Still. Again. Ditto. He’s Failing

After the blow out during MIL’s birthday dinner, things changed. Slightly. DH told the girls they did not have to go see their grandmother anymore, in fact, DH and I were on board that she wasn’t allowed to see them, never mind the girls didn’t want to at all anyway. DH started out strong, blazing with anger over her behavior over all of it. He refused to call her. Ignored her really which was fine by me. It took three weeks and then she tentatively sent him a text. I’m not sure of their exchanges, but DH kept them brief. After that she started calling him and leaving voice mail messages for him to call her back and they had short discussions then. He still was stiff with her, but they were talking more. DH did tell me that she said “I know I did something bad, but I don’t remember what.” She said this as if that was a reason to forgive her. As if she didn’t really mean all the horrible things she said and did that night. But, DH was on his game. He said, “Well, if you don’t even remember what happened, then you have a bigger problem than you think and need help.” He was expecting at a MINIMUM an apology to all of us. He indicated she needed therapy for several things as well. And she, playing the game and being all sad and meek, agreed with him. Note, however, at this point it’s been like a month, and not ONCE has she called frantic, knowing she did something bad, but not knowing what, had no real curiosity what “IT” was that she did. I find that strange. If she were a normal person, she would have been mortified, come over, and apologized to everyone immediately. That didn’t happen.

MIL wanted to come over to see the girls. I told DH if she came over it would be for more than just to see the girls. It would be a full on family sit down discussion of her fucked up behavior and what isn’t tolerated. Twice we set a time, a twice she blew us off. It made me so angry. It upset the family. We were thinking she was coming over and we’d all be on pins and needles, then at the last second she’d cancel for stupid shit, like … the weather is too bad. What?? To walk across the cul de sac?

As the six week mark approached I noticed that she was calling as she did before. Just to chat and say hello, and he’d talk to her as always as if nothing in the world had happened. She hadn’t apologized, hadn’t gotten therapy, she had done nothing to deserve his forgiveness, yet there he was treating her just like nothing happened. It hit me then like ton of bricks. He is NEVER, NOT EVER going to hold her accountable for anything she does. Not even when it’s the worse offense she could have done, even in front of our children, even screaming at me that I was a fucking bitch.

I decided I needed to write him a letter and get out what I felt, because at that moment, I felt a lot. In the weeks previous I had been reading my old blog, and was reminded of all of the horrible things I had to endure with that woman. All of the horrible things she did and said and how he never did ANYTHING to fix it. Even if I was sobbing and upset. It was easier for him to let her get away with it and deal with my sadness then hold her accountable or put up any boundaries. When I saw that he was doing it yet again was appalled. But this time was different, because it wasn’t just me, it was our children that were being abused. FULL STOP. This wasn’t going to continue.

This is what I wrote him.

DH:

We can discuss later, but you needed to hear this. Maybe I'll sleep tonight.

I’ve been looking through my online journal after cleaning it up. I was curious to go through it to see some of things your mother said or did in years past since I was sure I had forgotten things. It really gave me some clarity, although I didn’t like it.

Looking back over the years since Oldest was born (and even long before) it is obvious that your mother made me miserable, out loud -- often, ramming herself over boundaries like a freight train. She has been quite fond of attacking my character behind my back with some bald face lie she dreamed up that was aimed to make me look bad. In turn, you’d turn around and ask me if I did [*insert ridiculous accusation*] to offend her. You gave her bullshit story enough credence to question me again and again, which caused me to have to defend myself over and over. I never did any of those things she dreamed up. It was so unfair of both of you. One thing was pretty clear though after a lot of reading. You gave your mother reign to malign me and dream up any fantasy story she could whenever it suited her or when she wanted to emotionally bitch about me to make herself feel better. You allowed her to beat me up emotionally, whether passively or aggressively (in my face and not), and didn't hold her accountable. What type of respect can I believe that either of you had for me between the two of you? She disrespected me by every foul word out of her mouth and every boundary she crossed. She was mean and unfair to me from the very first. You disrespected me by letting her do it again and again regardless of what I said or how upset I was. This hindsight sucks. Now she’s tried to do it with our daughters, talking horribly about me and wanting them to think bad of me. Sorry, but that is seriously EVIL. Yet for some reason, you still think having your mom in the girls’ lives is a good idea?

I had hoped that after her fantastic blow out at the beginning of January it would mean something. That things might change. Instead, she is manipulating you all over again. After realizing this last night, I knew things are never going to change. You were mad at her and I thought ready to face things. That lasted all of two weeks. Once she started with the text messages, it was easy for her to progress to brief phone calls, and now you are back to half hour phone conversations with her as if nothing happened.

For some reason I actually contemplated being gracious enough to let her salvage some sort of relationship with the girls by letting her into my house so she can have her “say.” I plead temporary insanity. Without even stepping foot in it, she’s already stirring up discomfort in our house. She has twice now manipulated our family time by not showing up to the family meeting SHE SAID SHE WANTED. She’s done this with lame, selfish excuses that weren’t excuses at all. It’s making the poor girls’ nerves sit on edge, not to mention mine. This is exactly how she manipulates you. She wants something, you bend, she maneuvers, you chase, and now the whole thing about holding HER accountable is somehow now all about her, on her terms, and on her time frame. She’s in control again! She’s not sorry, DH. She’s not sorry at all.

I just want to understand one thing. For all of your new found determination with her since early January what changed so that she now has your pity, attention and kindness? Did she improve something I am unaware of? Did she get counseling or therapy? Did she stop drinking? Did she even apologize? Did she admit she had a problem? Did she do ANYTHING AT ALL to deserve acceptance or forgiveness from you? From where I sit, it really just feels like you feeding your mom’s pity is more important to you than how anyone else in our family feels.

I did a lot of thinking last night between 2:30 and 6:00 a.m. I realize now that you will continue to let her manipulate all of us. If you wouldn’t stop her from emotionally beating me up for a decade, then why should I believe you are capable of keeping her from doing the same to the girls? I guess it’s up to me to protect them from her. A month in, and she’s already gotten a foothold on you and she’s done nothing to earn it. You will let her emotionally torture us all because you will not hold her accountable whether it’s a week from now, a month from now or a year from now.

You have big problem you refuse to see. You enable her. You have been conditioned since a child to react how you do. You have no gauge. You cannot see the damage she has done and is still doing. Since I cannot rely on you to protect the girls, I have to. I have decided since she can’t be controlled then there can be no contact with her and the girls whatsoever. She is a 71 year old self-gratifying, mentally ill, alcoholic with the emotional intelligence of a four year old. There’s no hope for her, but there is for us and she isn’t taking me and the girls down with her. There will be no discussions at our house with your mother. She is not capable of apologizing and meaning it, she isn’t capable of hearing constructive criticism or having an adult conversation without flipping out and causing a scene. A scene that would surely happen and that I will absolutely not subject the girls to. She isn’t capable of not drinking and not putting our kid’s lives on the line. She has had enough of my family and my sanity. I have been more than fair to her despite seeing me as the fucking bitch she thinks I am. I will not put our children into the path of that emotional wreck anymore until she gets some help and there is some real progression. Until then, I see no reason to subject our girls to her or that drama.

You do whatever you want with yourself and her. She doesn’t seem to disrespect you or treat you badly, just the rest of us. You aren’t the one suffering and certainly my anguish over the years hasn’t bothered you enough to want to make a difference. All I ask is that you respect my choice to protect our children and my sanity and self-respect, because you can’t or won’t.

After reading the letter, DH and I communicated and he told his mother she needed to get help before she could have anything to do with the girls. At least, that’s what he told me he told her. I don’ t know. We went another six or seven weeks when one day DH indicated that his mom wanted to see the girls and was allegedly very concerned about how the girls were feeling about her because of her bad behavior at the dinner. He said that she indicated she was seeing a counselor and that he hadn’t seen her drunk or alcohol in her refrigerator in a while. I was skeptical. Again, I indicated that if she planned on coming over it would be to have a real discussion and for her to apologize.

We set a date and time for this to happen. And happen it did.

We were all sitting in the living room when she entered the house. I would have thought (although frankly I should have known better) that she would have come over with a little bit of contrition or humility over the horrible behavior that night. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Why, even though I know better, and I always surprised when she disappoints? Because she does disappoint. Always.

She came into the house wearing the same smug “I’m-better-than-everyone” attitude that she always does. Our daughters had several concerns that they wanted to share with her and had actually taken the time to write a list on their own of the things that Grandma was doing that was hurting their relationship. They wrote this list so that they could discuss them with her and that they would not forget anything in their nervousness. Again, I was assuming that MIL would have a human/rational reaction to this list and possibly even cry when our girls broached them. Oh no. No. No. No.

While our girls gathered their courage to tell her their feelings, she completely minimized everything that she could not deny outright (the drinking and smoking) and then denied everything else they mentioned. Anything that my daughters told her that she did or said to them that hurt them, she basically called them liars (without using those words) because she said those things never happened. I’ve read so much information that says that Narcissists are consummate liars, but I am still shocked to see it in my own family in front of my very own eyes. MIL lied, lied, lied, and lied on top of lied. She sat there and denied my children their reality by saying that everything they witnessed wasn’t true. My daughters looked at me perplexed because she was lying and they had no idea how to handle an ADULT lying to them. There can be no healing or improvement when someone won't acknowledge their problems.

Previously, I had told DH and she was not allowed any continued relationship with the girls until she got therapy. The first thing MIL did before we talked about anything else after we all sat down is start throwing out stipulations like she had some control She said to me “I know that you had want me to get therapy, but I am not the sole cause of the downfall of this relationship and I am going to require you to get counseling as well.” WOW! That she actually had the impudence to assume the right to stipulate what I do is really telling. She’s pretty full of herself. She doesn’t have anything I want. I could care less if she dropped dead tomorrow. There is not one single thing she can do to me to make me do anything she wanted me to do. What is she going to do? Get mad at me? Stop talking to me? Move? Cut me out of her will? There is nothing MIL can do to hold any leverage over me whatsoever. I actually bubbled up laughing when she said that and I responded with “Oh, MIL, I am so not getting counseling because you think I’m the problem. This is all yours.” She truly believes that I am half the reason we have issues and wants me to take the blame as well. Not happening sister.

After more discussions that went very badly, I realized MIL didn’t have any intention of apologizing, taking responsibility for her actions or behaving in any way that she felt sorry for what she did to our daughters or me or DH. She never apologized. Not once. She never showed any true remorse or desire to change or fix things so that she could have a relationship with us.

I began to slowly lose my cool and we began to argue. Jon left the room with the girls and his mother showed every sign of wanting to go toe to toe with me. After a few minutes of heated discussion, I knew how pointless it was. There is no point in trying to reason with someone that will never take responsibility for themselves or even remotely tell the truth. I knew this, but my husband had to witness it too. Yeah, I’d say he witnessed it. I actually got up and asked her to leave my house.

There was one time when I said something that got me a strange look. All the hostility came off her face and she appeared to lose all the blood in her face. While she was getting her coat on after I asked her to leave, she was still blabbering on about me calling her liar. MIL said to me “You only wish I was a liar.” I laughed again at the absurdity of her statement and said with bored resignation: “MIL, I truly don’t wish you were a liar at all. In fact I wish you would just act like a normal human being.”

THAT was the statement that caused the strange look on her face. I have no idea what it was but all pretense was wiped off her face for a second. Very strange. And then she stormed out.

DH was totally on board with everything I said and was completely shell shocked that she sat there and lied and lied and we knew she was lying. It was like DH has taken the red pill and now he saw the truth. I hope she packs back up and moves back to the West Coast like she is threatening to do.
She still had antics for us though. Oldest told me about an incident she had the next day when she got home from school. MIL basically gave my oldest daughter a big “fuck you.” This was one day after our meeting-gone-bad. My daughter was walking the neighbor dog after she got home from school. As she walked by MIL’s house she heard MIL’s front door open. When my daughter looked up at the front door, my MIL glared at her for a second and then slammed the door. MIL saw her walking by and took the opportunity to send her a message in a shitty, passive aggressive way.

Message received.

But apparently not for DH. Still. Again. Ditto. He’s failing.

More on that in the next entry.

They Don't Like Her -- At All

I am seriously frustrated. Although DH seems to understand and I KNOW he knows that his mother is extremely difficult, that she cannot keep relationships, etc. he continues to insist that the girls have a relationship with his mother. They don’t want to. They don’t like her. They want nothing to do with her. For whatever reason, this is not a good response because DH thinks they have to have a relationship with her. I don’t think that. It feels wrong. Nobody wants to have a relationship with her. NOBODY. I do not exaggerate. She has no friends and no relatives that give a rip about her. Only her two children maintain this. The last friend she had, Janet, (from the previous post) disappeared after MIL’s awful tirade at her birthday dinner. Now that friend is gone too.

I fail to understand why DH would make our children have a relationship with someone that is so miserable to be around. I fail to understand why he would WANT to make his children be around someone who they don’t feel safe with. I personally don’t care if MIL is their grandmother, she's unpleasant and rude. Being a grandma is privilege and she has ruined her privilege. She doesn’t deserve to be their grandmother. The only reason I can see why DH insists on this is because DH is getting pressure from MIL to see them. MIL hates this. She hates this because she’s being told she can’t have something she wants. She doesn’t like being controlled.

When the girls were very young, babies/toddlers, I never saw any behavior from MIL that set off alarm bells. She seemed to care about them and was careful with them. We didn’t leave them with her a lot, and when we did, she usually came to our house. As the girls got older, they began staying at her house across the street while we were gone. Eventually those led to sleep overs and Grandma’s that seemed to go fine. She made pancakes for them in the morning and appeared to be engaging with them. I got no weird vibe that something was wrong.

Once the girls turned 6 and 8, however, I noticed a shift.

The girls began to whine about not wanting to go to Grandma’s house. My youngest would have a fit and not want to stay the night if MIL was watching them when DH and I had a night out. We’d have to talk to her on the phone, calm her down and eventually it worked out ok. I just took it as a new stage with her. I didn’t actually think something was not going well at Grandma’s. At least not then. But, things got worse and worse. And complaints about bad behavior began. Sometimes they’d tell us something that seemed not good. When we confronted MIL about it, she’d say it didn’t happen or that the girls misunderstood her or some such thing. Given their age, we believed her. But, the girls are now 9 and 11 years old and are definitely old enough to understand when something isn’t right and old enough to tell me what happens when they are alone with her.

The truth about what was going on at Grandma’s house started coming out in little dribs and drabs. They told me of situations where if they spent the night, she wouldn’t get her butt out of bed until 11:00 in the morning to make them breakfast or engage with them. She’d make them clean and do things instead of spending time with them, or she’d go shopping with them and then get mad at a sales clerk or waitress and be really mean to them or have an enormous fit in public and the girls would get really embarrassed. A few times MIL would see a heavy person and snicker and tell the girls “look how fat she is, she can barely walk!” Or MIL would pick on some handicapped person in front of the girls. My daughters are good hearted people and to watch their Grandmother do that, upset them. Sometimes MIL would promise to take them to dinner, and then would take them to a fancy inappropriate restaurant they didn’t want to go to just so MIL could have the type of meal SHE wanted. She’d drag them to art and museum functions under the guise of giving them some culture. It bored them to tears. What I realized later as what was really happening is that she went to those fancy adult restaurants so she could have wine at dinner or have the sample wine and food during the functions at the museum and dragged my kids along so she wouldn’t be alone. She didn’t give a hoot about their happiness or whether they had a good time with her. It was never about them!!

So many occasions MIL made terrible choices. Sometimes she would plan to have the girls come over to spend time with them and then invite her “friend of the moment” over when the girls were there. Instead of engaging with them, she’d ignore them and drink and smoke with her friend while the girls were bored to death. This happened a lot.

One time she promise the girls she’d take them to the movies. What really happened was she and her “friend of the moment” decided to go see “The Butler” (rated PG13) and dragged them along. They were 7 and 9 years old I was furious. It was NOT age appropriate. Sometimes I don’t know what the hell she was thinking. There was never any consideration about entertaining her granddaughters. It was about HER and what she wanted and what she wanted to do. It always has been.

I figured out the fancy restaurants ruse because of something she did. Again, MIL loved to have the girls get dressed up and take them out to some place fancy to eat. The girls didn’t want some place fancy to eat!! MIL did though and what mother-in-law wanted, mother-in-law got. She wanted company so she dragged along my children. One night she invited the mentally handicapped older daughter of a family friend and my two daughters out to fancy restaurant. When she brought the friend’s daughter home later that night, MIL put her car into the ditch in front of our friend’s house. MIL explained to us that she overshot the driveway and slid into the ditch because of the ice. We believed her. Later, we found out that wasn’t true. The friend of the family called and was furious because MIL was drunk and watched her stumble around the driveway and try and lie her way out of it. The friend’s husband pulled her car out of the ditch and the two of them brought everyone home, the husband driving MIL’s car. DH’s mother drove drunk with an 8 year old, a 10 year old and a 17 year old girl with Downs Syndrome in her car. SHE WAS WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN and didn’t give a shit that she was drunk. Once that happened, we never let our daughters go over to spend the night if she was driving them anywhere. She was not allowed. It was okay during the day. For whatever reason we didn’t think that was a problem. I think we were proven wrong. I wouldn’t have let her have them EVER AGAIN, but again. DH seems to think Grandma loves her granddaughters. I say the fuck she does!

It seemed like once my girls got to an age where they had an opinion and wanted to use it, things with MIL started going downhill. The girls didn’t want to go over there anymore. It wasn’t fun. And I think not only was it not fun, it was sometimes frightening. I don’t blame them. I have no idea what else was going on, but I can only guess. My girls are frightened of her anger. I’m pretty sure that she has raged at them when they questioned her or didn’t do exactly what she wanted.

MIL can get so vindictive and petty and part of her personality came out one night about a year ago when we went over to MIL’s house for dinner. MIL asked the girls to set the table and my Youngest announced “I want to sit next to momma.” Well, that didn’t sit well with MIL. The petty vicious bitch was jealous because my daughter wanted to sit next to ME! She told my Youngest, that she wasn’t allowed to sit next to me, she had to sit next to her. Youngest got very upset and told her Grandma that she wanted to sit next to me. Grandma told the grand daughter she claims to love so much that she was not going to and that because it was HER house, MIL got to set the rules as to where people sat. Youngest was NOT going to be allowed to sit by me. She made my daughter very upset. I tried to get DH to say something, but he wouldn’t. I was furious. I should have said something, but more often than not I was afraid, because my anger would have gotten the better of me. I told DH that his mother’s behavior was awful. That she was being mean and petty and upsetting her granddaughter and that she was digging her own “Grandma grave.” And she absolutely was. The girls don’t like her, for that reason and a million others just like the one above. I think Youngest sat by me anyway, I sat down right next to her and I was DARING MIL to say something, but the horrid dishrag was too cowardly to confront me.

MIL began being really bitchy a lot when she dragged the girls out shopping. If the girls saw something they liked, usually something small, they’d ask “Grandma can I have that?" Grandma would whip around and nastily utter “Do YOU have any money?” Of course they didn’t. It’s not as if I expected her to buy it for them. I don’t cave in to whatever they want either, but I’m not nasty in my refusal. There is no reason for her to act like that to granddaughters she claims “to love.”

One afternoon when MIL had the girls she stopped at little antique shop filled with pretty do-dads and fun things to look at. One display case had these tiny little coffee mugs with cute sayings on them that one could hang on a chain. They were .79 cents. Oldest didn’t have any money on her, but Youngest did. Youngest bought one for herself with her money. Oldest wanted one too. She saw a coffee cup charm that said “I [heart] my teacher” and wanted to get it and put it on a chain to give her to teacher. When she asked her Grandma of she would buy her one, the old “so, you have any money?” litany was trucked out again. Oldest said no she didn’t, and MIL proceeded to tell her that she wouldn’t buy her one. After watching all this go down, Youngest offered Oldest HER OWN money to her sister and said that she would by one for her. When MIL found out what was going to transpire she put the brakes on that and told Youngest that she was not to buy her one. Not even for .79 goddamn cents. MIL proceeded asked Oldest why she wanted one of those for anyway. When Oldest explained she wanted to give it to her teacher Grandma says spitefully “that’s stupid, she wouldn’t want one of those.” 

So many instances I have like the above and yet DH still thinks it’s okay for the girls to be around this vicious woman. She’s rude, spiteful and emotionally abusive. She’s called them a “little shit” if they actually dared to have an opinion or called her out on the bullshit they no doubt saw. I’m quite sure, just like all narcissists, MIL sees them as beneath her and innocent enough to do or say whatever the hell she wants to. A few days ago I found this quote and I lost the blood in my head. This is exactly MIL.

Narcissists don't like to be questioned and don't want to deal with children who can stand up for themselves. It's common for some narcissistic parents to become more abusive toward their children when the children reach the age of reason (about 7 years old) or when the children enter into puberty, which many of these parents find very psychologically threatening.

To me, this supports my theory that the shit started hitting the fan when the girls were 6 and 8 years old. This is when it started falling apart and it has continued to do so since then.
Here are few more stories.

Last Thanksgiving my niece flew in to town to visit and stayed with MIL. I was skeptical about how MIL was going to treat my girls once niece, who rarely visits, came to town. Niece is in her early 20’s and was going to be considered the “Golden Child” for coming to visit and help with MIL’s broken leg. MIL always treats those she is familiar with like shit when new, missed family members are around to dote on. The ones that help her, do things for her and are around when she wants them are relegated to “dirt on the bottom of her boots” status. I watch her do this to me on a number of occasions. True to form it happened. She wanted the girls to decorate a x-mas tree she had and when one of my girls dropped an ornament on MIL’s sterile, cold tile floor and it broke, MIL had a screeching fit, demanding that they clean it up, blah blah blah. Interestingly, when niece broke one MIL said “oh, not a big deal, that isn’t important.” This favoritism was noticed by my daughters and they told me about it.

At Christmas time I was quite convinced that Oldest was cluing in on her Grandmother and had already formed an opinion that she did not like her. I also think that MIL was feeling this resentment from Oldest and didn’t like it that Oldest was finally getting a clue about who MIL really is. MIL is beginning to understand that she is losing the control she once had with Oldest. Narcissists don’t like it when you have their number. They want to be superior, they don’t want you to know their failings.

On Christmas Eve this past year we had a full house of people including my family members. Early in the evening MIL sat across the living room from Oldest staring at her. Just staring at her like … I don’t know … like a zombie. My daughter motions me over to her and then whispered to me: “momma, grandma is staring at me and it’s scaring me. Make her stop.” I told Oldest to ignore her. I walked away, and then turned around so I could watch what she was doing with my own eyes. Without a doubt, she was drilling malevolent intent into my kid. It definitely was scary. A few weeks later while reading about narcissism I discovered something called the “Narcissistic Stare.” Here are a few quotes from readings about narcissists:

Narcissists indeed have a stare. It is an intense, relentless gaze that seems to preclude the destruction of his victim or target . . . The stare intends to invade people’s space either by their sudden intrusions or intimidating look-overs.

Some people respond to the emotionless stare of the psychopath with considerable discomfort. Almost as if they feel like potential prey in the presence of the predator. Whatever the psychological meaning of the stare, it is clear that intense eye contact is an important factor in the ability of the psychopaths to manipulate and dominate others.

Within the last few months before the big blow up on MIL’s birthday, things were definitely coming to a head anyway. The girls didn’t want to have anything to do with her. They don’t like her. But when MIL broke her leg in November things really took a dive. MIL couldn’t walk and couldn’t drive and she wanted everyone to pity her. She could not seem to hide her nastiness anymore. She began to get more demanding and horrible even with DH and he was reaching his limit of patience with her. It was at this time that we were, or at least I was, not encouraging the girls to spend time with her. Not that I needed to encourage them not too, but I certainly did not want them to be around her. After she broke her knee, we did have the girls help her with a few things every day that MIL could not do. The girls would go over to her house to scoop her cats litter box or do a few things to help. Of course, when they were done, they wanted to leave and come home. She’d tell them to stay that she wanted their company. They didn’t want to. As soon as they’d start to leave, MIL would burst into tears and tell them they were being mean to her. (Her words) She’d say “I’m nice to you, but you aren’t nice to me!” She’d sound like a five year old. She’d complain out loud “you don’t want me anymore! I’m just going to move away and everyone will be sorry.” It made the girls very uncomfortable and pissed me off because MIL’s emotional well-being is not the responsibility of my children. Screw her for trying to guilt them.

Again, my daughters do not like their grandmother. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. Grandma made her bed and she should have to suffer the consequences of her shitty behavior. But DH insists that the girls have a relationship with her because he says, “my mom loves the girls.” She does not. I don’t know what she feels, but she doesn’t feel love. She wants to control them, she wants them to do what SHE wants them to do and if they don’t tow that line, she treats them like crap. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren don’t endanger their lives by driving drunk. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren let them have opinions and feelings. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren don’t argue with them because Grandma is jealous. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren don’t humiliate them or others around them. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren get their asses out of bed to make them breakfast, not lounge (probably hung over) until almost lunch. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren do things that the grandchildren want to do, NOT what Grandma wants to do. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren respect their grandchildren’s parents and don’t talk badly about them. Grandma’s that love their grandchildren respect their grandchildren’s needs, not walk all over them.

How DH can say his mother loves the girls is beyond comprehension. So many stories, I can’t even get them all paper. I’m sad because this is what DH believes love looks like. This is what DH thinks is acceptable. This is the behavior that DH thinks is worth ignoring so that his mother can preserve her fantasy that she HAS some sort of relationship with her granddaughters. She doesn’t. It’s gone. She blew it. She lost them and by no fault of anyone else but her own. Since she is unlikely to change, the girls aren’t going to suddenly change their minds and want to like her. Forcing them to be with Grandma because Grandma believes she has a right to them is bullshit. I don’t want to do it. And I don’t know what to do.

DH has agreed to supervised visits with his mother when she returns from a trip in two weeks. Supervised is fine, but what fucking torture! He doesn’t want to be there and neither to do they. Why is he doing this?

Grandma the Unfit

In early January we decided to take MIL out to dinner for her birthday. We had also invited along MIL’s friend Janet, but she was meeting us at the restaurant. Nobody was really looking forward to this dinner. We were doing it purely out of obligation. A few behavior issues had arisen over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with mother-in-law not even a week earlier and I was still angry about it and the girls were still uncomfortable as well about what she did. But, DH has been stressed for a while now with his job and I’ve begun getting concerned about his well-being. The last thing he needs is stress at home so I was determined to be as pleasant as possible so the evening would hopefully go smoothly. Little did I know that it would actually be a complete horror of an evening despite anything I said or did, but I didn’t know that yet.

We picked MIL up and because she’d had a car accident two months previous and had broken her knee, she was seated in the front seat directly in front of me. I sat in the back seat with the girls. Right away I sensed something was off but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was like she was hiding something, or like she was totally faking her behavior. We chatted all the way to the restaurant where we were to meet her friend Janet. Janet was a friend she’d had for about a year and a half, but true to historical form, I had been noticing Judy’s car in her driveway less and less as time went on. It had been over a year. MIL was far past due for losing yet another friend. I suspected Janet had one foot out the door already.

Janet was not yet at the restaurant when we arrived so we sat down at a large table. I sat on one side with youngest to my left and oldest on my right. MIL sat directly across from me and DH was to MIL’s right hand side. At the far end were two large gift bags that contained MIL’s birthday presents. We looked at the menu for a while and continued to wait for Janet. She was taking much longer than expected but the weather wasn’t that great. Then began the evenings torment.

I’ve point out before that MIL has a thing for jewelry. I do too, but I don’t collect it or hoard it for its own sake. Most of the jewelry I have was bequeathed to me by my mother who had many many nice pieces, or it is the jewelry that DH has given me over the years. I like jewelry for its beauty and for the sentimental and emotional value it holds for me.

The evening’s bizarreness ensued when MIL asked me if I liked silver jewelry. I became uneasy because I sensed the conversation was going to go somewhere that I wouldn’t like, I was sure of it. I casually stated that I do, because … I do. I have many silver and sterling pieces of jewelry. I wear it all the time. She begins to sort of argue with me saying that she doesn’t recall seeing me wear any, blah blah blah. I’m not sure her purpose in saying that. Was she insinuating that I was lying or what the hell? I reiterated what I said and tried to stop the direction that it was going because it seemed to serve no purpose. At least no purpose I was aware of. She suddenly began trying to take off a silver bracelet that was on her wrist and she couldn’t get it off. DH had to help her. Once removed, MIL flung the bracelet at me from across the table and said, “do you like that?” I picked it up and looked at it. It was a nice linked beaten sterling silver bracelet. I wasn’t sure what the hell to say so I just said “yes, it’s nice.” MIL sniffs her nose in the air and says “WELL, it’s yours, it’s my birthday present to you!”

I don’t like taking presents from MIL. They always come with strings or she will remind you about it later when she wants something from you. I sensed a control issue rearing its head. Because I didn’t want anything from her at all except her complete removal from the Midwest, I was reluctant to take a bracelet from her that I could not have given two shits about. But, I was still trying to keep the peace for the evening. I decided that it was the better part of valor just to say thank you and be done with it. So I did.

BUT SHE WASN’T DONE YET.

She then started fussing with this necklace around her neck and asked DH to help her remove it. “Do you like gold?” With that statement, she again flung a heavy gold rope chain across the table and it slid to stop next to my fork. What in the actual hell is she doing?? I don’t like necklaces. Really and truly. Well, I do like them. It’s just my neck that doesn’t. I feel claustrophobic in them. When I do wear them, the minute I take them off I sigh happily wondering how I could have stood that weight around my neck all day. Even slim chains make me feel that way. I didn’t want her heavy rope necklace regardless of how nice it was. I told her no and explained why. She then proceeded to tell me why that was ridiculous, or that I should “just get used to it. etc etc. etc.” I continued to tell her no several times, and I handed it back to her. As soon as I did that, Janet arrived at the restaurant and began to sit down next to MIL in a flurry of apologies and “happy birthdays.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but DH informed me later that my not taking her stupid necklace began the downfall of the entire evening.

Once the “hello’s” were said and Janet was settled in her chair we were still waiting for dinner to arrive so DH suggested that MIL open her gifts. MIL is extremely hard to buy for (again this another entry all unto itself), but DH and Crunchy had come up with an idea that I thought was actually pretty good. Since MIL loves to entertain and always has picky food before dinner, Crunchy and DH had purchased a sundry of picky canned or bottled foods that would keep for a while that she could pull out whenever she wanted to entertain. Food items like stuffed olives, and pickled asparagus, prosciutto and preserved salami’s. There were two giant bags of stuff like that. Truly it was the perfect gift for her. As MIL opened the gifts, she ooh’d and ahh’d and seemed to love the idea, as did Janet. But, shortly after that something dark began to slither out of MIL. As they were wrapping up the items and putting them back in the bags, she began to complain that she didn’t want the gifts. She told DH she didn’t want them and that he could take them back. We got her food because “all we want to do is make her fat.” It was ridiculous. It’s not like she had to eat it all at once, and it was just small food and she could put out as little or as much as she wanted. As much as DH tried to convince her the gift was a good one, she refused to listen to him. Her slithering mood did not improve from there.

Next she began to attack me with pointed questions sure to elicit answers that I knew she was never prepared to accept. She said she knew I didn’t like her and wanted to know exactly why. She asked why I didn’t go see how she was two months ago when she was in the car accident that injured her knee. She was just full of questions determined to make me feel guilty. I looked at her and said calmly, “MIL, we aren’t going to discuss any of that now. It’s your birthday dinner.” DH tried to get her to shut up too, quietly telling her to stop it. My oldest sitting next to me was getting scared because I know she’s seen MIL like this before when WE haven’t been around. She’s been a victim of this bad behavior I was sure of it. Oldest tapped my leg and whimpered “mommy, I want to go home.” I put my arm around her and told her it was fine and dinner would be here soon.

Once I calmed Oldest down, I could see that MIL was having a somewhat quiet discussion with DH. I could tell that MIL was complaining about me to me to DH in a voice I could barely make out, but I did hear my name occasionally and something like “fucking daughter-in-law.” One time I heard her say “I know she is pissed off I moved here, but that’s just too bad.” I couldn’t hear or understand most of her criticism and complaining to DH, but my youngest daughter heard every bit of it. My youngest sat there staring at the two of them across the table looking like deer in the headlights.

At this point, dinner arrived. It didn’t stop her momentum at all.

Everyone was uncomfortable and she was starting to get loud. She turned from picking on me to picking on both of our daughters – She harassed my Oldest about her chapped lips and how she never uses chap stick and that it looks awful. She complained about Youngest and her bitten finger nails and what a horrible habit it is, and in the same breath turned and praised Oldest for her gorgeous finger nails. She criticized the way Oldest held her fork – ONCE. She said “What? Don’t you teach your children table manners??” DH who was not happy with how things were progressing said, “yes, we do.” MIL snorted and said “I fucking doubt it.”

I can’t even remember what she went on and on about. DH was getting angry and telling her to stop it. Her friend Janet looked at me in distress, her eyes saying what she wouldn’t: “What the hell is wrong with her?” Then suddenly, about 10 minutes after we got our food MIL announced “I want to go home. Right now!” We all had to hurry and eat, which was fine because we wanted to get away from her. After we packed everything up, she used her four-point walker and moved as fast as her legs could get her.  While getting in the car MIL was heard to grip, "I just don't understand why your wife wouldn't take the jewelry?"   We got in the car and promptly got lost because the highway on ramps had been moved around during recent construction and were no longer where they were. This is out in the country a bit, so they could have been anywhere. When I tried to explain to DH how to find the highway on ramp, MIL shouts at me from the front seat in a slurred voice “Shuuddup beeetch.” I was so angry at that moment I swear I saw stars. She blabbered nonsense all the way home and I could tell DH had had it with her.

When we pulled into her driveway 10 minutes later, she began to get out of the car while DH got her walker. Before exiting completely, she very purposefully turned in her seat pinning Youngest with a stare and said “sweetie, would you like to help Grandma carry her things into the house?” Youngest looked at her grandmother wide eyed and frightened and shook her head no. After all she witnessed that night, she didn’t want to do anything for Grandma. Grandma became infuriated and shrieked “I beg your pardon!?” She couldn’t actually believe that a peon 9 year old was not going to schlep her damn packages in to the house. I directed her anger at me and said “No, MIL, she doesn’t want to help you, but I will help DH carry your things.” MIL got out of the car in a huff and headed into the house while I grabbed the gift bags and her left over dinner containers and followed them into the garage. MIL had to go backwards up the garage steps to the landing where the door was located. She used her walker as leverage. As she climbed backward up the steps and when she got high enough, she stared at me over DH’s head and was glaring at me with the most hate filled look I have ever seen. She began complaining loudly about me, I can’t remember what she was saying anymore and I just let her complain. But at one point she said “Did you hear me!!??”  I guess me not answering her blabbering was not tolerated. I looked at her calmly and said “Oh, I heard you” and said nothing more.

Once in the house I walked past her and set her items down on the counter.  Unfortunately I had to walk by her again on my way out the door. She watched me walk by drilling her beady eyes into my skull.   As I walked by she screamed as loud as she could:

“YOOOUUUU.AAAAREEEEEE.A.FUUCCCKKING BIIIITTTCH!!!"

I sailed past her in the doorway and said nothing.

When DH got home five minutes later, he was furious and said “I’m done with my mother.” He also walked into the girls bedrooms and helped them get into bed and told them both that they didn’t have to go over to see their grandmother anymore for a while. I took that as a huge sign. Had she finally stuck her foot in too far?

I hoped so, and DH did change a little, but it’s not nearly enough because since then he’s been like a flip floppy fish.

There is still so much more to this, and I’m tired.

Instant Rage

Six entries in and I’ve reached a crisis mode of sorts.

As I mentioned in my very first entry, something happened with MIL at the beginning of the year that brought everything hurtling to the forefront once again as far as MIL’s behavior. It was already simmering, but it definitely came to a boil one cold January evening when we took MIL out for a belated birthday dinner. But I’ll get to that later.

For a very long time I’ve managed MIL issues as I could -- day by day. There have been periods of time where she was busy doing her own thing and she didn’t bother us for a while, or periods where she only contacted us when she needed something, and then there have been weird periods of time out of the blue where she’d lean all over DH as if he was the only person in the world. Regardless of HER mood, I was on cruise control, pretty much in denial and simply trying not to let her annoy me. I was able to survive that way for a long time until about a year and a half ago near Halloween when a crack began to appear in my once passive façade.

It was a Saturday afternoon and we were getting the girls into their Halloween costumes because MIL was taking the girls to a local Halloween party that was outside and involved bounce houses. Our house was in a bit of turmoil at that moment because I told both of my girls that they needed decent shoes because it was going to be muddy out and they’d need to be able to slip their shoes on and off easily because of the bounce houses. Unfortunately, shoes have always been a problem for my youngest daughter. She’s one of those sensitive children that cannot tolerate tags in her clothes, seams in her socks, rough or embroidery backing on the inside front of a sweatshirt, etc. Shoes also have to be JUST RIGHT. It’s a struggle. Youngest was having a hard time finding just the right shoes and both DH and I were in her room trying to find something suitable amongst whatever was in her closet that actually fit.

MIL was scheduled to pick the girls up at 2:00 pm. At exactly 2:00 on the dot, MIL flew into the driveway and immediately started honking her horn impatiently. This annoyed me, but I ignored it. When the girls did not come out instantly, she got out of her car and walked into the house making inquiring noises regarding what the girls were doing to take so long. My oldest was ready, but I could hear DH and youngest debating in her bedroom about shoes. It sounded like they were close to coming to a decision. MIL started bickering about the girls being “late.” I explained to MIL that they needed good shoes for what they’d be doing today and we weren’t sure what fit youngest anymore. As my youngest came out into the living room holding the shoes she had chosen to wear she wanted me to help put them on so it would go faster. I squatted down to assist her, listening to MIL continue to whine about the time and how she had to “pick up Janet” and she’d be late. Claire started to say something about her sock not fitting right so we were trying to make it work when MIL just went off, loudly beginning to yell at my children for taking so long. I’m sitting there when it dawns on me that despite the fact that these are MY children and we are in MY house and she’s the one her who offered to take them on this trip and she’s also the one who decided what time she was picking them up, MIL was berating and harassing them right in front of me like it was her prerogative to verbally bash my kids. That was not okay. Not only were my daughters standing right there, but their 9 year old girlfriend friend was as well. This poor little girl stood there listening to MIL’s diatribe with her eyes as round as saucers. MIL’s urgency and bellowing was unpleasant and it was stressing everyone out. I saw no reason for it at all. Had it been 2:15 or something that would have been different, but it was only about 2:02. They certainly were not late.

As I continued to tie shoes, I said very calmly and matter of fact, “MIL, we’ve waited for when you were running late, I think you can be patient for the girls right now.” I did not say it rudely. It was a fact and nothing more than my response to her haranguing my children. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, her eyes popped out of her head and this is the discussion that ensued:

MIL: “I BEG YOUR PARDON?!!!!” YOU HAVE NEVER ONCE HAD TO WAIT FOR ME!!!!”

Me: Standing up now I said “Yes, MIL, many many times we have waited for you. You can wait just a minute longer. They aren’t late, it’s barely past 2:00.”

MIL: “But I have a friend waiting and it’s rude to make her wait.” [This pissed me off because MIL makes everyone wait for her ALWAYS.]

Me: “That’s never stopped you from making us wait for you before.”

MIL: Now she’s in a rage and she bursts out “YOUUUUU BITCH!!!!”

She’s raging at me that I’m a bitch and doing this in front our children and their friend, all because I reminded her that we’ve been patient for her and asking the same courtesy in return. This is what sends this woman into crazed indignation.

MIL’s concern that it is rude to make someone wait was absurd. MIL makes everyone wait for her whether she has guests or someone else has guests waiting on her as well. She does not care one jot. She’s late every time we pick her up to go somewhere. She’s late to every event at our home we invite her to. She has been LATE to almost every birthday party we have ever had for our girls, and she was 40 minutes late to her own 70th birthday party when it was being held across the street from her house.

After calling me a bitch, MIL stormed out like a ticked off teenager, the girls following in her wake. I was concerned how she’d treat them but they were getting into the car and excited to go, so I let them. I have no idea how she behaved in the car after that.

After everyone was gone I discussed what happened with DH and I was angry. He seemed stunned that she called me a bitch, and I told him that I was D.O.N.E. with her. He said that he didn’t blame me. But that’s pretty much where it ended. I’m 100% positive that he never said a word to her about it, never told her NOT to say anything like that to me again. It was simply forgotten, by everyone, especially WWW as if it never happened. But, I didn’t forget. I was not kidding when I told DH that I was done and I meant it. From that time forward I ignored her. If she walked into the house, I left the room. I didn’t acknowledge her presence either. If she said hello, I would say it back, but that’s it. This had the effect of really pissing her off because she wasn’t getting the deference from me she felt she deserved, which she absolutely did not. It was tense and I barely allowed her in my orbit unless I had to.

From that point on as well, relations between MIL and our daughters were getting worse. The girls were complaining that they didn’t want to be with her. My youngest threw fits and cried if she was required to spend the night or grandma wanted them for the night. In addition, I began noticing odd controlling behavior with MIL that she was pull right in front of DH and I that was NOT serving to build a strong and loving relationship with her granddaughters. Why she didn’t and doesn’t understand now that her behavior with them has caused them to dislike being around her very much is shocking. But clearly she doesn’t get it. MIL’s relationship with the girls will be another entry. Nonetheless, the girls’ relationship with MIL is what is causing my current crisis and where I feel at a loss on what to do since DH is STILL not getting it.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. After the bitch calling incident, things continued as I have explained above -- tense with me, and getting worse with the girls. And then came the blow up in early January.

On Cliff Ledge I Would Shove

I’ve always liked the saying “There’s no place like home.” Home is a place where one should feel where you can go to escape any troubles, where help always waits, where it’s comforting, familiar and those around you understand you. A place to call your own. One that you control.

I waited a really long time to have my own home. My first disastrous marriage ended in divorce after nine years in which was I was left standing with only some furniture, my clothes and about $4,000.00 in debt. I count my blessings because there was nothing to permanently link me to the man, such as children. We didn’t have to sell a house, we had no children to fight for custody, and we didn’t even have a savings account to split. After that marriage ended, the things I wanted for my life didn’t change. I still wanted a home. I desired many things that I felt like I should have had already by the time I reached 30 -- a home, children, security, etc. All of that.

Eventually, of course, I did end up having those things with DH and with DH is where I belong. For the first two years of our marriage, it was complete happiness. We were together planning our future and intertwined with each other’s lives as it should be. The first year we spent incorporating our belongings and our personalities into one. As we approached our one year anniversary, my biological clock was ticking and knew that if children were going to be a part of our life, then we needed to get on with the gettin’ on. In early summer of our first year of marriage we began looking for a new home. We loved our current home, but it wasn’t large enough or family friendly enough for a baby and all its belongings.

In October of 2002, we closed on a house that we had basically built from the studs up and we moved into our new abode with excitement. During that time, I’d convinced DH that we needed this adorable, all but abandoned dog that I discovered. Never one to tell me no, DH agreed and our new pooch came into our lives. He must have been our fertility charm, because two months later I found out I was pregnant.

I have no real recollection of MIL during this time frame. All was well. She was far away and if we had to deal with her it was over the phone. She still called DH way too many times a day but that could be ignored for the most part. The only interaction I do recall was one time when the phone rang, and when I answered WWW said “are you fat yet?” That’s her. No tact. She thought she was being funny. I just thought she was acting entirely too familiar. Like … it might be amusing if my best friend called and said “hey are you fat yet?” because I would know she meant that in a loving and humorous way. With WWW, we were not close and her comment wasn’t funny and I didn’t take it that way and I doubt she really meant it that way either. I took it for what it was, spew from the mouth of Mount Vicious.

Almost all of our immediate family members live far away. WWW, Crunchy and my sister “Middle” live over 1,000 miles away. My other sister “Oldest” lives an hour away. My parents were gone and DH’s dad (when he was alive) and step-mom live six hours away. If any immediate family was to visit after our baby was born, it would mean that they were staying in our house during the duration of their stay as we have room to accommodate guests. However, DH and I agreed we didn’t want any family around the first week after the baby was born. I specifically didn’t want the pressure of guests, even family, staying in our house while I healed and we bonded with the baby that first week. I don’t believe that was an out-of-line request and I still don’t. Also, that request applied across the board, no matter who they were in our family. We informed our relatives of our request a few months in advance. Everyone in our family understood and respected that request — except WWW. Not surprising after what I know now. She doesn’t like boundaries. She doesn’t like being told she has to do something (or not do something) that she feels she has every right to do. Approximately two to three weeks or so AFTER everyone had been told of our request (including her), WWW totally-on-purpose mixed our request up. It was her view that we had said that we didn’t want her to visit after the baby was born AT ALL. She believed this because she had spoken to Crunchy on the phone and that Crunchy told her that we didn’t want her there at all. This of course was not true and Crunchy did not say that. DH had told his mother with his own mouth what our request was and she didn’t have much of a response. As I have learned over the years, a non-response by her to something that should produce a response only means that she’s really pissed and is thinking up any number of ways to blow it up in your face LATER.

What really happened was that after WWW’s alleged discussion with Crunchy, WWW chose to believe that particular version of the request, rather than the one specifically told her by her own son. In her fury over this imagined slight, she emailed DH and said: “If I am not wanted then I will have nothing to do with your baby ever and will walk out of your lives forever!” She said some other things too, but that was the extent of the message. DH was immediately upset and I was appalled. I had never dealt first hand with such knee jerk, in-your-face brutal selfishness before, especially over something that was patently false. That his mother believed we’d even think such a thing was absurd. That she would make the request regarding the birth of our first child all about HER had me taken aback. Worse, was she really set to walk out of our lives and have nothing whatsoever to do with her grandchild? I laughed because her threat, at least to me, was no threat at all! Not so much DH. I don’t think she really believed we said that. I think she dreamed up some bullshit so she could play the “wounded mother” routine so everyone would feel sorry for her and turn everything around from being about DH and I and our new child to being about poor Mommy Dearest. What was so infuriating is that I saw what she was doing and I would never have tolerated someone like that in my life for one more second were it not that she was DH’s mother.

After the baby arrived, WWW came almost immediately after the first week. While she was visiting, WWW happened to notice the real estate lot across the street from our house was for sale. It was the last lot in the neighborhood that had yet to be sold. She bought it. She bought it, picked up her entire life from over 1,000 miles away and plopped it 30 yards away. I could do nothing to stop it, because why? Because I didn’t know what she was yet, I knew she was a bitch and really annoying, but I didn’t understand the horrible dysfunction and evil she could do. Because she was so good at manipulation, she was able to smoothly lie her way in until it was too late.

When she purchased the lot, WWW indicated that she was only purchasing the lot for real estate investment purposes, which could have been true. WWW was heavily involved in the real estate area at that time and had three or four other properties in CA, AZ and FL that she owned. I mentioned my apprehension about this to DH and he placated me with “it’s just an investment.” A few months later WWW stated she was actually going to build a house on the property, but not actually live there. She was going to flip it and make some money. I was alarmed by this time, but DH assured me she’d never live here because she hates cold weather and the snow. A few months after that, she announced that she actually was going to live there, but only live there a few months out of the year because she hated snow. By this time, I’m alarmed as hell, and DH was at a loss. He told me she’d only be here in the summer, but NEVER the winter or fall -- remember she hated the snow? It wouldn’t be that bad. By the time the house was finished she gave up all pretense of living here part time, and began behaving like she was going to be living here permanently. There was no announcement or informing us that it changed. She just suddenly changed ALL of her information to her new house as her permanent residence, changed her health insurance, and began to make the plans to move EVERYTHING in a semitruck here including her vehicle. There was no opportunity to say “hey, ummm, no. You can’t live there forever.” There was never consultation or discussion with us about if that was something we wanted. Why would it? She doesn’t give a shit about what any one wants but herself. She did, however, KNOW damn well it wasn’t a good idea, which is why she never asked us outright, never indicated what her real plans were and hid it from us. I was sick to my stomach about it. I was learning to hate her and did not know how I was going to deal with that. I hated everything about her. I hated her haughtiness, I hated her know-it-all conversations, I hated her voice, I hated that she treated my husband like a slave and our marriage like an inconvenience. My biggest fear was that I was going to resent my husband for allowing all this. And I told him so.

Another huge factor that arose out of her building a house across the street from us was that I didn’t realize that all that planning and building would require her to fly back and forth countless times, at which point each time she visited to do business she stayed IN OUR HOUSE no less than 10 days at a time. All added together, she lived with us for approximately four months over the span of a year. By the end of all the building, no description can begin to cover how badly I was beginning to lose my mind with the constant interruptions of our newly formed family. Whenever she came to visit, our life was turned upside down and she demanded all of DH’s time. She and DH were CONSTANTLY going over the building plans, driving here and there to Lowe’s or Home Depot helping her pick out every little fucking thing in her house. He had to meet with the builders every time that she did. I tried to get DH to see how intrusive it was, how it bothered me. He just nodded and didn’t say much and never even tried to set boundaries with her. He continued to let her constant interruptions upset the flow of our family life. What’s more, the interruptions didn’t even stop when she was gone. Because if she was gone it was up to DH to meet with the builders on his mother’s behalf, his job to cruise around town looking for the perfect tile she’d picked out at the right price, his job to check the work being done every day on the house. It was never fucking ending. I couldn’t escape. Ever.

I know some people will not understand why I didn’t stop her or tell her no. Or put my foot down. Confrontation was never my thing and this was his mother! I feel like a coward. But for the most part, I was kept out of the loop as to what was going on. DH had two jobs and was extremely busy and when his mother was in town, there was no room for me, not that I cared. This was mother/son bonding over this house and they were apparently just fine doing all of this without me around. As WWW’s plans changed about her living arrangements, the excuses just kept pouring in and gradually getting worse until it was too late and she was moving here permanently. By this time I was pregnant with our second child.

Once she moved in across the street, our marital life was flipped upside down. No more did I feel like it was our marriage and we were building it together as one unit. Once the old bat moved in, I felt like I was sharing my husband with another woman. And I was!! Countless hours. Hours upon hours he spent with her BEFORE she even moved in, and now he was apparently to spend countless hours doing work for her to make sure her moving in experience was just perfect. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of hours he spent doing shit for her. Time that was taken away from his own family and from me. It didn’t seem to faze him. Even if I complained. It was normal for him. No big deal. So constant has DH been at her beck and call for the last 10 years, so ceaseless have her phone calls been every day, sometimes five, six, seven calls a day even though she lives within shouting distance, that the resentment I so feared came to fruition. It was clear she felt DH was her property to claim and shove around and claim and she was going to prove it by doing exactly as she damn well please. Her unending need of him for this and for that, and come here and fix this RIGHT NOW that sometimes I felt like I hated them both. More times than not I seethed under my breath that if she’s so god dammed important to him then why doesn’t he just move in with her.

So many nasty things this woman has done and said to me. So many now I barely remember 80% of them. I think I’ve just blocked them. I think I blew them off to some dusty place in my mind because to think about them was painful. However, some of them I do remember and the one I’m going to tell next was particularly heinous.

It should be no surprise that by this time, I was learning to keep my distance from WWW and that I didn’t like her much. I think that WWW was sensing a change in me and she tried to reach out to keep me in her clutches. One night during one of her many visits, she did something that once I got away from her, I sobbed and sobbed. I think one of most eye opening things for a woman who has a baby is that once you have a baby of your own, you can now comprehend just how much your own mother loves you. Mother love is kind of overwhelming. How could any woman really know what a mother’s love is like until you are one? When a woman first becomes a mother, I sincerely believe that it becomes a time when you want your own mother around. I didn’t have mine. She was four years gone. It was a gaping hole that could never be filled. I struggled (and still do) to learn how to be a parent without being able to share my children with them.

That night while talking, WWW had the audacity to try and use my mother’s memory in some bullshit ploy to get me to accept her. WWW had never met my parents. She has never, not even once, asked about them nor has she ever appeared to have the slightest interest in them. I doubt she even knows their names. But that night she spoke about my mom as if she and my mother had been fast friends. WWW leaned in to me, putting her hand on mine and said in a syrupy voice:

“I wanted to tell you that your mom came to me in a dream last night. It was obvious that she was very happy that I was now in your life and she wanted me to know --- I believe that she was showing me that she was wanting to share you with me as a mother.”

I wanted to vomit. I was mortified. For her to assume that SHE as a MOTHER is somehow comparable for the loss of mine was incomprehensible. My mother was a saint compared to her. This woman can’t keep a relationship longer than six months. When my mom died we had to have the funeral service in a ginormous chapel to accommodate everyone and, even then, they had to add chairs to the back of the chapel, and then when the chairs ran out, a line of standing room only guests snaked out the door into the parking lot where people stood in the wet drizzle anyway even though they couldn’t see anything. That is how much my mother was loved. There is no comparing my mother to her. While my mother had standing room only at her funeral service, I guarantee there won’t even be one person to who will give enough of a shit to spit on this woman’s grave when she dies.

This is why I loathe this woman. My mother was not perfect but she was the epitome of a real mother’s love. She knew how to show concern, and selflessness, sympathy and caring. Her kids came first. That this hag masquerades as some sort of “mother” is a fucking sham that I can’t stand. Worse, is that DH can’t even see how foul she is.

This is why if nobody was watching and I knew I could get away with it, that I would shove her off a cliff and dust off my hands and feel no remorse. She is a pox on humanity. A vile, vicious alcoholic bitch who serves no good purpose on this earth. AT ALL.

Watch Out Those Steps Might Bite

I don’t even have a quote or statement to launch from for this entry because so many of the behaviors that we experienced during this particular situation are completely varied. I can’t even categorize it.

This particular event was “the” event that catapulted MIL solidly into the red flag category and occurred approximately a year into our relationship. True, I’d watched some weird behavior and communication oddities between DH and his mom, and I was getting increasingly concerned and annoyed by her. At this point in our relationship though, she lived across the country and I didn’t really have to deal with her one on one. It was only by proxy through DH that I experienced any of her behavior at all unless we visited, which we did. Twice.

One day in late September, DH called to tell me that his mother fell and broke her leg. What happened specifically was that she was drunk off her ass. In order to access her house, she had to do so by climbing up the cement steps in her yard that lead to her front porch. She fell and not only did she break her leg, she had a spiral fracture, which is caused by a twisting force. She probably felt she was falling, but too late, and twisted as she fell. Those are not easily healed. For the first few days I believe WWW was way too wrapped up with herself to focus outwardly on her children who, nonetheless, were not in a position to really help her as they both were so far away. But as the diagnosis got worse and she learned that she had a spiral fracture, just how seriously laid up she was going to be, and that she would also require surgery, MIL began the “oh poor me” act and started to get demanding. Once surgery was in the picture, WWW indicated to DH that she wanted him to fly out there and take care of her, immediately. In fact, she wanted him to take a leave of absence from work to care for her, which there was no way in hell DH even wanted to nor could. She bitched and moaned how SHE would drop everything to be with her injured son, blah blah blah, so he should be willing to do the same for her. Never mind that this pathetic sleaze of a parent was never really there for her kids when they were younger, and dumped DH and his sister off numerous times for weeks or months on end with family or her parents to care for them because she had better things to do. Regardless of her attempt at guilting DH to do what she wanted him to do, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t go. Interestingly, the week that her surgery was scheduled was the same week DH and I were to take vacation together to fly out and visit my sister and her family. The plans had been made long ago and the plane tickets had already been purchased. He simply told her that he couldn’t and that we had vacation plans. I don’t think she liked it, but she didn’t really have a fit or say too much. It was later, much later, that we were to find out just how much hell DH was going to have to pay for being with me instead of her.

Upon our return from vacation, DH learned that MIL needed yet another surgery on her leg that was scheduled to happen a few days after Thanksgiving. Apparently MIL’s first surgery was awful and she was very sick from the anesthesia. She did not want to do another surgery. Once DH found out about this surgery and the time frame, DH decided to surprise his mother and fly out at Thanksgiving near the date of her surgery so he could be there with her and celebrate the holiday. Before DH could tell her what he was going to do, she decided to punish him for being an awful, selfish and ungrateful son.

On a Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. her time), MIL tracked DH down at my place to talk with him. When I answered the phone she used a phrase she uses all the time when referring to DH: “Is MY SON there?” I crawled back into bed and handed DH the phone. He walked out of the room and I could hear the discussion escalating by the minute. Despite being in another room, I could hear her screeching through the phone and his constant attempts to placate her anger. His verbal attempts were interrupted every time he said five words in a row. Even though I could not really hear what she was saying (only the volume level with which she was saying it) DH’s stuttered, interrupted attempts to defend himself lent a good indication on what she was saying. She was rebuking him for not visiting her after her accident and that he instead went on a vacation with me. Mind you, this was like six weeks after he’d told her he was continuing with his vacation and she didn’t say boo hoo. Evidently, she held on to her anger until a time when she felt it more fitting to vomit her displeasure on him. Worse than the fact that he didn’t go running to assist her, she was furious that HER SON chose to go on vacation to visit people “he didn’t even know!!” She screamed that he was selfish and ungrateful and she thought she raised him better than that! She couldn’t even understand why I would date a man like him that wouldn’t go to his mother’s side when she needed him. She howled what a horrible person I was and that she hated me. She insisted that I was “keeping him away from her on purpose!!” She barely even knew me, yet I was 18 kinds of horrible. She upset DH so badly he was in tears and extremely shaken up after the phone call.

Her rantings were telling once I could look at them separately later. The first thing that struck me, which even now continues to be a theme that not only his mother keeps at, but the rest of his family as well, (whether consciously or unconsciously) is that my family is relegated to “non-entity” or to “people DH doesn’t know.” She didn’t get that it was my family that we were visiting and they are important to me and, therefore, are important to DH. Furthermore, DH did know them. In fact, he knew my sister and her family from us all being together during the days of my father’s coma, removal from life support and then the funeral. We suffered together and he helped my family a great deal. That’s not “nobody.” It was obvious that my family was lower than nothing to MIL. She assumed as well that since my family was nothing, that they should, therefore, be considered nothing to DH as well. The second thing that struck me was the vehemence of her hatred towards me. I can honestly say that I didn’t really even know her then, and she certainly did not know me. Not even a little bit. Yet regardless of that fact, she professes a seething hatred of me that I could barely fathom. Why? It was the third announcement that she venomously spit out that shed some light on where her thoughts were fixated. Her statement that I “was keeping her son away from HER on purpose” said it all. Her son lived over a 1,000 miles away from her even before I met him. She called him all time of day or night and he never ignored her. How in the world I was keeping him away from her I’m not sure, let alone ON PURPOSE. Wow. Demented. Paranoid. Scary.

Later that day when she calmed down (or was less drunk) she called him again, and all seemed better now. She was fine with the fact that he would be spending Thanksgiving with her and help after the surgery. He was forgiven. I was not. Instead of DH being the ungrateful lout, now she said that she couldn’t understand why DH would date a woman that wouldn’t INSIST that her man go to his mother when she had need of him. Uuuuugh.

Life went on as normal for the next several weeks and DH prepared to spend his time over Thanksgiving week with his mom and Crunchy, who was also planning on visiting to help at the same time. On Thanksgiving Day, I called DH to say hello. His mom answered the phone because DH was out running an errand for her. I wished her a Happy Thanksgiving, asked about her leg, I inquired about what they would be doing that day and then I told her what I was doing with my family. It was a normal conversation. When DH got back from the errand he called me back. Shortly into our conversation DH asked me why I wasn’t nice to his mother on the phone when I called earlier. Completely confused by his question, I said “what do you mean?” DH said that when he returned from his errand, his mother was very upset because I didn’t wish her a Happy Thanksgiving. That she was hurt because I didn’t ask how she was feeling or inquire about her injured leg. Also, she said that as soon as I found out DH was not there, that I quickly hung up on her without even saying goodbye. I was astonished because that is a completely different version of what actually happened. I told him none of that was true. DH’s response was “well, that’s not her side of the story.” I realized right then, in that horrified moment of clarity, that his mother was a colossal liar and that she wouldn’t stoop to lie about me or anything else in order to paint me in bad light.

Look at Me, Me, Me!

I’ve decided the best way to move forward with this blog is to find quotes, statements or comments that I like regarding NPD and use those as a starting point for whatever memory or topic I want to talk about. So this quote is what I’m using now:

Attention seeking. This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration. Narcissistic mothers love to be waited on and often pepper their children with little requests. “While you’re up…” or its equivalent. You can’t just be assigned a chore at the beginning of the week or of the day, instead, you have to do it on demand, preferably at a time that was inconvenient for you or you were not planning on being available.

I know that every individual who has NDP is different regarding not only their characteristics, but the level of dysfunction applied to each of those characteristics. The attention seeking trait is the basis of MIL’s dysfunction when it comes to DH. The “request a favor” tactic is something she absolutely loves to do. It matters not one whit to her if DH is busy or tired. She will contact DH any time of day regardless of what DH might have planned for that day to perform a myriad of tasks that she either feels is beneath her, even though she is capable of doing said task or a task that she claims ignorance on how to perform, even if said task is something DH has shown her how to do numerous times. 9 times out of 10, DH is on it within minutes, if not immediately, or otherwise he has told her that he’ll be over at “X” time that same day. But God forbid DH do said task when it’s convenient for him, because sometimes, when DH arrives at “X” time, MIL’s left the house with no forewarning. Just “poof.” Nobody home. And there’s DH uselessly knocking on her door wasting his time. This means that DH will have to go back to the drawing board and find another time to do said task. Many times I think MIL becomes unavailable on purpose because she’s pissed he didn’t come over THAT INSTANT when she asked. She’ll show him!! Instead, she’ll leave and make it inconvenient for him so that he damn well will come over next time when she says so. DH would scoff at this suggestion, but she’s done it enough times that I can’t believe she doesn’t realize she’s being extremely rude or she’s actually doing this on purpose to make it so that she controls when he comes over. Not DH. DH never sees behind his mother’s reality. NEVER.

What really upsets me is that DH is so very good to her. He caters to her almost every need that is within his power to do for her. To her, this is nothing short than his due to her, so she sees nothing remarkable in what he’s doing for her. In her mind, since she’s his mother, he owes it to her. She doesn’t love him. His mother isn’t capable of showing real love. She has no idea what it even means. She doesn’t love him, she’s obsessed with him. I can tell with an absolute certainty that if DH suddenly stopped doing these little meaningless tasks for her, she’d drop him like a dirty, wet rag. She would shriek that he must not love her if he won’t do those things for her. She’d be furious and shun him, and unless he shaped up and did whatever she demanded, she’d be done with him. Her “love” is totally conditional. She doesn’t give a s.h.i.t. about him. It sounds harsh, but it's true and it's horrible. She “loves” her son only so far as he continues to do things for her. She doesn’t care about him as her child or as person in his own right. I’m a parent. I know what loving your child means and is like. I don’t love my child or have interest in my child only so far as what they can do for me. I love them anyway. I love their personality, who they are, who they are becoming, I love their little quirks, and the smell of their skin. I enjoy being with them. I may not like some of the things they do, but I love them regardless. It’s ME (the parent) that would be DOING for my children, not the other way around. I expect nothing from them that I claim as my due as a parent. They are individuals, even though sometimes it is hard to remember that I don’t OWN them. I have them for a short time, and I hope that I am raising well mannered, thoughtful children that I can set loose on the world. MIL’s definition of love is what people DO for you. That isn’t love. I don’t know what that is, but love has nothing to do with it!! DH doesn’t understand that. When he hears his mother tell him “I love you” he doesn’t understand that she really doesn’t. It’s lip service and nothing more. She thinks she loves him, and he thinks she thinks she loves him, but her behavior isn’t love and never was.

A narcissistic mother may create odd occasions at which she can be the center of attention. She may love to entertain so she can be the life of her own party. She will try to steal the spotlight or will try to spoil any occasion where someone else is the center of attention.

Another twist to the “request” factor that supports MIL’s whole attention seeking need, is something I noticed her doing and thought it was nuts. I began to notice that every time MIL had a guest at her house for dinner or drinks, it became common practice for her to call DH on the phone and request his presence RIGHT THEN to take care of some task. At first when she did this I was thinking “Why is she doing that? She has guests over?” After she did that a number of times and I noticed a pattern, I realized she was doing that to show off to whoever was there at her house how wonderful her son is that he jumps on command. “See how my son treats me like a queen?” “See how he’s such a slave to my royal self?” “See how I deserve deference?” “This is how I am to be treated!” Once I figured that out, which was unfortunately very recently, I will practically have to hiss at DH that he is not to go over and do menial tasks for her when she has guests.

Another occasion that she created for herself to be loved and adored was when she requested of DH and his sister (Crunchy) that they throw her a 70th birthday party. If you have to ask for a party, is that any fun? I would never ask for such a thing. I guess MIL wanted to show whatever friends or acquaintances that she had at the time how wonderful her children were because they are so gracious and love her so much that they would throw her a 70th birthday party. Never mind that they weren’t throwing it FOR HER because they love her, or because they wanted to do something nice for her. They simply threw the party to keep her from having an expected, whiny “nobody loves me” pity party. But, as long as MIL could pretend and convince herself that her children were throwing this party out of the love in their hearts and nobody else really knew the truth, she could wallow in her little fantasy land.

The party was held in our home, which I managed to allow. Crunchy flew in from across the country to help plan and attend. I, however, other than getting my carpets cleaned, didn’t lift a finger to do fuck all. It wasn’t a large party, but it was large enough to fill my house with guests even as they came and went. What really made me seethe was that MIL is one of those individuals who thinks arriving late is “fashionable.” So here it was, long after the party began and my house is filled with guests and even neighbors from the neighborhood who have no idea the level of “dysfunctional bitch” she really is and yet -- the annoying dishrag is nowhere to be found. I could see other guests were looking around curiously like “where’s the birthday girl?” but had the tact not to ask. It was actually getting uncomfortable to try and pretend that all was normal when it obviously was not. Remember -- this hag lives across the street. No excuse for that.

Approximately 40 minutes after the start of her birthday party, MIL sails in the front door all dressed up and stuffed into a floor length mink coat and a big smile on her face without a care in the world. It really wasn’t amusing. Despite this, I was determine to put my big girl face on and be nice. I tried hard for DH to make this pleasant. A few minutes after she got there I forced myself to converse with her and to wish her a happy birthday. I came to regret it the moment I spoke to her. Her response instantly reminded me why I should NEVER EVER EVER be nice to her because she WILL slam me down and try to put me in my place. I walked up to her and said “Happy Birthday MIL, nice party. Are you having a good time?” And out of her filthy mouth came her reply: “Of course I’m having a good time, why wouldn’t I?” How is anyone supposed to respond to something so uncouth? After she said it, I was DONE. And I had just started!! I simply turned from her and walked away because if I didn’t I was tempted to grab her by her ear and drag her out the front door. Why do we have to put up with such horrible people like this on this planet? Why? Why? Why?

One more bizarre request of MILs happened a year or two into my and DH’s relationship. MIL called him on the phone and told DH that she knew what she wanted from him for Christmas. When DH inquired what that was, she told him that she wanted him to write her a love letter, hand written, explaining in the letter how important she is to him and how thankful he is for such a wonderful mother. I wanted to vomit. What the hell is THAT? What is she going to do with it? Frame it? Show it to everyone to show how much her son worships her (which he doesn’t)? Bury herself with it when she dies? Masturbate with it? Needless to say, she didn’t get the love letter and she never will.

Entertaining herself is unthinkable. She has always pouted, manipulated or raged if you tried to do anything without her, didn’t want to entertain her, refused to wait on her, stymied her plans for a drama or otherwise deprived her of attention.

MIL believes she is entitled to be involved in everything we do, simply because of the fact that she is DH’s mother. Like being a mother gives her a pass to involve herself in every event we have. It’s infuriating. If we have other family over for dinner, like DH’s dad (when he was alive) or even my family, she’d stroll over on a pretense to say hi or drop something off just to see what was going on. If she wasn’t impromptu invited to join us (which she often wasn’t), she’d have a hissy fit in private later, spewing her disappointment all over DH that he didn’t think to invite his poor mother. What a horrible son he is, how so very ill-mannered of him!!

I hate, loathe, detest and abhor that bitch. There is NOTHING likeable about her. Not one thing.

First Attempt = Failure

Because they feel impotent, Narcissists fear the power they imagine others to have. Narcissists credit to them an almost delirious and crazy sense, a malice that is really just a projection of their own malevolence.

I believe that quote is the center from which all of WWW’s feelings towards me stem. From the moment she met me, she immediately saw me as a threat. In her mind she must have believed I was actually going to use whatever power I had (or she thought I had) to manipulate her son against her. In reality, that was totally her projection. It is SHE that has been using whatever power she has to turn DH against ME. Projection. Whoever came up with that is brilliant. WWW has never liked me because of that paranoid delusion of hers. As much as DH has tried to believe that if I just tried a little harder to get along with his mother or if I just sat down with her and worked out "our" issues, it could be better. He has been of the opinion that this is some sort of two-way street and that our relationship failures can be blamed in equal measure. The reality is that there has never been anything I can say, never anything I can do, no particular way I can behave that will ever convince that bat shit crazy bitch that I am not out to steal HER SON from her.

It was only a couple weeks after my dad’s passing that DH’s mom flew in on her broom to “visit.” According to DH she had only ever visited him once before and he had lived in our state for 8 years at that point. How lucky was I to get the long awaited visit after only dating for about a month and a half? How ironic it was that her visit fell after an almost complete physical absence from his life for 8 years until I walked into it. I had no idea what awaited me. The only inkling I had that she was something I may need to be concerned about was when DH said vaguely, “well, my mom’s a little different.” He didn’t elaborate. He really couldn’t. She needed to be seen in order for one to understand.

The most shocking thing about WWW isn’t something anyone who doesn’t know her well would know, but stands out HUGE as far as indicating that this woman needs to come with a warning label. She’s been married five times. Yes, count them. One, two, three, four, five. Clearly, she doesn’t play well with others. DH would argue with me at this point and say, “Well, the last marriage was annulled, so it doesn’t count.” Whatever. The intent was the same regardless of how it ended up. I don’t recall who the men were. The first husband was DH’s dad with whom WWW had two children - DH and his sister. I’ll call DH’s sister “Crunchy” because she’s rather granola. One of WWW’s husband’s (#2 or #3) was a man who when this man was a toddler, played with DH. This means that one of her husbands was her own son’s childhood friend and the same age. How screwed up and disgusting is that? How that even came to pass I have no idea. The other two I have no stories that come to mind. The last husband borrowed money from her to buy WWW her own engagement ring. He then purchased a fake diamond and disappeared after the wedding with her money and whatever else he scammed off her. That marriage was annulled. She has remained single since.

WWW thinks she’s a hot mama. More than once I’ve seen her wearing leather pants. Her regular fashion MO is animal print tops, or those studded with sequins or glitter. She has a vast liking for jewelry, but changes it so often there doesn’t seem to be anything that is overly sentimental to her, but I could be wrong. She likes jewelry for the attention it gets her and how rich or important it makes her seem to others. She’s had a face lift and is very concerned about looking old. I think she’s somewhat retired now, but when I first met her she was very involved in marketing products with catalogs and QVC. She gave radio interviews and went on buying trips to Hong Kong, but this was all done within her own business. I firmly believe that she works this way because she absolutely cannot get along with others in any professional setting where there are more than three people in close quarters. Whatever the case, she made it work for her.

Her home at the time I met her was quite like her clothing choices. I have only been there twice, but when I first walked in my eyes bugged out of my head. Mind you, I may have come from a rather simple, Midwest family oriented situation so it could have just seemed over the top to me. You be the judge. Sitting In her front window was a huge carousel horse wrapped in Christmas lights. That was the first thing you saw. The rest of the house was filled with fancy crystal and shiny hoo-ha’s. You wanted to tip toe through and god forbid you touch anything. It was like a museum. The art work that covered the walls were silhouettes of female nudes or actual female nudes who appeared to be masturbating, or other female nudes in various array. It’s been so long since I’ve been there I can’t really even recall all the weirdness now.

WWW’s overall countenance is one of haughtiness and arrogance. She thinks she’s all that and a bag of chips. When you sit down at the dinner table she monopolizes the conversation and talks all about her work or whatever it is that interests her at the moment. And she goes on and on and on and fucking on. And you can just feel as she talks that she absolutely believes that everything she says is correct. Her ego precedes her like an ooze. She knows everything, about everything and if you contradict her, she’ll argue with you about it. Occasionally, she does ask others around her something superficial like "how are you?” or “how is work?” and those topics are discussed until they fall flat, which is rather quickly. I learned fast that WWW isn’t really interested in your answers anyway. Very early into meeting WWW, I learned how to zone out, yet appear like I was still listing to and absorbing the shit she was saying. After a while, it was second nature. Any conversations around her would find me glazing over. I do this to protect my sanity. The more I began to dislike her, the more these drone like impersonal discussions drove me to an internal frenzy. She’d walk into a room and all I wanted to do was get the fuck out. When she spoke, I heard nothing she said and I missed nothing she said because it related to me or my life not.at.all EVAR. Conversation with her does not involve give and take. During the 15 years I’ve known DH’s mom, not a single personal thing has ever come out of her mouth. She has never said anything about her life, her feelings, what she’s excited about, what she’s sad about, what she’s looking forward to. It’s like there’s no life in her. Nothing she says comes out in any way like something you can relate to, glom on to and weave a relationship with. I can’t describe it any better than that.

Worse than all this, was the apparent bizarre hold she has over DH. During her first visit after DH and I started dating, the minute she arrived she starting taking control of his life, his house and his things. She had him cleaning out his basement, reorganizing everything, throwing his stuff out and he just stood there like a robot and did everything she said, and did whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted. Although this seemed weird, I didn’t attribute anything sinister or diabolical in it. I didn’t really think about it much at all. I should have. I didn’t because I am the antithesis of WWW. Where WWW sees evil and bad in people, even when there is none, I see good and non-intent in people even when perhaps there is. Or at least that’s who I was THEN.

After his mom boarded the plane for home, you had better believe that my hair stood on end when DH told me what his mother said about me. DH said that one night when it was just he and his mom that she said to him “I think you need to break up with M.A. because she has too much emotional baggage. You need to let her go so that she has time to heal.” I knew I picked a nice man when his response to her was: “Yes, she has a lot sad things going on right now, but why does that mean she has to go through it alone?”

WWW would have liked that wouldn’t she? Her attempt failed.