't go overboard and had boundaries in place. It's hard to fully explain. Some might think it wrong that I didn't do more. Frankly, I do not care. I did the best I could under profoundly difficult circumstances. You will figure it all out.

Your story is sad and I know it's not easy. Wishing you well.
 
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Calamity Jane

Well-Known Member
NLJ,

How very hurtful. You are surely behaving considerately despite that horrible rebuff.

How did you come to know about the will, and are you absolutely sure you are not in it? Have you actually read the will and do you have any reason to believe your mother is seriously ill or mentally unstable? Do you have a good relationship with your brother? I would imagine that if something like this happened in my family under the same circumstances, my brother would want to rectify the situation and offer to share.

My guess as to why you still have contact with her is that you still hope she will recognize your value. I'm sure the entire situation is very complicated. Understanding hugs sent your way...
 

pasajes4

Well-Known Member
My mother tried to use her will to manipulate me into living my life according to her edicts. I quickly squashed her attempts at manipulation. My philosophy is that the money is hers. If she wants to leave it all to a cat, so be it.

My mother is a very spiteful, mean spirited, and miserly human. Her entire family is like this. There were many years that I had little to no contact with her. She is in her 90's and still a PITA. I do spend time with her now on a weekly basis. When she starts her garbage, I treat her like I would anyone else. I let her know that I won't tolerate her verbal garbage and if it does not stop, I will leave.

I do get a kick out of my siblings fawning over her and being suck ups.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I'd cut off contact with her. I wouldn't tell her why, I'd just do it. It's draining, and it makes you wonder why she treats you like that. It's almost impossible to separate the wondering why from knowing that it's all about her being a terrible person. If she calls to ask where you've been or why you haven't called I might tell her that she doesn't seem to enjoy my company, and it has become more difficult for you than it used to be. All true.

I cut off contact with my dad, and the rest of the family cut me off for it. For years he used to give somewhat valuable things to people he knew I'd know, and hope that it would bother me, as though what I wanted was his stuff, when what I wanted was for him to stop being such a sphincter. I'd say, "Oh, that was nice of him to do that." The one that was a real hoot was when my Uncle had passed away and he had given a leather sofa I had admired to husband's sister A, whom they'd met at church twice. A is a challenge and her kids are even more challenging. A had no clue who my parents were. She thought they were "someone from church". I just said, "Oh, well that was nice". The one time I did see my mom after that she told me that she thought A was a little dim and and ungrateful. Well, how far out of her way was someone supposed to go for a free sofa?

When that still didn't bother me and I'd moved 3,000 miles away without giving anyone an address, I got a letter from my dad (my sister risked her job at the utility company to find out where I lived) telling me that he was leaving me out of the will. It broke my heart that was all he could say to me when he knew he was dying, but I didn't give a horse's patoot about the will. When he died, no one told me - not even my kids. I heard it from an old neighbor, and someone I'd never met got my new address from my sister and sent me a card. None of my siblings contacted me - my sister was going to let me learn from a card from our neice's mother in law. M told me "He told me not to tell you because he didn't want you to know." Actually, the last words my father ever spoke to me were, "I can do anything I want to with your children and no one will say a word because everyone knows I'm a good man and everyone knows you're garbage." That was his way of making sure I remembered that, and that he could do it even after he was dead. Wow - isn't that something to be proud of? I hope he had a long talk with St. Peter as to why he was heading to hell before he made the trip.

Your mom is playing a sick game that only she can win. The only way to stop her from winning is to stop playing. If she wants to call and be nice, I suppose there's nothing wrong with that so long as she's not also sabotaging you behind your back. I'd keep a copy of the list of things to say when the difficult child's are manipulative by the phone, though. But never once in a million years would I let her know that she hurt your feelings with the will. If she asks, tell her it's her money/possessions to do with as she pleases, and you're glad that she can do what makes her happy with it.

FWIW, 9 times out of 10 people have to spend down to less than $2,000 in value before they die on Medicaid anyway. If there's something left to leave your brother, it'll be the exception to the rule.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
"This (leaving all to your brother and nothing to you) is a gigantic red flag that in spite of how you are the one visiting, she dislikes you enough to stick it to you."

I think that may only be part of it. I think that it's possible that she may realize that you've had enough of her garbage and that she can bribe your brother into coming to see her, and that you'll be so mad about the will that you won't see her and she will have someone new to start in on.

Not for nothing, but if this were Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, she'd be dead tomorrow. It's not advisable to go around announcing who you cut out of the will. Just sayin'...
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
when what I wanted was for him to stop being such a sphincter

I love this.

:O)

I hope he had a long talk with St. Peter as to why he was heading to hell before he made the trip.

Me, too.

I got a letter from my dad (my sister risked her job at the utility company to find out where I lived) telling me that he was leaving me out of the will.

Your sister stalks you too Witz, like mine and SWOT's and Copa's. I wish your family had never been able to find you at all. There is a kind of "I declare an ending." feeling that is disturbed when their phone calls or potential visits are hanging over us. There is a feeling of having been dominated. Like there is some sick satisfaction in them having been able to find us against our wills. Or in their being able to call us, or to come to our homes and we don't know whether they are going to or not so we cannot just put them behind us and determinedly forget them.

Such sphincters.

I love that!!!

Good one, Witz.

Cedar
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
Your sister stalks you too Witz, like mine and SWOT's and Copa's.

I wish I had thought of that when she FIRST got my address and gave it to my dad. She was still working at the Gas company and I could have turned her in to her employer for it, and believe me it would have given me great pleasure to know that for once it was me making her squirm. But I didn't call their HR department until after I got the sympathy card from our neice's (other sister's daiughter) mother in law, and she was no longer employed there. She'd worked there for 25 - 30 years and I know that she was demoted more than once for being unable to deal appropriately with people. The head of their HR department didn't question the validity of what I had said for a moment. This is a company that employs thousands of people, but she knew who my sister was.
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
A couple of things on my mind...more like haunting me a bit (just kidding)

My father was the type that everything revolved around money. I don't think he knew how to love. He had a messed up childhood. I do NOT think of this as an excuse. Only a bit of an explanation. I had a messed up childhood too and when I realized it was causing problems, decided to see a psychologist,read helpful books and pray for guidance. I don't think my father ever for one second (well, maybe in the days before his death) acknowledged he had a problem nor that he was hurting others. But the money thing was prevalent. So, money was perhaps his substitute for love in some way. If he had money, he felt comfort. So, he naturally assumed he could use money to manipulate people. If you don't treat me right, I won't let you have my money. He had no idea that this type of behavior was the opposite of love. Threatening, withholding, vindictive, mean spirited, bribing, abusive...whatever...just anything but love. The guy was clueless.

Second thing...in the very end, my father and I hadn't been speaking for awhile....( we often didn't speak) and during this time I got my Master s degree, a good job and our son graduated from college with honors. When he found out, this ticked him off. He had told his friends we were all bums. He got so mad, his blood pressure went thru the roof. He was in the hospital and the nurse made us leave. Any thoughts on this?

Third thing...
My father was mean to me only for a few days at the very end. Then he got very very quiet. His girlfriend was frantically trying to get him to make a will leaving everything to her. I did not know this at the time. Found out much later. She was a devil. He kept on dying and she kept on having him resuscitated. It was freaking disturbing. He would look at me with forlorn eyes and not say a word or answer with one word "hot" "cold." If he had continued to be mean to me, I don't know what I would have done. I wasn't visiting much as it was. But, maybe I would have visited even less and just called the hospital and ask for updates. I truly wanted to help, but with boundaries. If he was actively mean to me....really not sure what I would have done. I'm with Others here in that, I just can't deal with that after almost two decades of doing so...when he had been in my life as a child and teen.
I do wonder if at the very end if my father when he was so very quiet was reviewing his life and his behaviors. I just wonder. by the way, I think he was well aware of what the girlfriend was doing and it had to of been grossly disturbing. He never signed the will she had drawn up.

Other than the insanity perpetuated by his girlfriend, he seemed fairly comfortable when he died.Again, I often wonder if he figured some things out (money isn't everything, the importance of family and love) in the days before he died. His brain seem to be working. He was so quiet, and I'm convinced it wasn't just utter fatigue and fear. Lots of lessons in this experience.
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
This is a company that employs thousands of people, but she knew who my sister was.

Well, that's the thing I am learning, too. Our sisters seem to do the same things to us that they do to everyone else ~ their mates, their employers, their moms and their own sisters. We need to stop taking them seriously. I don't know why they do what they do. I think they feel badly about themselves, but though they may view us as safe (or maybe that part is a game) they are out to destroy us at the same time.

I am sorry those terrible things happened to you, Witz. I don't know what in the world is the matter with people sometimes. Yours is one of the most determinedly harm filled family of origin stories I have heard.

They are so horribly mean, so determined to label and pinch and destroy and to never, ever stop or forgive or welcome home.

My family are amateurs, compared to yours.

Though my sister may be more like your family of origin. She does not seem ever to stop, either.

They are bad people.

At least we know that, now. We no longer take the blame automatically. It is shocking to me sometimes how often and how completely I did that; how sincerely I tried to create a space where all were welcome.

Well, that is good for me that I did those things.

Now I know who I am.

Cedar
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
If he had money, he felt comfort.

withholding, vindictive, mean spirited, bribing...whatever..

(s)he naturally assumed (s)he could use money to manipulate people.
My Mother was like this. (She died in September 2013.) Recently, I found something she wrote where she said she wanted power and money, that she was driven by that.

She also expressed regret that I had been damaged by what she did to get status and money. She wrote that if she had known how damaging her choices had been to me, maybe she would have done differently.

I appreciated her honesty in this. Most likely she would have done the same thing again, I believe...subject her children to whatever. Because only she mattered. Over and over again.

I don't think my father ever for one second (well, maybe in the days before his death) acknowledged he had a problem nor that he was hurting others.
My mother did acknowledge it, but never saw it as a problem. While she said (to others, not to me) she had regret and guilt, it was not enough to ever prompt her to change or even to think about it.

She did not want to. She had what she wanted and needed. Part of it, at least. Because really at heart she held my sister or I as responsible for hurting her, as we pulled away from her. I think she felt it was our deficiency. I do not think this ever changed.
I do wonder if at the very end if my father when he was so very quiet was reviewing his life and his behaviors. I just wonder.
Who can say? I was with my mother for 10 months as she died. I took care of her and arranged her care.

If she reviewed her acts as a mother, I never saw it. But she was grateful that I was with her. And I believe she accepted my love, and recognized my being there as motivated by love and responsibility. I believe it made a difference for her.

And I believe there was healing there. She told a caretaker that when she next saw her kids, she would tell them she was sorry. But she never did. She never could find it in her.

I guess as I write this I am able to accept that there was regret because of her relationships with her daughters, but I do not think she would have done differently. I think she felt we were necessary casualties.

Sorry, I had to do it, she would have said.

She lived as she wanted. It was a worldview that defined her.

She did review her life, however. She talked about my long dead father, her love for him and her regret his life had turned out so badly.

She spoke of her regret for leaving her 92 year old father who loved her beyond measure to die alone.

And I am grateful for that. I am glad now she could say this to me, but I suffered for her at the time.

I often wonder if he figured some things out (money isn't everything, the importance of family and love) in the days before he died.
Nomad, I think this is a danger zone.

There is the need to accept the reality of our parents and to hold them responsible for who they were.

And to accept they did what they did to us clear eyed and with purpose.

If we do not do this, there is the risk that the reality of our own lives someone gets overlooked.

And our lives were defined by the selfish and mistaken acts of these people that had total control over us. In effect, they held us hostages. We were hostages of our love and need.

We needed so much from them, protection, care, love, guidance. In my case, I got none of this from my mother. I got taken care of. Fed, clothed. Supervised, minimally.

I loved my Mother. I always will. My mother was a person of great beauty and warmth when she was happy. And that was when she was dressed up with her makeup on going out. I accept that. Now. And I admire her hardness and competency. It would have had it's place and utility. But not as a mother.

But at the end, how I loved her. I will never regret that time, although it almost killed me. My true self came forth then, when she let me love her.

Find the love and pride in yourself, Nomad. Love and admire yourself for your love of family and your loving commitment to them.

Find deep respect for yourself for rising above your beginnings and what you lacked. Because you found a way to parent yourself and rise well above your beginnings.

What you wish that your father had found, is in you. Love yourself for it.

While we will never know, in your father's eyes was probably a reflection of your goodness, and perhaps, and maybe, gratitude. I want to think he felt gratitude too, for you.
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
My father was the type that everything revolved around money.

In a way, this is how my sister sees things, too. I had posted before about the Rolex watches, and how though she did not have one, those who did not have one either, were less than she would be, one day.

That kind of thinking is similar in a way, to what you are describing in your father and to what Copa describes in her mother. There is something in my mother too, about how money does or does not impart value.

during this time I got my Master s degree, a good job and our son graduated from college with honors. When he found out, this ticked him off. He had told his friends we were all bums. He got so mad, his blood pressure went thru the roof. He was in the hospital and the nurse made us leave. Any thoughts on this?

Only that my mother seems furious too, if things are going well. Once daughter was not perfect, it was as though my mother would become furious at anything good that was done or that happened and would celebrate the bad things with vindictive prediction of more to come.

And she would laugh about that. She would laugh at personal tragedy with such contempt for me in having been hurt, as though my children were not worth suffering for. I had never remembered that in this way before Nomad.

Man, it just keeps getting uglier.

I am sorry that happened, Nomad. You did the right thing in going to see him.

He never signed the will she had drawn up.

Good.

Because really at heart she held my sister or I as responsible for hurting her, as we pulled away from her. I think she felt it was our deficiency. I do not think this ever changed.

When she was younger, my mom told everyone she wanted to be the respected matriarch, the woman no one forgot and everyone was kind to. D H mom is treated that way. My mom treated D H mom with am much contempt as she could get away with. The point I am making is that my mom insisted on something that D H mom has legitimately and without asking for. Was your mother insisting, as mine does, that she be honored as matriarch, as wise woman, as an unshakable source of support and wisdom though she was never any of those things to her children? (And this is part of the game my mom and my sister play ~ or maybe it is real to them and I am the mean spirited jealous person thinking bad thoughts. They play four generations; they play "Oh, don't we love our mother / watch us love our mother / how wonderful we all are that we love our mother / how lovely it is to be family and no, you can't come, too.)

There is the need to accept the reality of our parents and to hold them responsible for who they were.

And for me, to see who they are.

And our lives were defined by the selfish and mistaken acts of these people that had total control over us. In effect, they held us hostages. We were hostages of our love and need.

And of their lack of even rudimentary moral structures.

Cedar
 

Nomad

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Copa, I see your point re a danger zone. I see myself wishing that he finally (11th hour epiphany) ) saw some reality, something healthy, some truth, some empathy (cough) likely the same way I had wished that he would apologize before he died about all the atrocities, heartache etc. he perpetuated upon my mother and myself. To fully accept the reality of who he was and even the full reality of what I went through is painful, scary and unpleasant. I'm better, but I struggle. I did hold him responsible and accountable though, something he detested.

Copa...did I read this right that you loved your mom? It's wonderful that you can see her positive aspects. I'm unsure if I loved my father. I think so, but am conflicted.

Cedar, you are an angel.
Perhaps like your mom, no way in hexx you could win with my father. He was angry when I did well and angry if things were neutral and sort of angry if I had problems, but I think secretly happy. Although, it wasn't much of a secret. He would use any major problems I had as fodder for folks to feel sorry for HIM, like when I've had major health problems...lupus, etc. not that he would ever help in the slightest way. LOL! Just tell folks that poor me, my daughter has Lupus. And her daughter had Brain surgery.
Little did these people he cried to have a notion he could care less. Never called, never sent a get well card, never sent birthday gifts to my kids...you know the drill. Oh, and my father thought himself the wise patriarch. Geez.

Cedar, I believe I did right by helping him at the end of his life. But honestly, if he continued to be mean, it is a crxp shoot how much I would have helped. I think I would have been happy to pay for a nurse and done much more from afar. I just don't know. Thank goodness he got quiet. Quiet is significantly better than mean. It was all sooooo very difficult. (Truly a lot of lessons though...just a horribly difficult experience)



Thank you both for your helpful and kind words.

Ya know...it seems there is a potential little bit of a pattern in this "holding the will over your head" crxp!!!!
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Ya know...it seems there is a potential little bit of a pattern in this "holding the will over your head" crxp!!!!

It''s more than a pattern, Nomad. Here we see the truth that our families are so far from loving people that we could never create what matters with them, or with anyone like them. That is what we need to know. That the problem is not with us. They are different, terminally different, than we are. For us, to realize who our families were is a triumph. Sad, dry as the desert I am walking now. But oh, how much better to know who they are, who they were. These are the things we need to know, to heal fully and completely, from the wounds inflicted when we were young, and innocent, and believed everyone was like us.

There are people who are nothing like us. That we love them awakens in them no sense of obligation or responsibility.

Cedar
 
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