Running Away……

A comment that was left on the previous post is leading me to write this particular post.

It is quite simple for us to pack up and leave. It is a necessity for the mental and emotional well being of all involved. The boys fear her as do I and my daughter no longer considers her a grandmother. She has no feelings regarding her accept those of ambivalence. She feels that it would not matter if her grandmother were to be placed on the appropriate medication and in counseling. It would not make any difference to the level of hatred that she feels towards me.

We have always told the children that it is a mental illness and they must remember that and try to remember the good times with their grandmother. Upon talking with them, they have no fond memories of her. Not her specifically. They only have memories of being taken to the beach and playing with there grandfather. Building drip castles in the sand. Being read stories by their grandfather. Visiting with various family members who would also come down for the summer. These people and the activities are what make up their memories of their visits with their grandparents. What they remember of their grandmother are not fond memories. Sadly, my husband has the same view of his maternal grandmother.

Their memories consist of being told what a b*tch their mother is and a liar and that she was pregnant before they were married. Being told to be quiet by my FIL when she would start in on her vile diatribe, she would inform him that the children need to know what sort of mother they have.

We had assumed she was not in a manic phase when they had the kids for visits in the summer and would go through periods of debriefing them when they came home. It was then we realized the emotional damage that was being done to the kids not to mention the verbal abuse that was being carried out. Our daughter would not want to tell us everything because she knew it hurt me to hear what was being said. What she didn’t understand was that it didn’t hurt me per se but that it hurt me to think of a grandmother that would be so cruel in spouting such garbage to the children.

Our daughter took on the role of trying to keep her grandmother happy. She thought that by doing so would possibly keep some of her grandmother’s hatred towards me at bay. She was around 8 years old at the time. When we realized what role she was attempting we explained at length that she was not responsible for making her grandmother nor her parents happy. No one can be responsible for another’s happiness. True happiness must come from inside a person. She was only responsible for her own happiness and that of being a child. She was slowly taking on the same coping skills my husband had learned as a child. That of blocking it out and forgetting.

My husband still did not see the damage that was being done to the kids. He felt that by us “explaining away” his mother’s behavior we would be able to counter any side effects of this type of abuse. We were still in the appeasing and placating role in regard to his parents. This caused many a discussion between he and I. It wasn’t until our daughter had to be put in counseling that he realized the damage that was being done. That still did not break us from the cycle we were finding ourselves drawn into constantly.

There were periods of time where he would refuse to allow his mother access to the kids. I will admit that those were the better times for us as a married couple but it wouldn’t last long. I must take some of the blame in regard to the breaking of his resolve. Having no family to speak of it bothered me seeing he and his parents at odds with each other. I would encourage him to at least make a phone call.

I never truly grasped the complexity of bi-polar and I am not clear as to exactly when I fully began to understand the depth and severity of it in my MIL. I would have many an argument with my husband over the horrid things his mother would say to me, about me to others and his (what I perceived) unwillingness to defend me. He would always tell me that there was no possible way he could approach his parents with what was being said because one cannot argue with a crazy women. As a wife I took that as meaning I had no value and worth to my husband. Many of the things his mother had said to others inevitably got back to us. It was very painful for me to sit and watch him not address the issues.

I started to withdraw from my husband and any persons connected to him or his family. Family members. Friends. I assumed that his family surely must have felt the same way about me that his mother and father felt. I was angry and felt unjustly accused of having done things I had not done. Comments and actions misconstrued, taken totally our of context. I cut myself off from any one remotely connected with him or his parents.

There were several times that it had become so difficult that I had packed the kids clothes and mine and was leaving him. I couldn’t take the verbal abuse. I had heard so much of what a bad person, bad mother, bad wife etc. that I was beginning to believe and doubt myself. That is why my husband does not allow me to listen to any of the messages she leaves on his cell phone. I will cajole and harass him at times to allow me to at least hear one or two….especially if I find myself feeling sorry for them. It is some perverse sense of reasoning that I need to be reminded of how vile she can be. Listening to the attacks on my person have no weight anymore but I confess to wanting to see her disappear when I hear the things being said about the children.

We would periodically go to counseling. Some things helped. Our Pastor told my husband that his responsibility was not to his parents. He was to “leave and cleave” to his wife. Our family unit consisted of husband, wife and children. He told my husband that even with the wonderful relationship he has with his own adult children that any involvement he may have with his grandchildren is a privilege not a right. Just because they are his parents does not mean they have earned the right to have access to his children if that access goes counter to the way we were raising our children. His mother found fault with the church we attended. She found fault with the Christian School we had the children enrolled in. She found fault with the fact that my daughter and I only wore dresses or culottes. She would make remarks to our daughter that culottes won’t keep her from getting pregnant. This being said to a 10 year old.

He realized that he did not owe his parents constant access to the kids. He still did not see what this was doing to us as a couple. That did not come about until last summer.

Leaving the house when she is town? Not difficult at all……..It is better than the alternative of us hiding in the downstairs, fearful that they might actually see or hear us. Which happened…..But that is another story.

~ by wifeofngh on June 6, 2008.