[Treasur]

I’m not sure if ‘sorry’ is the right word for you or your daughter as you feel it has given you some closure, but still. Some things are just ick and unpleasant, aren’t they?

Well done you for having the hard-earned skills to see so clearly that MiL comments are not about you at all. It’s an odd experience when someone shows us so clearly the window through which they view the world…obviously this is the one she has chosen, doubtless for a variety of reasons. Odd too that she would choose to voice these thoughts out loud to her granddaughter….i wonder what (in her mind) she was trying to achieve by doing that? And it’s rather nasty, isn’t it? Few children would respond well or feel good listening to that, even as adults. And indeed it’s exactly the kind of thing that would lead one to want to spend less time not more with someone, isn’t it? It’s a kind of karma really…..

As it happened so long ago, do you know why your daughter raised it in conversation now? Sounds as if she might be going through some of her own sorting of wheat from chaff as most of us find ourselves doing.

[MadLuv]

Good question, Treasur. It is no secret that D34 and I have had a hard road since XH departure. She viewed her Dad with amazingly rose colored glasses and it’s been a long process for her to start to see him more clearly. After she hadn’t seen her father for a year she sought connections with other family trying to fill that void. One was driving to go stay with her grandmother. I think she asked her many questions about her Dad trying to understand him better. Her grandmother ended up lying to her on that visit.

She didn’t find these lies out until last year when X-BIL and family came with family and stayed with me for a visit. That visit exposed X-BIL was lying also that he had reconnected with XH and met his OWife. So, as I journalled earlier D34 reached out to X-MIL and told her she was hurt for her lying to her and X-MIL never responded to her. Cant imagine!!! But… it showed  D34 that  XMIL was a weak avoidant as well as XBIL and sadly her Dad. I think this past year she has  had to come to term that his side of the family is not who she thought they were.

This past year has been very healing for her and I. She was so mad for so long about this divorce and her Dad’s vanishing act. I think like we all slowly come to terms with the cards we have been dealt and we reflect and we see things as they really are. Healthily we see things we could have changed and we grow from that, but we also see that our faults are normal and this kind of discard is not normal. So, I just think she is coming to her own realizations and also that she feels more safe with time telling these things now, because I am also more healthy to handle it. She told me many things about that visit, but I think she knew this would be hurtful to me. I think it was hard for her to hear from her. I think it had to make her revaluate her own reality as she did not see her Dad and I’s relationship that way.

When she was her most cruelest to me I told her that I was not a perfect mother, but I tried to be. That if she can really look back at her life she will see that I was the sole orchestrator of her childhood. So, yes. If mistakes were made they were made by me, but that she will see that I was always there. I was the room mother, the care giver, the  block mother etc. her father was always there, but he just never initiated things as a father. I kept thinking he would mature into himself, but he just really always struggled to even find himself.

So yesterday  when she stated “ Everyone has flaws but if someone were to ask me how was he a good father to you like what do you remember positively like I remember having a positive opinion of him because that's what I wanted but if I look at things from an outside perspective there really wasn't a reason for that”
I think it was a clear indication that she has done just that. I think she has seen both our flaws now and can appreciate that I have been the one consistent in her life and maybe she has been a little harsh with me.

I think there is a lot more she is holding in, because his actions has been insane and his family now are showing who they are and she yesterday deleted them all from her social media. She found out some other lies and she said there is no point trying to be family to people that are enabling her father to abandon them and to lie for him.  I hate this for my kids. I think after 3 years of not seeing their father and having to watch him take her and her adult daughters on vacations and celebrate holidays and her grandsons first bday when he has never met the daughter she just had, his own granddaughter has been a huge wake up call. I think she thought when she had her baby her father would finally show up. He hasn’t.  I think I am now trusted to share all her hurts on the situation and  now I can handle it because my emotions are more regulated. I told her yesterday that I dont think her Dad is a bad man, but that he never fully matured and his core self doesn’t exist and so when life gets tough he truly can’t handle it .I think she is trying to accept that her father is gone and it may be for good.

Our children have to go through the same path as we do when the MLCer vanishes. It is  helpful for me to recognize now the stages she is in leading to her acceptance of the situation because I have been through them.  She was in denial for a long time and now she is able to see things as they are.  I think after 4 years this year is going to be our most healing. I just continue to try and find empathy in the situation for XH so that if he ever resurfaces for them that I am giving them a more empathetic view to accept him back. It just seem more unlikely now that he will and his family is also gone now. I just never saw it playing our this way.

[MadLuv]

On X-MIL and why she chose to tell D34 these thing. What was the motive? I think she wanted to blame me instead of seeing her son being flawed and that may be partly due to her. She has a history of as soon as her sons relationships breakup that she has nothing nice to say. I have seen it many times. One son has been married 3 times. I told XH when he left me that I knew his mother would do this and he said, “ that’s what I am afraid of as well” so, why am I shocked.  What I think she got wrong is that her and I were never a match and our dynamic was not good. She is cold and her father discarded her own mother and then vanished. Spending most his time with his new wife and her adult children after 30 years as well. He didn’t completely disappear, but his time was not given much to X-MIL and her and her brother have no relationship at all. I think she see’s her son is repeating what her father did and she blamed her mother for her dad, so she is avoiding trying to see her part in all this.

[forthetrees]

On the one hand it is so disappointing to see the in-laws support all the deceit on the part of the MLCer but on the other hand one should not be surprised as the in-laws are the FOO that helped create the MLCer´s world view. I suppose that bottom line the MLCer is part and parcel of a family dynamic and when you partner up with someone, you are connecting to a family system not just one person. The reciprocal is happening as well in regards to the LBS and his/her family dynamic. Hind sight shows that knowing more about FOO and family dynamics would prevent a lot of future heartache, but also would tank the marriage rates even further if we all knew just how fragile someone´s coping skills were.

I have high hopes that your daughter will continue to seek you out and include you in family events and want you to be a close grandma to her kids. To cut her some slack, imagine how hard it is to accept that your dad is basically a douchebag- it means readjusting her lifelong view of him, her relationship with him and likely made her doubt her own judgement- that´s a lot to process. At its core it makes you wonder if you´ve been living a lie or at least lying to yourself. Ah, the MLC gift that just keeps on giving.

[MadLuv]

Forthetrees, yes! I think we both are cutting each other slack. We have had so many deep conversations and I think she has been so much better on including me and inviting me. I am very close to the grandchildren and I think she appreciates that more than she has before, because she knows it’s not a given now. I have high hopes that life will continue to show us a path to appreciate who we are and what remains , even with XH and family tainting what could have been.

What is crazy is that XH did all this damage and not one member of my family views our relationship as XMil does. They are still sad that their favorite couple, uncle, aunt and family they looked up to have dismantled. They are shocked at what he has done, but they still love who they thought he was.

[MadLuv]

Fragile here so tread lightly. I continue to get bills and emails and they seems to be increasing.last night I also got text about my XH condo internet being out of service. I  texted my XH on it and while I texted I also told him I had been accumulating items of him I found and asked if he wanted them sent or thrown away. He read with. No reply. Hours later I get a snarky reply. Clearly not from him, but not disclosed. An interchange incurred between his OWife and myself that was not necessary. I kept trying to pull it back and be kind, but she kept playing the WE card and dont start drama. I told her I had nothing to say to her..

Anyways. She basically told me to thrown anything away that I found of his, even though he had told me that he wanted anything I found 2 years before. So, I am going to take this as a final release of my responsibilities to give him anything of his things from now on. If it hadn’t been videos, pictures and awards he earned I would not have even accumulated then. I have donated and thrown a lot of his stuff away.

I can’t believe he allowed her to take his phone and reply for him and be nasty. I was married to him for 30 years and never once replied on his phone even when I found he cheated .  He is so far removed from who he was and  I just don't see him ever coming  out of this.  I had hope he would reconnect with his lids someday, but ai just don't see that happening.  I’m just baffled still that he is married to someone so unbelievably rude, controlling, materialistic and  narcissistic and he gave up his kids for that.

One of my friend said, I feel bad for you because you have no finish line. I think that is whats hard for us in this journey. The craziness on top of everything else gives you no true finish line.  It’s been 4 1/2 years since BD. I feel better. More calm, but I dont have unresolved friendships. I am still friends with all boyfriends I ever dated. So, to feel so disrespected by a husband of 30 years that I shared all my tragedies with and tried so hard to help continues to be  a hard pill to swallow.

One thing tonight did show me was who he married for sure. Who he still is now ( weak and avoidant) and that I never have to reach out again. Hopefully she doesn’t get in his head on alimony, because we have 9 more years to go. We also still have the NFL tickets and they still haven't asked to go and I don't see them reaching out to me now for them.

 Somehow I just see her doing something and it makes me uneasy.  When my XH asst manager told me that she was a trouble maker and will be his karma. I believe it. I just hope she  isnt going to push him to affect me more financially, because she appears to fully running the show.

Kind of all over the place because Im not used to those kind of interactions. She was mean and then turned it on me. Said I was passive aggressive. Just nothing made sense. So, I cant imagine how his mind is handling her, because I found her to be completely controlling and over the top. 

It’s crazy because I’m mad and I feel sorry for him at the same time. What a mess he is in. Truly!!  But, his brother said he is really happy, so who knows if it is his mask or his delusion.  I just know I dont want to engage in that again.

[Treasur]

I am very sorry that you had this experience. I remember having something similar years ago, the last time I had any contact with my xh. And I understand that it provokes a messy set of emotions.

I think, after decades, it takes most of us quite a while to let go of some of the basic expectations that come with being a We. Or indeed accepting that there is a new We in town that seems to work differently, or that most likely that We has been involved in previous interactions when we thought we were simply communicating with a h/xh. But often that is true, usually for longer than we thought, and it sort of adds insult to injury to have this unwelcome and unchosen person inserted into our life in any way. It can even feel a bit frightening, can’t it?

Please do not waste your compassion on your xh; this was his choice and as someone said, the effects will be his karma. It is his circus, of his creation, not yours - and it says nothing at all about you. And her nasty opinions? Well, consider the source is always a good life principle lol. It’s a practical reality I think that people who have affairs - both spouses and ow/om - have poor boundaries, and no respect for them, or they could not do what they do. And perhaps a reminder that these kind of folks can still make us part of a mental virtual Karpmann triangle even when we are unaware and uninvolved.

The only solution I found was to accept it as it was and go NC with these kinds of people completely. Bc that was all I could control. I don’t know how big your fear about ongoing alimony is, or how willing you feel to deal with that fear, but it is not an unreasonable one. I wish I could say it was, but it isn’t…and it is reality that the form of ypur alimony is a kind of ongoing link. Have you talked to a lawyer about your options for changing it to create something that is more of a clean break kind of deal? I understand why you might not want to do that, that it might feel like going backwards, but living with some kinds of fears is also not easy, is it?

Your xh chose the path he chose. That was always about him, not about you, my friend. And tbh if someone does these kinds of things and behaves in these kinds of ways, although it takes a goodly while, one does get to a point of expecting a duck to be a duck. It’s just hard to swallow after so many years, to accept that they are not very good quality people and that we would be wise not to infer good intent towards us. Even if that makes no sense at all to us. Bc it doesn’t, does it? I have never understood I it, as I suspect you don’t, why these folks cannot behave with some level of decency and respect…but it is rare that they do….and our lack of comprehension just says more about what kind of people you and me are, I suspect 😝

I hope today is a better day

[MadLuv]

Thank you Treasur- I needed that. I am sorry you experienced something similar. I wish I could change the alimony. Maybe get a lump sum and done, but it is to hefty for that. I wish I could just tell him to stick his money where the sun doesn’t shine , but I can’t and that would be stupid.
 
I do think I will speak with my lawyer just to see what she thinks if anything I need to worry about, because after NC for 2 years except finances once last year the situation seems to have escalated. Maybe it’s because I did cut his friendship off and went NC, but it is baffling after all these years that she is replying now and it is recent, because I can tell immediately when its her.

Maybe she isn’t feeling as secure and is seeing her own red flags ( even though she is her own red flag)🚩 . But she wants his money and no one is interfering with her good fortune!!  You are absolutely right that they are not my kind of people. You are who you surround yourself with and a broken man teaming up with a broken desperate woman is a bad combination.

When talking to a friend last night I said, how did we get here? I tried to be as kind as I could. I could nor would allow anyone to do that to him. Even now. How did  he get where he is and how could I have been so wrong about him. I gelt he abused me for a decade with a double life not exposed and now I feel he allowed her tp abuse me. I guess when you have sunk to the bottom Of the barrel you have to find anyway to validate why you are there. She enables his narrative and I guess that what keeps him going. 

I’m glad I am me. I really am.

[MadLuv]

Well, things took another bad turn. OWife texted my D34. Told her to tell me to stop messaging them. That she respects her decision , but I keep telling them that there father is not trying to be in their life ( I actually said who doesn’t see their children and grandkids after losing a child once) She also told her that they didn’t know she had a baby. Which I never told them, but now my daughter thinks I did.

My daughter  messaged OWife back and told her not to tell her what to do and she is not my mother and we all Needed to grow the F up .

I hate this turn has happened, because my daughter and I were finally in a good place and I have no idea why this OWife felt it necessary to do that . I also dont like when my daughter lashes out  and then blocks me from responding.  I feel
i don't have a voice.

This situation just seems never ending. Damned if you do damned if you don't, but you can go from feeling like you are going to survive it all And you feel good about yourself to literally hours later feeling like you wont survive this round of set backs. 

[Treasur]

I am so sorry. Not surprised but sorry (see my earlier comment about disordered folks, boundaries and virtual triangles 🙄)

Two separate issues as I read it….ow first….i’d encourage you to block ow and xh and do everything you can to make it very hard for either of them to contact you directly again. And that includes you not contacting them of course…anything about NFL tickets or belongings should go in a written email or via your lawyer. You can’t control others actions but you can choose to move away from them. And if you are reluctant to do that, take your time to consider why and how contact of any kind benefits you.

And daughter? Well, you can’t control others only remind that you did not invite ow to ctc her, that you are not responsible for ow’s behaviour, that you value your relationship with her and would never have disrespected her wishes by telling ow/xh about the new small one. That it’s not ok and you have blocked both ow/xh from contacting you again (if you decide to do that)That it’s ok if daughter wants to talk about any anger she has with you, but it’s not fair to be angry at you for ow’s’ actions and that you have found yourself wondering if creating conflict is a win for ow, so essentially playing her game. Then leave it be, let daughter simmer down and wait for her to come to you when she’s ready….

Above all, remind yourself that it is probably no more than a hiccup in a long mother/daughter relationship and it will pass through like a bad meal bc these things usually do. (And I like the idea of thinking of drama-seeding ow as being like a bad meal that gives you diahorrea!)