[MourningDove]

When it comes to my MLC Xh, the reality of what has really gone on has a way of getting back to me. I wasn't looking for any information, nor did I really care for specifics. I was hoping that perhaps part of his core was at least starting to show for the kids' sake. Truly.

When I told my friend how upset I was, I voiced that I was angry with myself for wanting to have a bit of hope that maybe, just maybe this would be the beginning of Xh repairing some of the damage with D and stopping the destruction of his relationship with S. She said she understood I wanted to not be jaded and have some hope and that was okay, especially since I didn't have expectations. She also said she knows I am trying not to be bitter or jaded. Yet, my disappointment and aggravation in this case is warranted on so many levels.

Nothing has changed and in fact in light of what has really transpired tells me that it is actually creating more holes in Xh's relationship with the kids.

I had gone to my parent's house for dinner. My F had a bio to write for an event he has been invited to participate in and then there is a memoir that he is included in. He wanted me to help him on the computer and to help him proofread and edit both pieces. My F has always been a fantastic writer, so I was a bit surprised he wanted some input, but I agreed to go up and help him out. S stopped in on his way to our house. He was swinging by to pick a few things up before returning to the cottage. He looked worn out, but he was very quick to give both of my parents a hug and my M just about melted. She was so happy to see S and said how much she has missed making him lunches, as he would come there during the week when he was working at the cabinet maker's place. I got my big hug as well.

My M went to answer the phone and my F was into his college basketball game. S laughed when I stayed behind to talk to him instead of watching the game. I responded that they were getting their butts kicked anyways.  But the truth is, and S knew it, I would never pick watching a game on TV over spending time with him, especially under the circumstances.

S was troubled. He wanted to share how he had found out about his uncle. And he wanted to express his concerns about the burial and what might happen. He is anticipating exactly what I am, which is a rerun of the last uncle's death and burial. S said he didn't know if he could handle being asked to dig another hole. I told him he didn't have to and should be firm about it. It was not necessary and he can walk away from it, even if it means he pisses a few people off. He agreed. I reminded him that no one forced anyone in my family to be a pall bearer at my grandmother's funeral. Those who were asked were allowed to bow out and some did because of their own personal reasons. My one cousin was too distraught. No one criticized him. So, I reminded S that he isn't the same teenager they manipulated last time and my BIL's surviving S is there. S seemed relieved that I understood his trepidation.

And then came the moment where I had visions of getting in my car and wanting to just go on a long road trip that would end where Xh is staying and hitting him with a 2x4 and not a velvet covered one. The words coming out of S's mouth just made my blood boil. S was recounting the part of the story where Xh called S and then said he is furious with Xh. He said he couldn't believe what happened and is so upset about it. He said Xh told S that S needed to call D and tell her. S told me he stood his ground and told Xh that no, it is not his job and she had the right to hear it from Xh, not S. S ranted how his F cannot face things and how cruel to not call D himself. He didn't understand considering he himself had to face C the other night and have a difficult conversation. S said he told Xh he would refuse to do that and if Xh didn't do it, he and Xh would have problems themselves. He then informed me that Xh later called and acted like it had been his idea to call D and said to S that he and D are planning on getting together when he gets back from his trip.

Out of S's mouth came "I have no faith that will actually happen. Everything that dad says seems to be half truths nowadays. Or for show, considering he was with his siblings". Ouch.

I held my tongue even though I wanted to just scream. D was home earlier and she is struggling. She is confused about how she should feel. Understandable.

I will not say a word to D about how S had to prompt Xh. I know nothing and it serves no purpose to pour salt into that wound.

The level of immaturity just astounds me. I mentioned it to my M and she right away came back with "your Xh can't deal with it". Nope not accepting that answer. I told her that is all well and good, but he asked a 24 year old to do it for him and when S said maybe it's time Xh deals with some of his demons, that was telling.

So, I don't think this is any sign Xh is really going to deal with his issues. It is merely a slightly different shade of the color of MLC.

[JohnnyBravo]

What a mess. Sorry to hear you're all going through through this. It's the crisis that keeps on giving, it seems.

[Treasur]

How normal it is for an averagely healthy human, who had decades of knowing someone as they used to be, to hope for a change in trajectory. To find it hard to understand why someone would continue to lie, manipulate, avoid and lack empathy after years of seemingly getting what they wanted in leaving those who loved them behind, after years of no involvement in their lives. Even with no or low expectations, how disappointing to realise that this person seems just as toxic and disordered as the day they blew everything up. Well, I can think of a lot of words but disappointing is one of the more polite ones. 

With a vanisher, I have found that my mind assumes that the person living out in the world who might look a bit like the person I knew is much like he used to be.....just living another life with another wife as if I never existed but otherwise much the same person. Yet anecdotally here, assuming my xh did have some kind of MLC something, that rarely seems to be so if the universe means they pop up in some way. Don’t get me wrong....i’m grateful for no pop ups in my life....but I wonder if in the absence of information, our brain perhaps naturally defaults to some low key assumptions based more on who they were. And tbh bc, if you are not inherently disordered yourself (and once we recover from the trauma, normal service is resumed lol), it is quite hard to comprehend someone else’s desire to continue to be the equivalent of a hot stove to other humans, isn’t it? Why someone would choose to get stuck there without seemingly trying harder to fight their way out of such a dark destructive place? Imho fwiw, once folks fracture in this way and the darkness comes out, it seems to me to be more unlikely that they ever come out tbh and even more remarkable to hear the very few stories here or in RL of people who do. But it makes sense that it is literally beyond our capacity to comprehend bc we are usually now much healthier years on than post BD, so it seems even stranger perhaps that they seem not to have changed much at all. Jmo.

All of which to say, please cut yourself a little slack, MD. 

It’s an Alice in Wonderland world these kind of folks live in where usual healthy human rules seem not to apply so much.
It’s a sign of health imho that contact with it is at best bemusing and at worst rather frustrating. That it comes with big red klaxons 
And of course, we are ahead of the game in working out how or if to interact with that weird world whereas our older kids are perhaps still having to work it out for themselves years later. And that must be terribly hard to accept and observe as a parent even if one can see the necessity of it. Your son is learning the nature of the stove.....your daughter is wondering from further away perhaps if it is still a hot stove.....you are being reminded that the stove is still hot but it’s a reminder of old hard-won acceotance not a new problem to figure a way round.

[MourningDove]

JohnnyBravo & Treasur - Personally, I would like to put an end to this type of gift exchange - LOL. But, unfortunately it seems Xh is determined to keep it up. 

I was awake fairly early this morning and wanting to just lie in bed for a bit. I wanted to relax and shake off the remaining bits of aggravation from last night and enjoy the quiet. My guest puppy sensed I was awake. She has been sleeping at the foot of the bed since S moved out. She is good about finding a spot on the bed of her own and staying in bed until I say it is time to get up. Some mornings she does go find a toy to try and let me know she is ready for the day to start, but even then it is usually at a reasonable hour. Not this morning. She is a very smart dog. Too smart.

I turned over to grab my phone and see what time it was and that did it. Suddenly, I felt a tug on my comforter. The puppy was on the end of the bed and pulling the comforter off of me. I laughed thinking she was going to bury herself underneath that layer, as she does that sometimes. But, no. I found myself having to pull the blankets back up as she ran up, grabbed the top of the blanket and pulled it back. I lost the battle. She was quite proud of herself as all of the blankets were at the end of the bed and she uncovered me. I had to wonder if she somehow thought she had somehow rescued me from an avalanche of blankets. She ran ahead of me and was waiting by her food bowl. She has a full day ahead of her, I guess. No sooner had she finished her routine of food and outside, did she come in and pulled a bag down from the chair. I had no idea what was in the bag, as S's GF left it. Out of the bag came a dog sweatshirt, and a collection of new dog toys. The image that came to mind was it was Christmas morning and this dog had gifts to unwrap. My living room is now a sea of balls and stuffed dog toys. And like a typical kid, the "clothing" lies in a pile next to the bag. LOL

I needed the laugh, I will admit.

Although my kids are young adults, this behavior of Xh's does affect them and because I am their support system, it does affect me to some degree.

I thought about a conversation my sister and I had last night just before I went to bed. She said it has to be hard for me to wrap my head around considering Xh never would have avoided these things before. He was very sensitive about supporting the kids and having difficult discussions, etc.

I think that is in fact the problem for me. It makes it very hard to separate fact from fiction and the struggle I have is not so much with the current behaviors in terms of how they affect me. That is, I get upset but I try to let them go as best as I can. I no longer worry about Xh the same way. It bothers me in regards to the kids and how it will come back to be left for me to deal with the side effects. But, I don't think about Xh in the same way I did when I was trying so desperately to help him and try to somehow control the madness from taking over. These actions just confirm he is still in the same weird place.

When these things happen now, I find myself looking back. I don't want to look in the rearview and I realize that maybe it is important to do that once in awhile when these things happen, to see sometimes what has gone on. But, the trick is to not lose sight of the road ahead. I don't want to focus on what was, yet these moments make it a little difficult.

I don't want to rewrite history in any way shape or form. I have never been one to want to whitewash something and not face ugly truths. I don't find that to be helpful for my own growth. But then there is the other direction where I could easily edit my time with Xh and say it was somehow all bad and I just didn't see it, but that would be a lie. So where in lies the truth or the reality? That is what often bubbles up now. Was I somehow imagining things like Xh being a very different man?

And that is why for me it is often important to look at this with open eyes or to talk to someone like my sister who will never blow sunshine up my backside. She was there when things were good and she witnessed a whole lot of what wasn't good over the years. She knew Xh and always thought the world of him.

My sister recognized the part that was bothering me last night. She said it has to continue to just shock me at times when these things occur, even though I suspect it will be more of the same. And, it is just that. It sometimes makes me question if I somehow imagined a man that would have faced these types of situations very differently. If somehow I had imagined the many times where Xh would sit down with the kids when difficult conversations needed to happen. How he would give them a hug and let them ask anything they needed to know the answer to or if they just needed to cry it out, etc.

I am sure there will be more fall out from this for both kids. I would like nothing better than to have my Xh be a vanisher at this point, TBH. I know that sounds awful to some people. For those who had a vanisher, that has to be a difficult thing to navigate on so many levels, so I don't mean to sound cavalier about it. It simply is that I have seen enough to know I don't want to see any more in regards to my situation. I don't go searching like I once did when Xh first left, for those answers about what point he is at or stages, etc. I have accepted he is all sorts of messed up and knowing anything at this point really doe not benefit me in a positive way any more. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening and I will be an unwilling witness to the destruction that is going to keep going on with S and D. I just have to learn how to somehow do my best to navigate all of it, full well knowing my job is not to fix the relationship with the kids and Xh. My job is simply to keep being true to my own core.

[JohnnyBravo]

My living room is now a sea of balls...

Now there's an image I won't be able to get out of my head anytime soon...

mind --> gutter

[Treasur]

Gotta love the ingenuity of your Guest Puppy 

Quite often you write things and I find myself quietly nodding even though our circumstances are quite different. Maybe it’s bc we are in a similar timescale so perhaps a similar lens, idk.

I don't want to rewrite history in any way shape or form. I have never been one to want to whitewash something and not face ugly truths. I don't find that to be helpful for my own growth. But then there is the other direction where I could easily edit my time with Xh and say it was somehow all bad and I just didn't see it, but that would be a lie. So where in lies the truth or the reality? That is what often bubbles up now. Was I somehow imagining things like Xh being a very different man?

And that is why for me it is often important to look at this with open eyes or to talk to someone like my sister who will never blow sunshine up my backside. She was there when things were good and she witnessed a whole lot of what wasn't good over the years. She knew Xh and always thought the world of him.

Well, reassuring to know i’m not the only one who sometimes pauses with a question in my head but not so sure of the answer. Helpful to have your sister as a bit of a reality test. In my situation, I don’t have that so much although in the first few years some of our mutual friends served that purpose for me. It’s just that it has been too long now for it to come up in new conversations. But in the first couple of years it was useful if only for me to test out my own mental footing if that makes sense. Tbh, even after all this time, I am probably left with more questions than answers; I think I have just got better at living with the not known and feeling less compulsion to try to find answers.

For those who had a vanisher, that has to be a difficult thing to navigate on so many levels, so I don't mean to sound cavalier about it. It simply is that I have seen enough to know I don't want to see any more in regards to my situation

It was awful for the first couple of years, true enough. There is just a big smoking hole where the person and your shared life used to be. And the feeling of being Nothing, of being erased, was brutally hard. But after the first couple of years I found myself increasingly grateful for it. And a lot of the reason for that was your last sentence.....I had seen enough to not want to see any more, and to trust that nothing good would come from more of it/him......and tbh I do think it is easier to heal from trauma if you are no longer being currently abused, manipulated or frightened. Just the existing trauma you have to deal with, not that plus a new dollop everyday that feels relentless. And it felt like that when I still had some limited contact with my former h tbh, so I get it, MD. I bet quite a few folks here get it.

[forthetrees]

Yes, as hard as it was to have a vanisher, the upside is that they can no longer kick you in the emotional teeth nor set a new low. Knowing that there is a finite limit to the damage makes it easier to process the existing damage as opposed to a Sisyphean task.
But... I don´t have kids so that made the vanishing act possible.

That is a mighty big ask to have someone dig a grave. I´ve done it for dogs, but not a person. We are not in little house on the prairie times. Is that some weird test of "love"?

May you be boot-free soon and marveling at snow geese:)

[MourningDove]

JohnnyBravo - Thanks for that. I am a visual person and now I can't unsee that - Hahaha.  I guess I am just glad UrsaMajor didn't follow up with a GIF illustrating that specific interpretation. LOL

Treasur - My Guest Puppy is way too smart. That method of getting me up was clearly effective and so this morning I accepted that she has appointed herself as my personal Puppy Alarm clock. We had a repeat performance and on a Monday it was fine. I just wish there was a snooze button or a weekend setting if this is going to be the way it is from now on. 

forthetrees - In all fairness, I should clarify, it is not a hole for a casket, but cremated remains, which does make a difference on a certain level. The whole thing is still very odd all the way around.

D mentioned to S and I she wondered how long before Xh's siblings are in some sort of feud, as their pattern has been always the same. They get together and play the parts of perfect family every couple of years and then there is some disagreement and they have a falling out and Xh and the BIL (BIL 2) play mediators. S laughed. D is not wrong in that assessment.

For years, I knew Xh felt his job was to try and hold his fractured family together. BIL 2, the one I still speak to always told me that he walked away from the drama. He was close with Xh, but the rest of his siblings, he loved, but best when it was done from afar and that none of them had dealt with the nasty divorce or their FOO issues, so he chose distance for his own sanity. Wise move.

When we would get together with Xh's family it was often one sibling at a time. Those times could be fun and things seemed fairly normal aside from maybe personality differences. Xh got along with all of his siblings and we had some good times. Maybe because it was not all that often that the FOO issues really didn't emerge. Maybe it was because Xh always stayed away from those topics, IDK. The issues came to the surface when on rare occasions they would all or most of them would get together.

When Xh's parents divorced, each kid took their side. It was right down the middle and for 4 of them that hasn't changed. BIL 2 and Xh were the only ones that seemed to realize that was their parent's issue not theirs to solve. And D's assessment is spot on. Every family event there was always someone who was angry with one of the other or multiple siblings and then they would get together, the issue was never really resolved and they would behave like nothing had happened. Then a new feud would erupt. The division would reappear.

One of the last issues I was witness to was my former SIL out of nowhere accused the one B of some horrendous thing. Just announced it to Xh and I out of the blue. No back up story or details, just accusations. It left us both stunned and wondering what was true, considering my SIL always had a knack for telling stories that all 5 of her Bs would look at her with confusion wondering what house she was raised in. They sometimes figured it was perhaps her female perspective, but I grew to realize my SIL had an active imagination and was a drama queen anyways. With this accusation, she never once confronted the "offending" B, just quit talking to him and spread what I believe now were more rumor than reality. So, he distanced himself and tried to talk to her about it to resolve it, I will give him that. But, she would go for 2 or 3 years where if anyone else as much as spoke to him she was angry with them. When she got wind of the remaining siblings getting together as that B was moving across country, she was upset she wasn't invited to wish him safe travels. I remember Xh just being utterly shocked she would want to even see this B if he had done the things she accused him of.

Didn't she show up at the event and walked up to the B she made accusations about and told him how mad she was that he hadn't been in contact with her.  BIL 2 was not able to be there, so he missed that performance. SIL and her Bs all behaved like nothing had ever happened and it was never brought up again. I recall thinking WTF just happened? But then that was the way his family was with everything (except BIL 2, who has done his mirror work, etc over the years). Xh's family were experts in brushing things under the rug. I can confirm based on first hand accounts that hasn't exactly benefited Xh. 

When FIL was dying and BIL 2 asked him what his wishes were for burial, he avoided it. He was in hospice by then. Xh asked. Nothing. Then out of the blue FIL mentioned that he wanted to be buried in his hometown - a place he left and never set foot in after he left.

Now, I have no issue with his desires or Xh's and his siblings granting that final wish. There was money left for that venture. But, it is what followed that just made me completely scratch my head. I was not part of that process as by then Xh had flown the coop. I am actually grateful I wasn't there.

Xh started by carving a marble headstone for his F. He drove it to his B's house and picked him up, which was 1,400 miles then they drove back together to where FIL was going to be buried. That meant Xh had to drive back towards his house where he left from which was 1000 miles and then drove his B back the 1000 miles. Xh then drove the entire 1,400 miles back. So, in essence, this trip back and forth racked up nearly 5000 miles. That was the first moment of head scratching for me.

The headstone, being marble will not survive that particular environment. Xh would have known that in his right mind. 

They arrived at the hometown and sought out the cemetery caretaker and couldn't find them, so they (not sure which noodle heads in the family thought this was a good idea) decided to pick a spot in this older cemetery, put down the headstone and dug a hole for FIL's ashes.

BIL died a few months later. Xh would drive around with the ashes in his console and that might not have been so bizarre except the kids (he was still communicating with D at that point) would come home and say their F was losing it. They said they would get in his SUV and Xh would right away open the console and tell the kids to say hi to their uncle. While he may have been joking, the kids thought it was less than amusing and odd, considering it was every time they went out.

After driving around with BIL in the console for what seemed like eternity the siblings decided to bury BIL with FIL. They got together, and part of the delay was in fact because they were feuding over FIL's second W and the fact that FIL never changed his will, in spite of my trying to tell him she would get everything. FIL argued with me I was wrong and didn't want to deal with it. Nah- I called that. It was not second W's fault he stuck his head in the sand. She had every right to what was left legally at that point and yet the kids were ticked at her. I recall telling SIL that was all on her F, not the second W.

When they arrived at the cemetery, both of my kids had gone. I wasn't invited and grateful for that, TBH. Both kids came home and said again they just did what they wanted and found the headstone they had left. Xh, his Bs that were in attendance and my SIL all brow beat S and told him he had to dig the hole for the ashes. S came home really traumatized by it all.

What struck me the whole time was what they did was at least in most states that I know - illegal for one. They didn't care. And the whole scenario seems like some twisted movie plot.

It is not that I am opposed to following someone's last wishes. My F's dear friend who used to go duck hunting with my F many years ago wanted to have some of his ashes shot out of a gun over their favorite hunting spot. That is funny and an odd request. But this thing with Xh's family runs deeper. Now, suddenly the remaining siblings, bar BIL 2 who wants no part of this in his words "charade" of happy family, have said they all want to be buried there and each remaining sibling is to go add the name by carving it themselves into the headstone.

Maybe I am missing something. But to me it is just beyond my comprehension. It is not like they are somehow deeply committed to their heritage and this is some deep-seated family tradition or cultural thing. This is something they cooked up on their own.

It would be shortly after that whole thing that one of Xh's sudden MLC ideas was he had approached the new owner of the land where his F grew up. The old "homestead" sits there in essentially ruins and Xh asked the owner if he could buy that small parcel of land and move there. Then he wanted to buy it and dismantle it and move it 1000 miles away to where Xh lives now.

Now, the less jaded part of me says "huh, interesting thought - preserving his heritage". I kind of get that. However, Xh told me countless times he hated his F. That relationship never resolved itself while FIL was alive. Xh didn't go to see him when his B told him FIL was dying. Xh's response was he had seen him a couple of weeks before he was all set. FIL essentially died alone. And that is what strikes me as so odd. They have made this some great memorial to F that none seemed too terribly fond of over the years.

I just don't get it. Maybe I am not forgiving enough. Or maybe it is because I don't whitewash things like that. I believe in people being able to change. I believe in forgiving and forgetting or at least moving past something. But when it is a situation where they change the history and somehow tell the story of a monster when the person is alive and suddenly in death they are some cuddly kitten? IDK - I can't quite read that story and believe it to be anything but a fairytale.

[MomOfSteel]

MourningDove what did I just read?  You just can’t make up that kind of thing.  At some point what happens when the cemetery actually just sells that plot or when it is discovered that someone else already owns it?  It sounds like a story my BIL would tell.  Why would you just drive around with remains in your car?  I’m scratching my head over this whole thing.  I feel really sorry for your son getting dragged into the… whatever you call that.  It isn’t fair to put on him and they should have known better. 

[MourningDove]

LeftandBroken - I may be an artist and I might be accused of being able to write a story, but those are based on experiences and facts. I am afraid I am not a creative writer. I wish I could say I made this all up, but it is the madness that settled in during MLC.

I have known people who keep vials of their loved one's ashes and have them hanging from a mirror or whatever. I know people have urns, but this was Xh riding around with the plastic bag inside of a box which stayed in the console for months. And the kids were mortified when he would just joke about it as if it was supposed to be some normal thing or somehow funny. They didn't find it funny at all. Now, they sort of laugh but more at the insanity of it.

I am convinced it is part of Xh not being able to deal with his B's death. It was easier to joke about it and drive around with the ashes than to make any type of arrangements. Even going to just find an urn to house the ashes in.

It would also prompt Xh getting his hair highlighted and adopting some of my BIL's style in clothing. The highlights were all BIL and Xh used to make fun of him for getting them as if he was some beach bum surfer.

The cemetery - they laughed about it. As if they could go and do whatever they wanted and no one would notice. I thought about it and I know in most cemeteries you buy plots. So, I am sure someone might notice in that situation. And if it were a cemetery that is no longer functioning, that is an older one there is still often some type of caretaker, etc who probably is going to notice a random headstone. The fact that Xh's F was one of the original families from that town and where their name is recognizable tells me they probably can track all of this down.

Everything about it just smacks of FIL and his philosophy. Aside from BIL 2 the remaining siblings all have serious FOO issues and when they get together it is truly remarkable.

For me, it was honestly difficult to comprehend all the way around. My sister said it the other day as did my F, my Xh followed rules and had an immense amount of integrity. In a situation like that, prior to him boarding the crazy train, he would have researched how to have his F's wishes met and gone about it properly. In fact, at one point he had researched having my FIL buried in the military cemetery that FIL was actually very interested in doing, that is until the B who passed away months later talked him out of doing.

Let's just say, I am so very grateful to not be participating in any of this nonsense.

I do know this B now who passed will be a battle for the remaining siblings. I don't foresee that scenario occurring. His widow was hellbent on never going back to that spot again. Her desire was to have her H buried next to her some day.

I am just going to hope that S doesn't have to go through that BS again.