80 years

[fbhjr]

My mother turns 80 today.
I sent her an e-card.

There is part of me that regrets that my relationship with my mother is
such that on a big round number birthday I send an e-card and nothing more.
However, dealing with her really feels like putting my hand in a meat
grinder.  And, I long ago decided not to do that to myself any more.

I regret that is the case.  But, it is.
So, an e-card.

Comments

[temperlj.livejournal.com]

Your Mother is evil and drove off/tried to dominate any person who treated her with love.

Her bed, she can enjoy the scorpion-filled mattress of it.

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

Okay - judging from the comment ... you may be interested in a book about people who may be actually evil, called "People of the Lie" by M. Scott Peck. It's a kind of chilling horrible look at evil people and their actions, and how to heal the survivors. It may be triggering. It's pretty intense at points as he uses case histories to illustrate his points, and they are not pretty.

The one that always comes to mind is the father who gave his son a gun on his twelve birthday. The son shot himself to death with that gun. The father then gave the same gun to the younger brother when he turned twelve. You tell me that isn't inspired by evil.

I never finished the book - I was too young and it was way too triggery for me. I also think Peck is a little off the Christian deep end. But the case studies are real. And the solutions are real.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

*reads above comments*

and... i of course was going to go the other way. that we all try to love people as best we can, while still detaching ourselves from needing certain outcomes from them. it's the hardest thing i've ever learned, and i'm still struggling with it. from where i sit an e-card wasn't a terrible compromise. to me it says "OK, you're a human being who put a lot of work into creating me but I need to love you at a distance because I refuse to let you hurt me any more." i don't know how that feels wrt a mother (well, 95% of the time) but i remember it well from ex-spouse.

*HUG*

i guess... you're a pretty special human being, so the right stuff is getting done.

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

While most people can be detached from needing certain outcomes, in my experience, some go out of their way to make sure buttons are pushed. You can detach all you want and they will still track you down and stick a dagger in under the armour. They will still leave you wounded no matter how detached you are. My own mother was one of those.

If I had a dime for everyone who told me "You should let your mother have your phone number.... life's too short!"

The fact was, life was too short to be called 45 times in the same night by a drunk woman who wanted to hurl curses and abuse at me, when I had not choice but to answer the phone because I was on call for the local woman's safehouse as a crisis counselor. She never had my phone number again.

Frank's mother would seem to have the same sort of effect. Letting any guard down at all can be extremely detrimental. In my opinion, Frank's emotional safety is not worth putting himself in that kind of jeopardy. I've tried it both ways. It works far better to be able to choose the method and time of communication, preferably with a quick safe escape route available.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

IMHO your phone number example fits into what i was trying to say: i wouldn't have encouraged you to give her your phone number under those circumstances (verbal abuse being yelled at you consistently); no one should be forced to listen to that, and i'm sorry it happened. i didn't see my comment as encouragement to Frank to do something different than he did. i like what he chose to do.

it seems to me as if you're transferring your experience onto this situation. maybe i'm doing the same thing. i have a feeling both of us had important relationships implode... just handled it a little differently in the end. as i mentioned above, it's probably a bigger betrayal when it's a parent (rather than a spouse).

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

Oh - I misread you then. My bad. I apologize.

I wasn't transferring - I was conscious not to. I just wanted Frank not to feel alone.

As a point of conversation....

I've had relationships implode. That happens. I've redefined plenty of relationships, I released some, had circumstance take care of some of them for me. But yeah - parental relationships are different. No matter how toxic the relationship, and no matter how rational we think we are...toxic parents (or really any close family) are devastating. In this culture we seem to have a built in expectation that our parents will love us and that then implies they will be careful of us. We can rationalize that away all we want, and -again, in my experience- it's just not that easy.

I've witnessed way too many truly toxic parents in my life. One was woman who got pregnant at 16, and blamed her daughter for her lost/failed acting career. Now, the daughter by the time she was in high school knew it wasn't her fault intellectually, but she felt the pain of it every day. She eventually became so full of psychosomatic symptoms from the internal conflict, that the last time I saw her she looked twice her age and had a pill box bigger than any I have ever seen. She was dead at 32.

Another friend got thrown out of her apartment at 2am. She was 15 years old. Her mother threw her out into the center of New York, NY at 2am, yelling, "I was never meant to be a mother!" at her as the door closed. My friend divorced her parents legally.

I recently re-found a childhood friend. When we were about 9 years old we played dolls at his apartment all the time - GI Joe and Barbie (Barbie was the 007 of her gender). One day I went to go find him, and the doorman stopped me. He said that my friend had been arrested for attacking his mother and hadn't come back. I was stunned. My friend was about 12 years old. He was a shrimpy kid, sarcastic, but not mean. I found him again last year. Turns out his mother had been beating him for years when she was drunk. He had a growth spurt. She hit him, he hit her back, she called the cops.

Oh yeah - and there is the daughter I stole (she was 19 years old) from the meth head mother who took my girl out of real school to "home school". Home schooling meant that my girl, at age 11, was in reality a full time babysitter for her new sister. That particular mother's response to my girl telling her in high school "I got an A on my AP biology exam!" was "A's won't get you anywhere in this world." I stole that daughter and it took me YEARS to get her to a place where she felt she had value and was worthy of being loved. YEARS.

Not one of those parents is worth even an ecard, again, in my opinion. Judging from the tone of Temper's response, I'm guessing Frank was generous. Big round 0 number or not. As a friend, I am glad he has such clear boundaries, because yeah, I know what it's like to let those boundaries blur even a little. The cost is much higher than a little guilt in an ecard.

(Icon of me and stolen daughter.)

(edited to remove a name and for a typo)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

"He had a growth spurt. She hit him, he hit her back, she called the cops."

I caught my mother's hand. I didn't hit her back. But, I wouldn't let her hit me either.
She never tried that again.
She did switch to economic methods that were effective until my wife helped me pay my parents off.

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

Economic methods - ye gods - been there done that burned the shirt ...
*shudders*

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - and you know my daughter. You have sent her lots of letters supporting her.

Did I ever thank you for that?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Yes, you have.
But, there really is no need. She is worth supporting without encouragement.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

To be clear:

I am not trying to say my mother is evil. I am also not in any way blaming my wife, who has long been a target of my mother, for thinking she is.

My mother had very specific ideas and plans for her first born son.
I am not suitable for those plans.
My mother has never been willing to adjust her expectations for her first born son to be closer to the actual person I am.
I am not willing to pretend to be something I am not just to fulfill her expectations. (And, to be fair to her, this is exactly what she was willing to do for most of her life. Not with me, but with others.)

For people who she does not have plans and expectations, she can be quite nice, helpful, and kind. She has done a huge amount of volunteer work with many good causes over the years and really helped a lot of people.

But, we just can not interact.
I can never be what she wants.
She can never understand why not.
She has done everything she could to get me onto what she sees as the "right path".
It is a path I will never walk.

For years I tried to find a compromise path.
15 years ago, I realized that there wasn't one and I was wasting my time.
So, I headed off on my path.

I do not regret that.
I do regret the cost.
Much like when my car needed $800 in repair to pass inspection, I regret the cost.
But, like the car, it was a cost that needed to be paid.

[morgan-lafaye.livejournal.com]

Its sad when a member of ones own famliy can't seem to love you for who you are. But there are those of us who do. You are a good man.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

If it matters, she read the e-card at 8:07PM...

[morgan-lafaye.livejournal.com]

I'm glad she did.

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

I think that she will appreciate that you thought of her today in any case.
Of course, she will not readily admit to it to you, either.

You've done what you can for now - the next move is hers if she cares to take it and be civil/loving. If she doesn't, well, you've already done more than anyone could be expected to do over the years. You're a more patient and thoughtful man than most any others, but some people are more stubborn than the rock of Gibraltar.., you don't need to play the role of Sisyphus any longer.