I'm not crying I swear!

I'm 40 years old and I'm not going to cry, not going to cry, not going to cry!!

okay... I'm not going to cry where anyone can see me because no one understands anyway, not even my husband.

Dear Daughter I promise I will never abandon you. Never ever. I will never leave you and then make you feel like it's your fault that I am going. I promise.

No one can make you feel guilty unless you let them. I know. I know. It's her choice that she's going.

This would all be better if it was June and work was slower instead of April when I am so busy. Right? It's her fault for the lousy timing. She doesn't want my help anyway. If she did then she would do it my way. She'd listen to my needs. Why does everything always have to be about her anyway. Now I'm getting angry.

Dammitt!!! Why does it have to hurt so much? Every time she leaves me I take it personally. I know it's not personal. She is just living her own life. I just don't like it. I thought I was doing a good job of detaching but not today. Today everything is all twisted up. My husband wants to know when he'll get his wife back. Hopefully by next Saturday.

How do I explain leaving to my 5 year old?

I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Dammit!

Image by jimmy_ray via Flickr

Calling all Adult Children of Alcoholics! Help me here please!

I feel like I'm really done. I mean it. I'm tired of empty threats from the alcoholic parent. I'm tired of empty threats from myself. I want to be DONE with the drama. She's been bothering me for weeks. I keep stepping back, hoping she's calmed down, and then I pick up the phone and try to reach out to her only to have her go nuts again. She's not that far away right now, less than 20 miles, but I haven't seen her in a while. So at the beginning of the week she left some crazy messages on the answering machine. I waited until tonight to call her back because I didn't want to feed into the insanity. She started right up though. 20 minutes later she's in tears slamming down the phone for the 3rd time and I'm angry that I got sucked into another fight that I wasn't looking for. I want this to END. I know my daughter deserves to have grandparents in her life, but this grandparent doesn't possess the qualities I want her to see. This grandparent is untrustworthy and mean and a huge blackmailer.
So what do I do? How do I make it end? Do I confront her and let her know that I am cutting her off? Do I tell her why (not sure I can explain it anyway, and she's so irrational she won't understand etc)? Or do I just stop returning phone calls and let it "slip away"? My father has been divorced from her since I was less than 2 years old (he says she cheated on him). He says that if I cut her out of my life completely I will regret it later. I don't know. She's been gone from my life before for months at a time (her choice). The difference now is that she is older and not in good health. Well she's never been in good health. That's always been one of her ways of getting at me with her blackmail.. but anyway... I keep asking myself "How much more do I have to take before I am allowed to walk away?" and if I am allowed to choose when to walk away then I want to do it soon and get it done with. There is a CHANCE that she will move away in April or June next year, but it's not a guarantee. So I could wait until then and just let her go but that seems like a long time to wait, especially with the holidays on the horizon.
So if you've got any advice or experience on this, please...!!! I'd love to hear it. I'm exhausted from this roller coaster ride that I've been living on for the last nearly 40 years and I think it's time to get off.






thank you.

I think I can set my calendar now

It seems from looking at this blog that every month around the 24th or 25th my mother and I have an argument. Not necessarily a real argument but she goes off on me and I end up wanting to cry, trying to detach, and asking myself if I have to continue this relationship with her.

On October 24th  my grandmother was being buried. My mom was on the edges then, complaining about me not spending enough time with her. When she realized she'd been outranked by my father's family she backed off.  After the burial my mother went to the cemetery to visit her parents' grave (same cemetery as my fathers' parents) and then she made some crack to me on the phone about how my father's family hadn't put enough flowers on my grandmother's grave. I was speechless at her lack of tact, but I didn't feel guilty because I knew that I had put flowers there even if no one else did. I guess this was her way at striking back at me for not spending time with her.

Then we had my father's birthday and Halloween. Well really, my father's birthday was November 1st, and she couldn't wait. She called me during the day yesterday and left a message. It angered me. I called her back and left a short but simple message that was direct and detached. Today she called again with 2 more messages, plus she managed to run into my father during the day and tried to get him on her side as well. Much to my amusement I heard about the encounter from my father's point of view and was glad to hear he had supported me (even though he didn't know about last night's game of message tag).

SO here we are again. The Holidays are coming. My husband and I have agreed on boundaries for Thanksgiving (we will not have her in our house, and we will not visit hers, we can meet in a public place). My mother is trying to change that, but I have my husband's support and I am strong.

Of course Thanksgiving and Christmas both fall in that window of 24th-25th when she seems to come after me. Should make for another eventful holiday season if I don't figure out something out soon.