Letting Go or Difficulty in Letting Go

Something I have in common with my mother, when someone royally pisses me off, I have a hard time letting go. Ginny (aka my mother) has left the group that I belong to. Hooray. So now I guess I can return the favor, and stop monitoring her blog. I know that is real inappropriate of me, and I am not trying to justify by saying it, but she's walked around and checked my house without permission, had a four year blog saying all sorts of untrue things about me (like I didn't care that my grandfather was dead), and been posting these sort of things on the group that I belong to a couple of years ago. Not that it's right, but I really really wanted her to feel what it's like being stalked. And I made sure to personally comment to her everytime (since I found her blog and her postings on the group) she posted a fabrication, an untruth, or misrepresented something I said.

I differ from my mother as my fit of pique is ending soon, having only gone on for months, and not ten years. It was interesting that again she made no apologies to the group that had to chase her away for the second time. You would think, if everyone is telling you your thinking and ways are warped, wouldn't you think about that------at least. Certaintly you might give THEM an apology. Guess it's nothing new to her that she never apologized to me.So good night mother martyr. I guess you can never say again that you don't know why the rift occurred. Of course, you can say it, but we will all know you are lying.

On Being Nice and Anger

The last few ugly posts of mine have been all about feeling anger in the moment. That rage you feel when someone is going after you. In my case, about something 10 years ago that is still being argued today. I apologize if my recent posts are hard to look at, they are hard for me to look at, but they do represent the rage I was feeling at the time. I did never send my mother e-mails before this that "degenerated her", but her letting me know that upset her (told her to go to hell once 10 years ago, and it was like the worst thing I could have possibly said----she never did know me too well) was my escape hatch out this last week.

I have been nice in the past, e-mailed reasonably, stated my feelins, and told my mother our relationship was at an end. It still continued, I think now it's over.In the corporate world, I always found "nice" didn't get you much of anywhere except abused and taken advantage of. Being aggressive got you where you needed to be if nice didn't work. I am nice. My employees appreciated the nice treatment they got from me, souveneirs, personalized Christmas cards, and little Holiday tokens that were left on their desk. That actually never backfired on me.

Nice to authority figures though by putting in that unreasonable extra time without complaint, doing them that favor et et did not pay back in spades, except that you were expected to work longer hours, and do more. As more and more of your life was drained away, more and more was expected from you.

Certaintly a correlation can be made between me and my parents. Time to drop the nice, and deliver the nasty. It works sometimes, although that is not how you want to be or want people to see you. If it gets the results though, and saves your sanity, it may be necessary at times.Now on to bigger and better things. Don't even think I can get excitable talking about the estrangement with my father. Certaintly something that annoys me will come up this summer when he is living here.

Sorry I Was Wrong She is a Piece of Crap

Ginny continues to say things that "I said" using different words. I had not called her a piece of crap at all in the past, but she has changed my mind. She is a piece of crap in addition to the horrible hateful person she is. Oh, and she is a cunt too. And a bitch. And a whore. A fucking bitch cunt whore piece of horrible hateful crap. And maybe just maybe that will convince her to go the fuck away.

Piece of shit fucking cunt whore, is on a group for estranged people. When I first joined, I was not aware she was on there and was talking about my dad. Then some "friend" of hers e-mailed me with some questions. Apparently she had directed her friends to my website. So I searched for her "blog" found it, and found she was on my group. I looked up her hateful postings about me on the group, where she basically said I had no feelings about my grandfather's or step-brother's death.

Any way, so I used aliases on the group, she identified me and her. Now she's on the group talking to me, the fucking bitch cunt whore, and trying to again continue the argument. Piece of crap. I have gone from disdain to disgust. She really is a piece of crap in addition to the above, she is right. I apologize mom, I was wrong, you are a piece of crap fucking cunt whore.

My bad.

Post to Me on Public Board

Fist of all let me say, there has been no communication to her from me, but I did talk to someone else on the public board, without identifying my mother on my personal experience and this is what was sent (oh so much longer than any private post to me)
Robin,

If a parent had sent me constant harrassing emails and had called me aliar, that would be troubling. I can understand how you would be upset by that. If you were available to be asked about your reasons for estranging yourself, then it would bepuzzling and upsetting why a parent would ask someone else about it.I have experienced being harrassed by a parent as my own mother did that onoccasion with me, sometimes calling me on the phone five times in a day or leaving long messages(25+ minutes) on our answering machine or calling at 3 AM to tell me she couldn't sleep. I know you remember much of what she did. This drove us all crazy for many years.

However, in your post on Rifts you are referring to my actions, not hers. That is how you remember our exchanges and how you feel.My memory of the email exchange between you and me is different from yours. We did exchange a lot of emails in a short period of time which we had never done before that September in 1995. I was upset too and hurt by some of what was said. If I hadn't been upset, I guess this never would have happened. Perhaps even if it hadn't been email, it wouldn't have happened. We both seemed to feel free to say more than we had ever said to each other in person. I did make an apology at the time for one thing that I said during the initial argument. This apology was never acknowledged and I have been called a liar for even stating that I apologized. I wish I had never made other apologies. It makes me feel like a wimp for having done so. But I cared so much about you and missed you so much that I would have apologized for the rain and wind for a time.

I am not going to apologize for being upset. I am as entitled to my feelings as you are and I felt upset and hurt by things that you said. I have never asked for an apology as it seemed obvious to me that I would never get one. Your refusal to talk to me beginning after that has made it impossible for me to talk with you about it. The person whom I spoke with about it many years ago said that they did not understand it either. I would have been happy to talk with you about it. It wasn't possible to do two opposing things: to give you your space and at the same time make you talk with me. From things you have said back then and recently I have been hearing two different wishes from you: that I would have tried harder and that I would leave you alone. And two different criticisms: that I harrassed you and that Ididn't try hard enough. (And if I try harder, then you feel harrassed.)

I can understand that you might feel abandoned if a parent didn't try harder to contact you but then at the same time you wanted to keep me out of your life. It's just not possible to have it both ways: to have a parent who keeps trying while demanding that the same parent leave you alone. So, as I have said in other places recently, I accepted your decision to estrange yourself. It is your right.

Like Jenny, I would have liked to be able to have a relationship where we were able to have lunch and just hang out sometimes. I will always miss what might have been but isn't.

Love (through tears),Ginny

There she is the demented bitch. Great picture of her as it looks like she is. Controlling, manipulative, selfish, and scarry/demented looking. Ugh, just makes me want to puke seeing her there.

So I did reply directly to my mother. Sadly when you e-mail directly from the group boards, you loose that e-mail when you send it.
I used swear words. I told her that I am through being nice. I reminded her that she has my e-mail addresses. She could actually e-mail me, she does not need to post letters to me on the board. Additionally, I let her know there are not two messages. I expected the apology from her in less than 10 years, a few months after the event, I just never wanted to hear from her again after being constantly harrassed. The time for apologies was long over, and were never received. There was nothing to acknowledge.
God she is just the worst. Okay, maybe not the worst, she never sexually or physically abused me, but God I can't stand her. Seeing her picture never makes me wistful, it makes me want to throw up and never see her again.

REPLY TO GINNY

Well, you know think what you want. No I did not love you for five minutes today, of for a very long time now. I don't say things I don't mean.I did think you might have actually heard me from you postings and "brief" civil responses. You are deluded, and clearly nothing will ever get through to you, as it didn't before when you "interviewed" everyone even though you knew why we weren't talking.We were still estranged when I got the letter from your mom, so no that wasn't it either, it had already happened, but keep going on with your delusions.I hope someday you can let it go, and you will stop lying to yourself and face your actions.No I do not take responsibilty for our estrangement. It was perfectly in my right to deny your request for the perfect gift, and let you know the problem I had with it. The only responsibility I take, is making the right decision not to talk to you again. (e-mail is not talking)

Reply to Ginny/Letting Her Know I am Aware She Knows I See Her Blog

Thank you for your input, but no I am not looking for that. I guess I check up because:

1. It's a public forum, and I want you to know that I can see it. Also, I probably want you to know what I must have felt like when I found you not only watching my site but actually posting and reporting on parts of my site. It doesn't feel good, does it? I guess I was waiting for an acknowledgement of that you might now understand why it was bothersome to me by acknowledging your own feelings.
2. I guess I am also interested in what point you will stop arguing with me or the ghost of me in either written format or cartoons.
3. And also, I want to see what stories or misconceptions that you might post up on your website so I can reinform you, whether you post them or not (the explanations).
4. And just so you know, I use this e-mail because it has no personal info about me on it, I am aware this is not my regular e-mail. I don't need you to ferret out any more than you already have about my personal life.
5. On the public blog, you are part of my story, when I talk about myself to other people and why I estranged myself, the story doesn't change just because you don't wish to see it there. I am not talking to you, but to someone about my experiences, of which this is a part. I am going through an estrangment with my father, and sometimes the estrangement with you gets brought up, or I am talking to another mom estranged from their daughter. You claim to do the same thing on your blog, although to me it seems more personally directed at me. So I would think you would be able to understand that, as you had four or five years of doing it.
6. As far as you comparing my postings about my step on my webpage to you, number one I will never reconcile with her. Number two, I haven't left it on for years, or I think even a month. Number three, I don't try to justify it as the right thing to do.

I will take this time to reiterate here the reason for the estrangement because you still don't seem to take it in. At the time of the estrangement, I loved you., maybe less than I once did. Your continued arguing and time has eroded that away to the feelings that I have now, and had probably 4-5 years after it happened. I don't know why it's important to me that you understand it. As to agreeing or disagreeing with my reasons, that's entirely your choice.

As I did ten years ago, I agree that permanent estrangement is necessary. If I had received the apology within the year, or just a validation that you understood where I stood, it might have been different. I accept that you did not know what to do or did not want to do that. There is nothing that can be done about that now, as I don't get that you really feel you did anything wrong, and as I said my feelings have changed.

Paying For The Sins of Others

Why did it take me until age 39 to formally realize and acknowledge this? Maybe therapy would have led me in this direction sooner? Or maybe it would have been the goobeldygook that I experience earlier that went nowhere. I wish I had realized this sooner, but I don’t know if it was possible to, and if time maturity and experience needed to take me to this place in it’s own due time.

To my dad, I have paid for looking like my mother. I have paid for coming from my mother. I have paid for being an unplanned pregnancy that caused my father and mother to get into a doomed marriage in the first place. I have paid for the fact that my mother had an affair during her marriage. I further paid for her remarriage to Jimmy. I almost started the payment of my dad’s second marriage, which is going into the pits, so I have heard from the step. I have paid, and paid, and paid. I never should have paid one cent, but I have paid in my level of happiness, in my enjoyment of life, in striving to please someone who could never be pleased. I have paid, and in the end I have gotten nothing back from this man in return, except his abuse, his wife’s abuse, and constant tries to control me. This year, I have stopped paying. I have started fully being the me that I always have been, and fully enjoying my life and family who accepts me for who I am. I don’t even want to know this man. If I met him for the first time, and heard the real him behind the mask, I would not want to know him. I would seek in fact to avoid him at all costs. He’s not the worst person in the world; he lives a pretty normal life as most people do. I don’t want to know and don’t in fact like everyone. I am choosy in the people I associate with. I have these high expectations that they should be nice, they should like me for who I am, and they should not make my life miserable everyday that they are in it. I know, perfectionist, that’s me, expecting the impossible from people.

To my step, all of the above, but my dad accepted her children into his life readily. In fact, they were the sons he always wanted. They were not the constant reminder of his first marriage and relationship. In that acceptance, and with her selfish controlling and manipulative personality in place, she thrived. Until I walked out of her house 18 years ago in a nightshirt, underwear, and no socks into a blizzard, and started walking towards my boyfriends house two miles away. There was no speaking for two years, until her mother died, and I picked up the phone and gave my condolences. In the meantime, my dad had made overtures to me, and I had allowed him in my life, while he made excuses for “poor Step” and how hard it is to come into a pre-made family. Why it wasn’t considered hard on his part (Step had divorced father, kids kind of look like him, and two kids that had to live with them or DSS would be called)? I don’t know. Why did I break silence to the Step? Now I would call myself an idiot. I again gave her the permission she needed 18 years later to start the cycle all over again. After that reaching out on my part, I began the paying all over again. Paying for being born, paying for my dad’s first marriage, paying a debt that not only could not be repaid, but should not be repaid. I like myself. I am a great person. I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I certainty never did anything to bring on this wrath.

To my mother, I have paid for being an unplanned pregnancy. I have paid for being the reason she decided to marry my dad, and then stay with him for the next 18 years. I have paid for any emotional abuse my dad has slung her way. I have paid for the ugliness during the divorce. I have paid because dad did not want to talk to her after she left. I have paid for her own bad relationship with her mother, and the fact I couldn’t mirror back the relationship she wanted, and predetermined how it would be with me. I stopped paying 10 years ago. I recently revisited the reconciliation idea, to find out the price would be too high. I wanted those same unreasonable expectations from her that I wanted from my dad. I did not want a one sided relationship that caters to her lack of self, confidence, esteem, et et. Her need for material things to prove the relationship is good, without the actual participation in a relationship on her behalf. Nope, sorry not interested. In a recent blog question, she asks “did Johny Cash deserve to be estranged from his children?” I see this as her question, did she deserve to be estranged from her child. The answer, I do not deserve the abuse, the debt that can never be paid, the obligation to be someone or something I am not. I do not ask it from her, I choose not to have a relationship with her, and not to torment her for the rest of her life with expectations that she feels are unreasonable.

I think what my mother is really asking is "aren't I entitled to a relationship with my daughter no matter what? no matter what I do to her, how I treat her, that I won't allow a two sided relationship?" As far as I am concerned my answer is, you deserve the same as you put in. You've taken and you have not given. You have not listened. You have not apologized. You were clearly in the wrong. You can't even admit that having an affair while married, just might have entitled my father to not want to talk to you again. You have done nothing wrong in your eyes. You do not need to give emotional support or show true affection for the person that I am. It's ALL about you. You are not entitled to my servitude in your service of reflecting back what you want to see. No, you do not deserve my participation in a relationship with you. Yes, you deserve estrangement, but it has not been enacted as a punishment to you. It has been enacted to save my sanity, and allow me to concetrate on my and my family's wellbeing.

The above is all an exercise in trying to explain how estrangement feels for an estranger such as me. Why a family feels toxic, and especially my family feels toxic to me.

A Deep Thought

I've also recently realized, I was also supposed to rectify for one of my parents, an estranged relationship they had with their parents. I was the proof of good solid parenting. That they did a better job than their parents did. And the way this was proved, was that I conform to their preconceived idea of what I was going to be like, what our relationship was going to be like, whether they approved of what I did, whether they liked my husband, and whether gifts received from me were up to par or at their tastes. I was also supposed to have their same interests of their same age group, and be going through the very same learning curve. Non-conformity meant the right to make my life miserable, and for me to continue to pay a debt that could never be paid or satisfied.

The one time "no" or "give me my space" or "I won't do that" could trigger the harassment, apparently, forever. Or emotional abuse. It could forgive breaches of boundary, privacy. It was payment in the form of less enjoyment of life, and of myself. I needed to give up that part of myself and conform. I am imperfect in that I, personally, cannot live that way. I need to take care of myself. I need to take care of the people that love and care for me as I am and who I am.

The only thing I wasn't representative to these people, is that someone that needed love, care, acceptance, and occasional support. The realization of this, and why this is just impossible for me, and why I can say this is impossible for me, is the reason I credit this period of peace that I haven't felt .......maybe ever. Wow. I may never have felt as truly happy as I do now, even with the baggage that is still left over from that. Huh.

Appears My Visitor Has Left The Building

I feel bad for Ginny, my mmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm, whatever. But not so bad that I want to know her on even a superficial level. Been there, done that. With both parents by the way. Oh and the step from hell.

I think maybe she has finally gotten the message, which is good for both of us. I really haven't thought about it, unless the occaisional card made it into the mail box before finding itself unopened in the garbage can. I have been reconciled with my decision regarding my break from my mom for several years now. I did revisit it, only to find the same person that I still don't like for reasons I have described and outlined in depth previously.

I look at these people and think, how was I born from them? I do see the physical characteristics, but morally, ethically, in the way I feel and think, what I value is vastly different. It's bizarre.

Both my parents need to paint people in neat little boxes. Andy he's an architect and comes from a wealthy family. Robin she's a republican (I am not by the way lOL) who likes romance novels. Everything is so flat and finite to them. People are nothing more to them than the surface, and I wonder if that's because they are flat themselves?

I don't know. Long ago though my mother and her mother became a non-problem for me. It was a good decision. Recently, my father and my step were sent packing. And I really felt a load taken off me. There is nothing positive that ever came from that relationship. And to continue it would be to recite what my father wants to talk about, and go back under his control. Ain't gonna happen. Not going to be sucked in again.

I finally know what a toxic family is. It's mine. Not my marriage mind you, or my relationship with my cousins, uncles, aunts, but my relationship with my parents was toxic. Now it's non-existent.

To My Special Stalker

There is no reason for you to be here. Except for my private life, you have already received or read everything on here. There is nothing new.Go away. You agreed that the estrangement is a good thing. You are not wanted. I know this is a public forum, but there is no need for you to be here except to step over boundaries.I have been waiting for you to admit that it's unsettling for me to go to your public site everyday, apparently you aren't going to learn the lesson (big surprise there), and will continue to say you don't care if I go there. Well, it Fing creeps me out to see you going onto all my places again. There is nothing here that can identify you, as you have identified me to all your friends. Sorry they found my site with my comments about you, with me not knowing you had driven them there. Oh, and that's not creepy at all.I have never crept around your house without your permission. I have never identified you on a public group forum. I have not gone behind your back to your husband (yeah did you really think he wouldn't tell his own wife, what kind of marriage do you have?) and then to relatives to dig out personal facts.Go away. Seriously find a life and go away. Keep up your art/blog. Feel free. Just go climb back under that rock I left you 10 years ago. I am through being nice here.

For Those About to Post

There are those people out there, people that I don't want on my blog (my mother see estrangement posts early on) that make certain assumptions, negative ones of course, based on things I write, which quite frankly are none of their business, except that they find my public blog out there, and while they say they knew peeking at my private family page was wrong, have taken to coming on here regularly for their own purposes. So before this person begins posting:

1. Our house hasn't sold, but we were prepared for that and have savings. This is a blog where I post certain stresses that are normal, which I am having. I have taken certain self employment risks, and real estate risks to secure my future, as I have done in the past. I am pretty good at these types of things, as you will note by my success to date.
2. ) In corporate America mergers happen. Robert's companies are merging, and will probably not be in this area. This is common. In the past when you wrote "I don't know why she lost her job she was a hard worker" you are right. I didn't loose my job, my companies were moved to Wisconsin and Georgia. I was offered jobs there, and I declined as I did not want to live in Wisconsin or Georgia. Similar thing is happening to Rob's job, we've been there done that. You, of course, were always another stressful force under these circumstances whining about yourself, and continue to be from afar. It's none of your business. Plus all the layoffs for this year have happened, and Robert has retained his job without a problem. Other managers in other areas, despite their skills and success, lost their jobs. If you had ever worked in the corporate world, you would understand this is all a game of luck.
3. HR complaints happen all the time. I had to go through a few when I worked in corporate America, and now Robert had to go through one. Which by the way, was thrown out, as she has done this to three or four bosses. Robert did nothing wrong in this instance, except try to manage an employee who took off for over long breaks, not realizing her history.

Kay? Go away. This is none of your business. Just don't want to see your latest negative spin.

For those of you that are not my mother, could you pretend to be me, contact her, send her presents, tell her she is right, and you are oh so sorry for not giving in to the quanity and quality of presents, and expecting her to be supportive while your husband was in the hospital. Could you? Oh, and if I look different to her, could you say I was caught in a horrible barn fire, and had to undergo dramatic cosmetic surgery?????

Fing A

Not much to say about estrangement today, except I see my Fing bitch of a mother has found this blog. Probably due to my business blog.She makes me sick, she really does. I have been nice so far, as nice as I can be in this situation, and I am so Fing sick of her.Guess I ticked her off by making my point that I can look at her blog everyday.But like her, I can say whatever I want here, and like hers, this isn't here for her little obessive demented attentions.C word F word explative LOL.Out of character for me, but an occaisional outburst feels so right.