Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???

[Copabanana]

I am very sad. I am not sure why.

I am alone. I am doing nothing at all constructive except I bought some new clothes and shoes online, that should fit my body as it is.

I get overwhelmed when I start doing anything in the house. So I stop.

I have not heard in the past couple of days from my son.

M has been working 14 hour days. Day after day like this. He works like a dog for very little money.

I find myself focusing on the problem that M and I have with money.

I think I use this issue of money, M's economic dependence upon me to beat myself up. But that does not mean that there are not realistic issues here.

You know I speak with a psychiatrist every couple of weeks by phone. Early on, he said this: Many women would not be in a relationship such as yours. By that I think he meant where the man was economically dependent and undocumented.

And once M's niece *the adult daughter of his evil sister, inferred that the reason he was with me was what he got out of it. That I know she heard from her mother.

I will be honest here:

6 years ago when I met him it was because I hired him to do work in my house. He was recommended to me as somebody who could do anything, and a good man.

A few months later we fell into a romantic relationship. While I felt a great pull towards him, we fell into a romantic relationship. We did not choose it. He had been ready to return to Mx and his wife decided she did not want him back.

Initially, after we got involved, he did slough off some on the job. We were having fun together. We liked being together. I paid him by the job so the cost was to him if there was a delay.

In other ways it did cost me, because if the pace of his working slowed, the amount of money that he generated slowed. And I picked up the slack for expenses that we shared. And I set up the precedent of helping him with an extraordinary expense that he could not manage.

Nothing was said by me to change or limit these arrangements. In these 6 years he has never asked me for anything that would materially benefit himself. Nothing. We have helped his mother and parents, but not much. But I have helped a lot with expenses: cell phone, sometimes gas, car insurance. And I have paid for the lion's share of living expenses.

I knew his situation. He had left everything in Mx. Any work he got here would be marginal, poorly paid and likely abusive. Any work he got as an unlicensed contractor, as he has worked since I knew him and before, would be the same. When we met we were in a severe economic depression where we lived. Particularly in housing and construction. I knew this going in.

Eventually, his working interfered with my working. I would get jobs out of town and we would want him to come with me. I would freak out when his work extended so much past when he thought he would be done as to interfere with him coming with me. He felt that my demands were affecting his reputation as a worker. He wanted to work until the people were 100 percent satisfied, even past the point where his agreements were met. I thought he was being abused.

The reality is we had become a unit. I do not think I could have worked as I did if it had not been for him. We traveled to far away places. We set up a household. Once we lived in a brothel, because it was the closest motel to where I worked. Another time we lived in a school bus. He became as if a house husband. He supported me. I am pretty sure I could never have done it without him. Or if I could, the costs to me would have been pretty high.

The reality is that when I work I earn maybe 10 times or more than he does. I work less hard, in infinitely better conditions. The other reality is he has nothing here. No assets. I do.

He works like a dog. He is treated like a dog. He is paid a pittance. The fact is that was how he had worked his whole life. He had the belief that some work, any work was better than no work. And that some money coming in was better than none. His work life has been like this since he was 5 years old.

He achieved a great deal in his country. By all accounts he was tireless. By all accounts everything he ever had went to his family. By all accounts he earned well and took care of his family well. By some accounts his wife took advantage of him and his generosity and trust of her by siphoning money off to her family, by living a high life while he worked so hard. For a long time he adhered to the traditional custom of turning over everything he earned to her. And ended up with nothing.

More or less I knew what I was getting into.

The issue I am talking about is boundaries. I do not care whether M makes big money. While it is not my business I do care if he is abused in his work.

To insist that he pay for 50 percent of our expenses, and at the same time criticize how his clients abuse him, or insist that he put my work first, I know is not fair. This I get, and I do not do this anymore. I think.

So after going on and on, here are what I think are the issues:

I know we are talking about boundaries here: I have not protected myself well with money.

It does not feel good to me if other people think I am debasing myself. It does not feel good to me if even one stupid and out of line person says he is in the relationship to get what he can get.

I want him to be able to pay for his own needs. I want him to be able to pay half of the household costs. And a lot of times he can't.

I know that I am not the only woman in this situation. Women have disabled husbands. Some relationships designate the husband as the house husband. But neither one of us is like this or has ever lived this way or wants to. In this area of life it seems I am a traditional person with traditional values.

I know if he did not have me, either he would have to work all of the time at horrible jobs or return to Mx. I do not really want him to work all of the time, like a dog. And I do not want him to return to Mx.

I am remembering the time he took work as an agricultural laborer for a very, very large dairy. I thought this was so wonderful. He did not. They put him to work in a large pit of cow excrement maybe 30' deep and wider still. I was so proud of him. His endurance. He was 60.

He quit. He said it was too dangerous. That if he fell in the pit of methane gas, it would kill him.

He worked at an orchid farm. He did it for a while. The working conditions were slap-hazard and he was required to walk elevated planks that were poorly and thoughtlessly made. Nobody at all cared about his safety. He knew at his age he could likely never recover if he fell. Eventually, he quit that.

He was run over by a car when he was 5 years old. And in bed with a body cast for a year. He is working now tiling a 2500 sq ft house. It is killing him. He can barely walk or stand up but he goes there every day. To him he is choosing and controlling the work that he does. And it makes all of the difference.

He has lived a lifetime like this. It will not get better. It will get worse.

What kind of a person am I that does not understand his position? That harps at him and accuses him? What kind of person would begrudge him?

There are several ways out of this that I can see:

I can end the relationship.

I can decide we live only at the level where he can afford paying half, and if necessary be willing to return to Mx with him. I do not want to return to Mx. The thing is, what happens if and when he cannot pay half. Do I end the relationship? Does that mean that the relationship is month to month, depending upon whether or not he has made money? That seems absurd.

I do not think I can put the relationship with money as the determining and most important thing. I have not so far. I think the issue has to be about deciding, coming to terms, and discussing. The thing is I do not know what is right or fair to either of us, or to us together.

The thing is that this is a recurrent problem. Sometimes it bothers me more. Sometimes, less. When I am vulnerable and go after myself, this becomes vitally important to me, a major issue. I pick at myself about this, because this is the weak spot.

This has to be handled.

The other weak spots have been about marriage and immigration status.

If left to his own devices he will not take steps to divorce his legal wife from who he has been separated and estranged and has not seen for 11 years. I think he lags in doing so because of his adult children.

In effect this constitutes a de facto divorce in Mx. But since nobody has done the paperwork, he remains married. His wife does not want a divorce. Nor will she speak with him or answers the phone when he has called requesting a divorce. Ultimately, he did ask an adult daughter to speak to her mother, his wife would not discuss it. We have seen attorneys. He could get a divorce from his wife from here in the States. He will not pursue this unless I push him.

He has said over and over again that he wants a divorce. He says he does not anymore want to be married to his wife. He says he wants to end the marriage for him, irregardless of whether we marry. He says he wants to marry but not for papers. He says he does not want to marry for any other reason than for love.

I stand to benefit in no possible way through marriage to him. The only possible gain would be he could collect social security as my dependent. Legally I would only incur risks and financial liabilities through marriage.

I do not want to be in the position of pushing him to divorce. In reality, at this point marriage to him would benefit me only in terms of his ability to stay in the country. There is no realistic chance he will soon be deported really, because he has had no problems here.

And if he was deported, it would not necessarily mean the end of the relationship. The fact is, I want to be with him. That is important to know. I just want to solve our problems.

These are the reasons I do not want to end the relationship with M:

I have never known a man with as strong a moral compass. Nor do I believe I will ever know his equal.

I have never allowed somebody to love me before to the extent that I have with him.

And I have never been loved or cared for as I am by him. Not by my parents or any other person.

I trust him most of the time. I do not trust most people even part of the time. I trust his integrity and I trust his point of view.

I enjoy him. I enjoy being with him. I enjoy living with him. I enjoy thinking of a future with him and making plans for the future with him. While I can imagine a future without him, if I must when I think of being without him, I feel a great sense of loss.

Our values and our priorities are similar.

He tries hard to please me and he tries hard to change what he needs to in order to please me. He has changed hard things. And maintained these changes. Even little things like being a back seat driver, he tries. He gets better and better.

He cares if I am happy. He cares if I am respected and treated well. Not many other people have.

He takes responsibility for my family, even more than I do.

With him I will never have to face anything alone.

This is what I do not like so much about our relationship (big things):

The issue of money and work.

The more I think about it the problems with money got worse because I did not say anything and let things slide. I think I have to tackle this with him. Because not doing so is costing too much.

If I was not here alone, sad, depressed, worried about my son, not doing one thing that is constructive, probably I would not be thinking so much about this.

I do not know why I have fallen so far back these last few days. I cannot enjoy myself at home, I am not doing anything productive here, I am not doing any errands or I am not allowing myself to leave. I am not even allowing myself to go to a Al Anon meeting.

And I do not know why. The only thing I can think it might be is that my last call with my son was horrible. That he has not called since.

M is here at home maybe 8 hours in 24. Without his support, I seem to be useless.

I have turned into somebody who I do not know.

I think I need help to figure out how to handle with M the issue of money and finances. The more I think about it immigration and marriage are not that important. If he gets deported we could just go to South America, probably Argentina. I love So America and he loves the idea of it.

As far as marriage, I am not sure. Out of a half dozen or so of M's nieces that live here in our city, only one is legally married. They call themselves husband and wife, have children, and everybody thinks of them as such. I am not sure exactly why they do it this way.

Marriage would only put me at a disadvantage if one thinks economically and legally. I am not sure why I keep worrying about it.

I know that this is not directly a FOO matter, it must somehow be related. I am opening myself up here, so be gentle.

The solution I have come up with is this: To buy a fixer upper investment house in the new Big City where we are going, if we like it there. M wants to invite my son to work with him. He wants to train him to work. He really wants this. He has long spoke of it, or working with at risk youth, as a way to help them take control of themselves and their lives. He has done it before, with other young men and been successful. One who is now married to his niece had never before worked and was a gang member. He believes there is a good chance that my son will do this and there is a reasonable chance he will succeed. He sees no costs to himself for trying.

If I bought a fixer upper, I could pay him for his work, job for job, or we could work out a deal whereby he would receive a portion of whatever gains we made. Or it could be a hybrid deal, he could be paid for jobs, and receive a bonus from whatever gain there was, if any.

The understanding would be that with what he earned, he would pay for half of our living expenses. Or if we agreed that he would receive a percentage of any gain, off the top he would pay me back for half of our living expenses that had been incurred.

I do not know of another way to fix this.

So, now I am relating all of this to my FOO. Nobody ever helped me. M does. To the extent that I was involved with my FOO about money, they stole from me. He does not.

My mother did I must say, when I put pressure on her once to keep a promise she made, fork up a little bit of money. Another time I had to sue her because she had stolen my inheritance. I got a tiny, tiny portion of what she had stolen.

I have no experience what so ever with taking care of myself with money. None. I have no experience what so ever of being taken care of or treated well in a relationship. None.

I am sorry to heap all of us on you. Thank you.

 

[BusynMember]

Hi. I'm so sorry you're feeling sad. I'm waiting for the boys to get here. Enjoyed a day of being alone. Washed my hair and sat outside to dry it. Very warm here but not humid today. Scene in the back yard is beautiful. Very quiet neighborhood. I don't like neighborhoods with such inward, quiet neighbors but don't like nosy neighbors either. Guess I'm hard to please. This house is immaculate. Bart was NOT like this at home...lol.

Ok, where to start Well, first of all I will probably be all over the place because I don't have time to check the order in which you addressed issues. I do think that having an unsatisfactory conversation with your son triggers other issues in you, as it does in almost all loving mothers. Maybe because I sort of am like a Difficult Child and thumb my nose at convention, I don't think you should care one bit about if M. makes less money than you or if he makes any money at all because, as a person, he is so good and gives you what you need and want. Why care what foolish outsiders think about your arrangement? How happy are THEY in their relationships? Who are they to judge yours?

I like the idea of your son learning to work (a trade) with M. It is kind of him to offer and would form a bond with Difficult Child and also give him training to get on track. That one passes the test in *my* book.

Does not not make up for the fact that you have more assets than him? His kind intentions, good heart, love of your son?

I see a diamond in the rough. You should feel proud and lucky to have him. I guess the "married" part would maybe bother ME a little (not you possibly), but if they have been apart for eleven years it does not seem that he sis hiding this from anybody or that he is ever going to be with her again. This is more like an informal divorce. I would probably push the divorce bit, but that's me. It's not like he was living with his wife when you met him and that you broke up their marriage.

I think you should text your son that you love him and give M. a big hug when you see him next because both will make YOU feel good and this thread is about no longer satisfying others in place of ourselves. WE need to do what makes US happy.

Copa, I may post a thread about Amtrak. What a nightmare. I ended up getting here by Greyhound and will never use Amtrak again. Ugh. Flying too expensive for me plus I'm not a fan of flying. Greyhound was good to me. I enjoyed myself. The three hour layover in Chicago was peaceful and the folks were friendly. Amtrak...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It was not the people, it was how their train (for the second time I've taken one to this area) was running four hours late so I just got off in Milwaukee with the Milwaukee people thinking I couldn't go to MIssouri and expecting Jumper and hubby to pick me up. But then I saw that it was a Greyhound Station too and I called hubby and, well, here I am. I made it. If I had stayed on Amtrak, I would not be here today.

Sorry for my own little vent. I hope you think about w hat nice things you can do for yourself tonight. I will "talk" to you later. Take GOOD good!!!!

 

[Copabanana]

It was not the people, it was how their train (for the second time I've taken one to this area) was running four hours late so I just got off in Milwaukee

SWOT, you are an angel. By this I mean I have not ever had better friends than are you and Cedar. I do not know if that says something bad about me or not.

Sometimes the only thing I look forward to is opening the computer and getting on this site. Honestly, it feels almost as good as having lady neighbors who I love, and can't wait to get to the yard and look over the fence each morning, to chat with you with my coffee in my hand. You on one side, and Cedar on the other. And then we all go in front of the house to sit on the porch.

That said, our experience with Amtrak is completely different. The longest trip we have taken is maybe 6 hours. Except for the time we killed a poor man en route, and the train became part of a crime scene, the delays have been relatively short. We like the comfort of the train, that you can walk around. Almost always I meet people on the train, and have deep and helpful conversations about important and intimate things. That I remember for a long time, and that have helped me. Particularly about my mother's death.

I find if you talk to people honestly they will often answer you honestly--if they are strangers and will never see you again.

We are likely to take the train across country when we go. Even though Greyhound will only cost $129 or so one way. Amtrak is more than twice that.

We hate Greyhound because of delays. In our part of the country they could care less. We get so furious. To spare ourselves that it is almost worth the savings.

I am glad that you arrived safely. The yard sounds really nice. Make sure you really give yourself a vacation and lay around outside, if you can.

Try to keep us posted about how it is going with Junior and Bart. We are all so invested in the activities. I want to know how that goes for you.

About M. I am so grateful for your take on things. Sometimes all one needs to do is tell somebody. Get it out. Because when it is inside it can be so shaming. I feel like such a weight is off of me.

I forgot to mention it. But the evil sister and her husband, before M met me tried as much as they could to exploit him or took advantage of his love and sense of responsibility. She lost out big time with our relationship. She lost M's support by her bad behavior towards us. And she lost her source of free labor.

For a time I hired her husband to drive me to work and back when I was afraid to drive. I paid him $100 a day for about 4 hours of work. He started driving fast when I asked him not to. I found somebody to do it for $50 a day who listened to what scared me. She got mad and insisted the work was properly theirs. That I should use her husband and pay him $100.

That she would talk bad about our relationship is hardly surprising. In fact she has tried to do this to me.

I almost feel like getting up and doing something constructive. I may.

Now I am seeing how much I am deliberating punishing myself. And I have not yet discovered just what is my crime.

It must have to do with the distress of my son and my inability to help him. How much it hurts me that he suffers so.

Still I do not know why I do this to myself. How does it help to kill myself off, if I feel he as at risk? Not at all.

Thank you again, SWOT. I will try to do something. Even a little bit to help myself and not hurt myself.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

OK. I have gotten something FOO-related from that very long post I made. And it is this:

We already knew this:

When my son is suffering, I feel it is either my fault or my responsibility to fix, or both. And I cannot stand the feelings that come up.

When I am blocked from taking some constructive action...I go after myself. I am presuming here that I do so in response to the feelings. I think there must be a progression involved.

At first I just feel bad and go about my day as best I can.

Then, create a bad environment for myself, but not doing one good thing to make my day better. I feel bored. I feel self-disgust. In time, I have substituted myself as the problem at hand. No longer is it my son. It is me.

So this is the shift. I can do something about me. I can punish myself. I now have control.

The twist that has occurred is two-fold.

I have substituted myself for my son as the object of concern.
I have changed the affect from positive to negative.

This shift accomplishes several aims:

It turns passive to active. Which is to say, I can take action.
It punishes me.
In a primitive way, it saves my son. Because I have substituted myself as a victim, in place of him.

It seems clear to me why one would want to turn passive to active. That is, to be able to take action instead of waiting and worrying unable to do one little thing.

But the question that arises is why would I want to punish myself?
And that has to be looked at historically.

So I take action. I escalate I think or do something to bring myself down.

I scan my universe and hit on whatever crime I can find.
First I think it. Then I will actually act it out, like going after M.

But thing is, it is not only that I punish myself.

It is as if their is an imbalance, a disequilibrium in my psyche that I cannot tolerate.

It is almost as if there is a symbolic scale in my brain, and I set out to redistribute psychic weight between myself and whoever is the object of my concern.

When my son is distressed, and if I cannot do anything to ease my worries, this dynamic comes to have a life of its own, and I cannot continue as I am without some sort of psychic purge.

I give a pound of flesh, my flesh, to recreate balance. I do this by diminishing myself. By taking myself down. By insults and accusations, against myself and who I love, I attempt to dismantle what I have through my thinking.

By diminishing in my own mind and others, what I have, to the point of actually destroying it. Believe you me, if SWOT had not answered me, I would have gone on a rampage with M when he came home. And caused him unnecessary and undeserved hurt.

I begin to feel that I am or I am living in a way that is shameful and stigmatizing. (I have not discarded as significant, that I have chosen to live with and love somebody who is in a stigmatized class of persons; and that itself is a punishment.)

The thing is, with M I feel I have more, not less.

There are things to work on to be sure, but the whole of the thing is honest and truthful and dignified and respectful and healthy.
Even though I know that I have chosen a relationship that others might believe was wrong or improper. And even acknowledging that I may have done so for a reason...a psychological reason.

But back to the dynamic.

I begin to feel if I am living as if in an abusive relationship. That I am allowing myself to be abused. I feel shame. That I need to confess.

I am back to my past as a child.

And now I know I feel as if I am a small child with my father. And my mother is mad. And I know that one way or another I will be hurt. And I do not know what to do. It feels to be too much. I have no way out. I need to placate somebody. What do I do?

So, when my son is in distress, and there is nothing I can do, it feels like it was me.

And the only thing I can do is punish myself. And destroy what little I do have. Because that is only way I can cope with my feelings. Because I am a bad, bad girl. Because there is no escape, except for chewing off part of a limb.

So there we are.

Where are you Cedar? I hope everything is OK.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I go visit my grandson out-of-state tomorrow so I may be on in the morning, but will probably not be on much while I'm there. I hear it's going to be 105 degrees.

:O)

Our daughter and grands left the day before yesterday. They arrived safely home last night. Where they live it is also in the high 90s and into the 100s.

Wishing you and grand such a nice time, SWOT.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

Copa, I feel the same about you and Cedar. I won't have much time here though.

Things are going well. Junior is lots of fun. Bart is a good host. The house is cold; the weather is HOT.

I have to go. Don't want to leave Junior to computer chat, but thinking of you both and will get back when I can!!!!

Be good to yourselves! Cedar, glad you had a great time reconnecting. That's so precious.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I do not like where I am going with this because I do not want to accept that my son is like my family.

I have allowed unpleasant conclusions regarding FOO, Copa. At first, all those terrible ways I saw myself, all that hatred, all that wrongness ~ those feelings, raw and unfiltered, were there inside me. (I was beginning to wonder what I'd stumbled into!)

These issues are slowly resolving.

It was another pocket of toxicity.

But I made it through; or at least, I see that I am making progress and so I know that I will come through it.

I found my process relevant in regard to your comment Copa because our responses, that willingness not to confront or even, to justify taking it out on ourselves (as I did in putting writing aside, as you did in putting your life on hold) may be playing into this for our kids. We (I do) need to stop sacrificing ourselves because it is not working. We need to be stronger; we need to be present; we need to see clearly and stop functioning around fulcrums of guilt or shame. It is what it is; our kids need us, and we need to stand up and the old ways are not working.

That is why we are sifting through all this. To learn where the leftover brokenness is and address it so we can change things for ourselves and for our kids. Weakness hasn't worked. No hero stepped up as the males who love us stepped into the fray for us when, as beautiful young girls, we left our toxic FOO behind. Perhaps that is how we thought this would resolve. That if we sacrificed everything that we created, sacrificed everything that we were passionate about or that was good about us, someone would save us. That is the lesson of our young lives: Just don't think, Cedar. Don't you dare, Cedar.

There is something important here, Copa and SWOT.

Something having to do with core belief systems.

From this time, we will come away knowing we are our own heroes.

That may be the hero imagery, the concept and music and feeling of hero imagery accompanying this time, for me.

We have been saved before by males who love us, because they loved us. Now, we will save ourselves because we love ourselves. After all this so long a time, SWOT and Copa and IC, we are unraveling the truth of those messages we learned in the toxic pond.

Our compassion, vulnerability, and trust have exposed the predators in our lives. Though these were painful things for us to acknowledge, at the end of the day, we have seen the paltriness of their reward systems exposed.

We can leave them behind; we know now who they are.

Now I forgot where I was going with this.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

No. I do not think so. I think they think they are loving. And to the extent that they are able, they do love.

I was thinking of my sister here, Copa. She spends love like money, "seeding into" relationships with a coldness, a calculation impossible to accept.

Seems true, though.

I wonder if it could be true that how we see our money is how we love? And my sister could elicit donations from utter strangers on a two hour plane ride.

Disparaging others, including the victim of the behavior itself, for overreacting.

And minimizing or even denying the upsetting behaviors themselves.

And if their terms are not accepted, they leave or do something similar.

Sounds like our mothers and sisters in relation to us, doesn't it Cedar?

Yes. Also, the classic pattern of every abusive personality type. Rather than seeing the victim's hurt, devaluing the victim so there is no victim. If there is no victim, there cannot have been an upsetting behavior.

I think that for my sister, and for my mother too maybe, there is a effort to change the parameters of what was initially perceived as true. For instance, my sister has a rep as being someone in it for the money, whether we are talking marriage or family or her right to inherit my parents' home and her discussions with them to that effect even when my father was alive. Of course, there is no question now about who will inherit what is left. My sister and her family have picked everything clean. The reasoning is that no one else has trustworthy children to pass anything on to. This could explain my mother's change of heart relative to the grand born with spina bifida. While my father was alive, the Will, so my brother told me, left the house to that grand. If he told me, he is likely to have told my sister. The time frame would be about right, now that I think about it. If my sister had been made aware of what the purported Will is supposed to have said, she would have had enough time by now to work on separating the grand from her grandmother. (And my sister has an inordinate interest in all things having to do with money and inheritance and etc even now, when she has remarried and has enough stuff of her own.)

Isn't that something.

I had never thought of that possible angle, before.

Stare TRUTH in the face, taking the emotion out of it. With the emotion gone, the movie plays as it is. Emotion is often our downfall.

There is an essential difference between myself and my sister. I have always known this. I have not wanted to believe it and questioned my own integrity when confronted with her lack of integrity. My father knew and understood my sister. Could it be that my purpose here is to say what I see once I see it. If I add the events surrounding the betrayal of the grand with spina bifida, if I put that betrayal into a context of time; if I add all these things up ~ the tire rimming machine from my father's garage, the man who wanted to marry my mother, the requirement that sister's grand be the Chosen grand though my brother's grands were the same age and younger....

Could it be true that my sister could hold this kind of power?

Yes.

And as evil does do, it begins with ridicule proceeding to triangulation and then to outright victimization.

Again I do not think they use love to bait the trap. At least in my family, I know my Mother loved me in the way she could.

My sister gains entry and trust through claiming to love, and legitimacy for the craziest, cruelest things through claiming to "walk with the Lord".

But it's working for her.

I do not think they say they love us to set us up. At least in my family they don't. They say the words. And they believe themselves.

In my family, we may wish for love. It looks like sabotage is irresistible to us.
Somehow, we all seem to be trapped in that culture of scarcity Brene Brown writes about.

I think you should text your son that you love him and give M. a big hug when you see him next because both will make YOU feel good and this thread is about no longer satisfying others in place of ourselves. WE need to do what makes US happy.

I love this. This is true.

:O)

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

While my father was alive, the Will, so my brother told me, left the house to that grand.

If I understand this correctly, this is so ugly.

If the intent of your father was to protect this child, to protect his son, your brother, and your sister chose to subvert this arrangement. To rob this child, to rob the protections to this child. To rob the assistance to your brother, to the extent that he would worry less and have a lesser burden.

To the extent that a Christian Woman, who identifies with the ideals of Christ would plot such a thing, do such a thing....well, I do not want to even write what I think it is.

Could it be that my purpose here is to say what I see once I see it.

Could well be.

Do you think as well it is a way almost to create a new kind of identity...as someone who sees and says what she sees...to see yourself as such. Once it is out there...it is there for you to see yourself. To own it and to change more.

For example, I am using the posts to write out what I feel about one thing or another. More and more I write from a strong point of view. I have seen abuse. I record what I have seen. I condemn what I see.

Sometimes when I write I get afraid. I think that other people will get mad at me. Criticize me. I fear I look too strong. That my tone is too strident. Too forceful. I do it anyhow.

I become a different sort of person, doing this.

A person afraid to speak out but who does it anyhow.
Each time I become stronger.

I become a person who sees abuse, records it and condemns it. I begin to see myself as such, as no longer just a victim. As somebody with a voice. I feel strong. I feel sure.

Cedar, I am appalled by your sister and your mother and what is happening about money. I am appalled this is happening to you. I hate that they can plot and plan and act in this way....

My sister did this and did influence my Mother to reverse a bequest to me. It was considerable, 100 k.

I asked my Mother in the year before she died in what bank did she put the money. I cared so little over the years about it, I was always forgetting the bank.

My mother responded she had moved the money to the trust and it would be disbursed from there.

I knew what that meant. She had changed her mind. My mother never kept a promise. She always felt that anything she could say, she could change. Just like that. Often she did not even remember, what she had said, what she had promised. She was always like this.

But this time she remembered. If she felt a moment's guilt I am glad. I doubt she did. Changing her mind was her right.

As much as I would want you to fight them...I am glad I never entered their little cesspool. Let your corrupt sister dirty herself by climbing down into the mud. While she smiles at everybody, all dressed in white. I see her as she is. Dirty.

Thank goodness D H was successful and you do not need what she is robbing. Your sister never forgets that. And it eats her up. That her acts of avarice cannot touch you. Like she wants.

I think yours is the worst sister of our little triumvirate. Mine might act worse but your sister's hypocrisy takes the cake.

My sister justifies what she does through her sense of entitlement and having been wronged.

Your sister seems almost criminal. Almost like a con artist, a grifter, with a smile and a cross. I am sorry Cedar. You deserve a better sister. You do not deserve what you got.

 

[BusynMember]

Checking in to my dear friends and hoping their days are good!

I met Bart's girlfriend and we hit it off right away. Just love her and she really gets Bart. He is very lucky to have found her.

Can't stay to address anything, but please be nice to yourselves and try to enjoy each moment by itself, a skill I am trying to learn. It's not easy for me!

 

[Copabanana]

Could it be true that my sister could hold this kind of power?

Yes.

And as evil does do, it begins with ridicule proceeding to triangulation and then to outright victimization.

Actually, I do not see it as power. I see it as avarice.

I see her as a small person, an impoverished person, spiritually. It is not surprising that she must cloak herself in the robes of Christ as a way to conceal from herself what she has become. So small she is that she can grasp that which is someone else's. Someone weaker and vulnerable.

This is primitive behavior, not powerful behavior. She is not big enough or brave enough to seize what she wants from someone else's mouth. She is not big enough to engage in hand to hand combat. Certainly she is not big enough to denounce them to their face, like a real person would do.

She ingests her prey, in order to get what is in their mouths and stomachs. She eats them whole. I am sorry, Cedar, your sister is not powerful. Your sister acts like a reptile. I am so sorry.

You deserve a sister who is stalwart, courageous, subtle, sensitive and true. Your sister is acting as if reptilian. I am so sorry.

Please forgive me, Cedar. I do not mean to hurt you.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

About M. I am so grateful for your take on things. Sometimes all one needs to do is tell somebody. Get it out. Because when it is inside it can be so shaming. I feel like such a weight is off of me.

Shame is a strange thing. Global shame...I am thinking here Copa about how harsh you have been with yourself in other conversations; I am thinking about the words you use to describe yourself physically, and how hurtful those choices of words have sometimes been. I am thinking about the quality of mercy, and about the number of times we have posted about your need to cherish and befriend yourself, and about honor and mercy for who you are, for all you have come through.

And all I have come through, and all SWOT and IC too, have come through.

Only you can know Copa, whether the deficits involved in your relationship to M outweigh the wonder of your relationship to M. The deficits are real. So is the wonder.

If M makes you happy, bless yourself and have him. If the nature of the relationship is such that you are questioning your commitment to it, then bless yourself and leave him.

I do know this, Copa. Shame and FOO issues play a part in how you see your relationship to M because they play a huge part ~ perhaps the defining part ~ in the way you see and cherish yourself.

If M is not honoring you, then he must leave. Healing FOO issues is a pain filled, confusing process. We are changing. We are learning to replace contempt and self hatred with honor for ourselves. It is a confusing process. We are no longer sure of who we are or of how we feel or of what we value. We require steady support, unconditional love, true respect.

Those are the things we require, now.

I almost feel like getting up and doing something constructive. I may.

Now I am seeing how much I am deliberating punishing myself. And I have not yet discovered just what is my crime.

It must have to do with the distress of my son and my inability to help him. How much it hurts me that he suffers so.

He chooses this life, Copa.

If he were not happy, he would be doing something else. That he suffers is an effect of the lifestyle he chooses. We cannot change that. What we can do is maintain our healthy boundaries. We can find it in our hearts to love them where they are. We do not get to enable. Enabling will lead to loss of respect for us and for themselves. There is no love Copa, without respect.

Enabling destroys respect and turns our children into beggars and storytellers.

So, we don't get to enable. It would be better for us if we could learn not to punish ourselves for choices others are making.

I had to learn that.

It was hard, but I did it. You can, too. Sometimes, I just don't speak.

Respect that your son is making a choice to self destruct. Imagine yourself consoling the mother of a child your son's age with a terminal illness. It will help you to understand your situation more clearly Copa, if you can do that.

What is happening to you now is one of the scariest things that could ever happen to anyone.

None of this is easy. Give yourself credit for having survived it thus far.

We all should do that.

You knew when you adopted your child that his would not be an easy life. What you could never have suspected is that, once you got him safely through his childhood, the danger to him would come from himself.

How would you comfort a mother in your position, Copa? With compassion, but not pity. She would be a strong woman, to have survived all that she has thus far.

You would respect her for that, Copa.

This is how you must treat yourself. Admire yourself for your courage in fighting him for his own sake, Copa. Bless yourself for the way you love him and for your courage in letting him go.

I think there is no greater pain than watching our children self-destruct.

Still I do not know why I do this to myself. How does it help to kill myself off, if I feel he as at risk? Not at all.

Maybe you don't feel you deserve to live; maybe, you are afraid to move ~ afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Maybe, you feel that you must be punished because he suffers and that is just the place FOO beliefs can get a toehold and overwhelm us, and once they do, they never stop until we are dead, literally or figuratively.

I was afraid like that about two years into daughter's acting out. I could not know what I had done, so I stopped doing anything. I stopped interacting in the same way with my son, too. He says to this day that I abandoned him. I was no longer sure of myself; I no longer felt the authority or validity of a mother.

How did I come back from that?

I didn't.

I created a life having nothing to do with children. I was scared to death when I had grands ~ so afraid that whatever I had done to my daughter and then, to my son, I would do also to them.

As I see it now, I did marvelously well as a mom at home ~ beautifully! But when the feedback was no longer bright, healthy children learning and growing well, I collapsed into FOO reality. Because, knives at the ready, they were waiting to pounce, those old belief systems.

Poof.

I was gone.

That is the enemy, Copa. FOO teachings and learnings.

That is why we are doing this good work we are doing here on this thread. To eradicate their rules and their teachings and even their memories, and replace them with healthy and real things.

It is working. We are doing so well.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It is almost as if there is a symbolic scale in my brain, and I set out to redistribute psychic weight between myself and whoever is the object of my concern.

I like this imagery. I think that as we mothered and mothered well, those scales were balanced in our favor. Our FOO were terrible, toxic things, but they mattered less than our beautiful lives. When our children fell, the scales became unbalanced.

The blindfold fell away.

Behind it?

The smug, condemnatory eyes of our mothers. They told us they'd known all along that we would fail. After all, if we succeeded where they failed, who did that make them?

Even their condemnation is a global darkness, is nothing personal.

Stop believing them, Copa.

They lie.

Every word out of their mouths: a lie.

And now I know I feel as if I am a small child with my father. And my mother is mad. And I know that one way or another I will be hurt. And I do not know what to do. It feels to be too much. I have no way out. I need to placate somebody. What do I do?

It helps me to understand that what I need to do is hold myself with compassion. Even if I hate myself, that is what I must do. I understand that the way it feels today is a pale echo of what it felt like when it was happening to that little girl that I was. You can save her now, Copa; but you have to not give up on her. The intensity of the feelings now is an echo. How, in all the hells that ever were, did that little girl who was you survive it when she knew nothing about the world, or that she would escape the mother one day?

Your loyalty cannot be to your mom, Copa.

Your loyalty is to that little girl that was you.

I felt myself to be so ugly, when I first began going back to rescue that girl that I was. I loved her, anyway. I assured her we had survived. I assured her that, as I was there with her now, I was also there with her, then.

And we made it; and I always knew we would make it because I came back for her, and I could not have done that if we had not always been meant to make it.

We are here on purpose, Copa.

I don't know what your purpose will be. I do know it is important that you heal, that you do your best to heal.

It was important for me, for SWOT, for IC. We have this forum. Here we all are.

And we are recovering and uncovering and healing at a truly remarkable pace.

:O)

Happy Hour here. D H is waiting. He has already sent the dog in to get me once.

Have a good night, everyone.

Cedar

 

[nerfherder]

And so, my father never even had an obituary, let alone a 21 gun salute.

I may still create a memorial for him.

The VFW is very determined to make things right in many situations. If there is a VFW post in your area, stop in there one day, talk to their chaplain, explain the situation best you can and see what can be done. Blacksmith is quartermaster at our local post, and I know in a similar situation he would talk around and see what could be done.

(American Legion does similarly so, you might check with them if there isn't a VFW in your area.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Hi, Nerfherder!

:O)

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I see her as a small person, an impoverished person, spiritually. It is not surprising that she must cloak herself in the robes of Christ as a way to conceal from herself what she has become. So small she is that she can grasp that which is someone else's. Someone weaker and vulnerable.

Well, that is the thing with my sister. She seems so vulnerable, she cries huge tears at the drop of a pin, she cries loud and hard in front of everyone. What else do I know about my sister. She is very tired all the time. She talks like she has laryngitis when she is tired, so you will know she is at the end of her rope, coping-wise.

We had posted before about the manipulation involved when someone with beautiful eyes watches you while their eyes fill with tears.

Oh man, I am getting mad at myself for not having seen these things before. But...what was it I was supposed to be seeing.

Then, there is this other side, this other set of true things. These changes in her seem to have occurred either after her marriage or after my father died...after her last marriage, I would say. She has money, now. Maybe that has freed her to act openly. As I see her in this new, hard-eyed way, I see other things, strange hurtful things, she has done to me for all of her life.

Or maybe, I am the one seeing more clearly. It is likely that my sister has always been this way. I was just so focused on that family dinner imagery I had going on that I believed my way past what she did and right into ~ I don't know what.

The question becomes whether I love her or fear her. She has always had access to me; she still does. Only now, she is hearing things she does not want to hear and so, is not choosing to stalk or threaten or pursue me. I no longer agonize over how I will handle a call from her. It is true that I have been forever supportive of my sister. That is the essential change, here. That is the difference in the words I said during our last conversation. It is true that she was crying silently and misjudged her timing...so that was a manipulation, too.

Why?

Why doesn't matter.

The danger there would be that my mother will die in her care and I will never see my mother again and feel guilty about that forever and blah, blah, blah.

I am having trouble fitting things together around my sister.

My relationship to my mother, and my mother's relationship to me, is between myself and my mother.

It has nothing to do with my sister.

Except it certainly does seem to have everything in the world to do with my sister. Isn't that something.

And she did stalk and hurt my child; what aunt does that kind of thing?!? It was a kind of naming, for my sister to have done that to my daughter. That would explain why she then had to be certain I knew what she had done.

Right?

Because she did want me to know that she "knew".

Like it was a secret or something, when all either my sister or my mother would have had to do was to make a phone call. I think I was still taking their calls in that time....

It is hard to believe what I think I know could be true.

It is probably important for me to keep at this until, as happened with my mother too, I finally believe it.

I still keep seeing my sister's eyes fill with tears. I keep seeing her as such a pretty young girl. I see hateful things, too. Very bad things she did; very bad attitudes and behaviors toward me.... The same kinds of things going on now, now that I think about it. That same kind of ridicule and isolation and victimization.

Remember, "What would Cedar do?"

And they laughed and laughed about that; and my sister made sure I would know that my mother had been turned.

Why else would that happen?

Anyway. My conclusion is that there is something the matter with my sister. She hates me like a green eyed snake. If I were dead, she would do everything in her power to destroy my memory or change my story. She is behaving as though I am dead, now.

She is changing my story, now.

It is one thing to leave a situation alone. It is something wicked to do what my sister has been doing ~ especially when I add in the Wizard of Oz plaque, the "sisters online" group she was trying to start (the premise there being that sisters can be found anywhere). She wanted me to be part of the group; I was invited as she formed it. I did not participate because life is full and I had so little interest in "sisters" I did not know. It was supposed to be that each of the "sisters" would be loyal to one another in a business and in a personal sense. I don't know whether she found online sisters or not. If she did, I suspect they would have ulterior motives like my real sister does, too. They would deserve one another, if this were true.

My sister is forever looking for those kinds of guarantees. It echoes the "pact of non-exclusion". It echoes the fundamentalist Christian concept of no divorce in the marriage she entered into the last time.

But again, the sisters online thing ~ it was strangely insulting. I disregarded those feelings, like I always do for her sake. It could be true that sisters can be found in many places...but I think not. Friendships of the heart, love between friends is a right and true thing; something closer than sisters have, perhaps.

But a sister is a sister. Whether we love or hate or feel nothing for them, our sisters are unique in all the world.

Like everything my sister touches, the internet site was, of course, counterfeit from its inception.

It is the same question: What is the win? It cannot be just my parents' house. Surely my sister could buy her own house. It is almost as though she wants to be king. That is the feel of it, in every way. And if we haven't noticed that she is king now, then she does and says the strangest things. That part, I absolutely believe. The part about wanting to be king, I mean. I don't know about those other mean things I said. Sister may not know a thing about the potential behest to the disabled grand; it is true though that my mother's feelings have changed most blatantly, and most shockingly, regarding this grand. And that while this change occurred after my father's death, it did not happen until my mother had been spending winters at my sister's for a few years.

And when the change happened, it was sudden and seemingly, irrevocable.

Could it be true that my sister holds that kind of power?

Here is a true piece of what happened with that grand: My sister and my mother both seem to have developed a thing about intelligence. Who is "smart". My sister is forever harping about my mother being so "smart". (As an aside: My sister has never been known for her "smarts". I don't know how that fits in here, but I am sure that it does.) Anyway, when my mother was telling me about how her feelings for the disabled grand had changed, her rationale was that she should not have to spend time with people who were not "smart", who were not entertaining.

The brain power of the disabled grand was not, of course, affected by her physical disability. She is a beautiful woman with a full intellectual complement.

Things are just such a mess in my FOO. Every time I write FOO instead of writing out Family of Origin, I think of nlj's post on the definition of FOO in Wales.

In Wales? FOO is female genitalia.

)

It seems this way to me: My goal (our goal) is to define ourselves in relation to our FOO. (Hello, nlj :O) Once we have what feels like the truth regarding the motives and reward systems fueling the strange things that happen when we interact with our FOO, we can begin accepting the truth of our situations as children and can begin disregarding the things we were taught to believe about ourselves.

That is our gold standard, here.

It seems to me now that my sister plays a bigger part in what happens in my FOO than I have believed possible.

It may be that my sister really does do these things; that she really does somehow manage to make them happen. I mean, not that they are not happening, but that they are happening at my sister's behest. That seems impossible, and like a very bad way for a person (me) to think about someone else, especially a sister. I suppose it will have to be like it was when I was trying to figure out the value in the interactions I had with my mother: No compassion; not yet.

Daughter spent time with the family of the grand with spina bifida, and with that grand and her husband, on July 5th. The topic of conversation was my mother, and the strange things that have happened since my father's death.

I wonder what I am trying to figure out, here.

How could one person hold that kind of power?

Oh for heaven's sake. It's like I have never progressed at all. I am still wound around what the win could possibly be, in my FOO. (Hello, nlj.)

What could it be?

Where is the win when surely my sister has enough money to buy her own second home on whatever lake she wants? It cannot be the inheritance ~ not of the house, and not of any of the stuff.

So, what is it that motivates my sister (and my mother).

Well, it could be an alliance with evil; it could be the naming and creation of perennial victims (my brothers and me) to bolster the self.

In a way, that is what happened to David Peltzer. (A Child Called It)

That would mean everyone else has to be a victim, and has to be victimized and cannot be anything but victims. That would be a heady power to believe you held. If you were unable to exercise it against someone like me, you might instead believe gathering with your fundamentalist Christian cohorts to call down a ring of thorns or fire or whatever it was would be just a great thing to do.

Do you suppose that is it?

Cedar

I wonder why I am thinking so much about my sister. I am going to follow it down. Change is happening here.

I am becoming so angry.

It feels like being pinched repeatedly by someone very mean. Like that mean little girl in that show about life on the prairie with that handsome Little Joe Cartwright whose real name I can't remember but, woo!!

:O)

That was a pretty man.

***

And actually, that is exactly what my sister does do, and has always done.

Pinch for the meanness in it.

And just as is true of my mother, you do not love a sister enough to love her out of wanting to pinch you. Interesting that my sister would justify herself (her tiredness and martyrdom where my mother is concerned) based on the concept of "loving" her out of her dysfunction. For heaven's sake. She was using my own concepts against me and pinching me the whole time.

But, why.

***

That is the guilt my sister is employing against my mother. And I saw it and I heard it and have even described so many incidents of it here...but I did not believe my mother harbored guilt over what she had done when I began this.

How extraordinary.

It looks like I will get this unraveled to my own satisfaction after all.

How important my longing for a sister has been to me. How my longing for that stupid dinner has impacted my life and belief systems since the beginning. Part of that was that if things looked beautiful and well done, I believed my mother would be able to relax and enjoy...and would be happy; and that is where I accuse myself, when things go so wrong.

That my mother was not happy and that I needed to stay vigilant, to keep my focus on her emotional state and not on anything else.

That could be.

It was a lovely fantasy. I am happy that I did that, that I tried to see them and myself like that. You never do know. It could have come true. That it didn't doesn't mean it was wrong to believe in it.

But for heaven's sake, how many times does a person have to get pinched before she gets a clue that things are not working?!?

roar

Grrrr.....

Jerks.

 

[allusedup]

Hello to all!I have been looking for this thread for weeks. I have been following your posts, all of you. What I see is amazing. You all have been through and still are going through the worsts things imaginable...things that would paralyze the average person. But none of you are average. You are all strong, beautiful, kind, loving, compassionate women. Still putting one foot in front of the other, facing whatever each new day brings AND reaching out to help each other. I know many people who have been through much less and all they can think of and talk about is themselves. No, you are not average.
Copa, about M...I was married to a man that never worked. Never supported me in anything, never helped me with anything (repairs on the house, housework), was very verbally abusive, caused problems with my family, used me for what I could give him, smoked pot EVERY DAY and if he ran out, he was worse, and as my son started to get a little older ( about 8 ) he was verbally abusive with him. I stayed at first because I loved him and thought he would change, lol. I was 19. Then I stayed because I felt guilty and sorry for him. Typical battered wife syndrome. My point is this-I left because of the way he treated me and my child. It had nothing to do with money. If he had been half as good to me as you say M is to you, I would have never left. Don't worry what other people say. The qualities M has are a rare thing nowdays, with or without a job. As long as he contributes what he can and doesn't take advantage of you, let it be, in my opinion.
I know you are grieving over your sons problems. I can certainly empathize...as a true enabler, my feelings and mood are directly related to my sons. Have you read 'Co-dependent No More' ? I have read it 3 times and it was the hardest book I've ever read because I saw myself on every page. I was CD with my ex and have been that way with my son. But I am getting better. I am so damaged from my marriage that I will never have another relatioship, just the thought scares me. I am the blacksheep of my foo and T is my only child. So it has been hard but I am trying to let go.
Sorry I have been rambling. I have so much on my mind and no one to talk to. Finding this board is like finding the voice of reason and has become the highlight of my day! Bless you all!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

And once M's niece *the adult daughter of his evil sister, inferred that the reason he was with me was what he got out of it. That I know she heard from her mother.

Here is what I see in this hurtful thing. The sister, maybe sensing her chance to denigrate both you and M because your strength was squandered in grief over your son, essentially named you impossible to love for yourself.

That hit directly the wounds hurt into you when you were a young girl.

She is wrong, Copa.

She named her own brother that same thing. Is there jealousy for M because he took himself away from that endless circle of viciousness this sister encourages? (I am seeing every sister who is mean in the same way I see my own sister.) But here is the thing: my sister's attack on my D H and on the man who wanted to marry my mother was the same kind of attack. An attack whose essential accusation was that the male would not be there, would not be with you (or me) could never love you for who you are because he does not have the capacity to value you (or me ~ or, in the situation with the Greek Orthodox priest who wanted to marry my mother) and is selling himself for things he could never provide on his own.

But that is not true in my D H case.

It was not true, in any sense, in the case of the Greek Orthodox priest.

It is not true of M.

As we all heal, as we all review and examine and understand where these nasty people in our lives are coming from, we will also be addressing the shame in the names we learned at the hands of our initial abusers.

Remember how devastated I was over the first therapist? And then, going through it here with all of you, I came to understand that the mechanism there was the hurt of the initial abuse and had so little to do with him, with who he was and the reality of the role he actually played. (As opposed to the judge, jury, and executioner role I believed him to have played.) All of it, the core of it, having to do with things, with terrible things, that happened to me when I was only a trapped, haunted little girl.

This can have nothing to do with her, or with anything anyone else thinks, Copa. The wound that requires healing has nothing to do with this time. That sister is functioning as the destructive biatch she has always chosen to be.

I cannot come up with an answer as to why they would do that.

Probably, something to do with how we taught ourselves to survive our situations when we were little.

She can be safely disregarded. She has nothing of value to teach you. We, you and me and SWOT and all of us trying to figure out how those initial woundings affect us in our lives today, need to be wary of predators. They are out there. The why behind what they find appropriate, or behind how they declare a win, will not be something we understand.

It just is what it is.

But we do have to see, and to believe what we see.

When did you stop beating your wife.

Accusations impossible to defend against if you are not aware those kinds of accusations are being made. Here is a quote: "Right needs no defense. Just good witness."

And that, we are doing very, very well, here on this thread.

Copa, I respect your honesty. That cannot have been an easy post to write.

Good, good work, Copa.

I loved SWOT's comment, that we should love our mates and ourselves and keep going.

:O)

roar

Good for us.

You are all strong, beautiful, kind, loving, compassionate women.

Woot!

Copa, about M...I was married to a man that never worked. Never supported me in anything, never helped me with anything (repairs on the house, housework), was very verbally abusive, caused problems with my family, used me for what I could give him, smoked pot EVERY DAY and if he ran out, he was worse, and as my son started to get a little older ( about 8 ) he was verbally abusive with him. I stayed at first because I loved him and thought he would change, lol. I was 19. Then I stayed because I felt guilty and sorry for him. Typical battered wife syndrome. My point is this-I left because of the way he treated me and my child. It had nothing to do with money. If he had been half as good to me as you say M is to you, I would have never left. Don't worry what other people say. The qualities M has are a rare thing nowdays, with or without a job. As long as he contributes what he can and doesn't take advantage of you, let it be, in my opinion.

This is beautiful.

But I am getting better. I am so damaged from my marriage that I will never have another relatioship, just the thought scares me. I am the blacksheep of my foo and T is my only child. So it has been hard but I am trying to let go.

We are healing, up. Welcome to the site and to this thread and good for you and good for us. I am glad you are here with us. You fought the good fight and now it is time to heal the wounds and leave it all where it belongs. In the harshness that was the past, for all of us.

:O)

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

Taking a break. Was pitching outside to Junior and it's HOT. So much to say but can't because of spy factor. I am fine with talking about myself with spies, but not so much my kids. Nothing horrible, but interesting and noteworthy. PM me if interested. But am having fun.

Copa, you take good care. I'm worried about you.

Hi, Cedar, IC, AllUsedUp, anyone reading!!!! Be good to you!

I

 

[BusynMember]

And she did stalk and hurt my child; what aunt does that kind of thing?!? It was a kind of naming, for my sister to have done that to my daughter. That would explain why she then had to be certain I knew what she had done.

This is called a dealbreaker to me.