Dothi & Amanda,
Thank you for your comments. It is comforting to know that others are further along in dealing with these issues that I am still struggling with. I appreciate your sharing. Also, my family does not validate my feelings so it's nice to be able to get validation from your comments. It reassures me that I am not alone.
Here is a little bit more about my situation: I have cut off ties with my father well more than 15 years ago. I have never regretted this decision. For me it was a no-brainer. He truly is one of the most self absorbed people that I have ever met in my life. From my perspective, he and I had never really bonded even when I was a kid. When I was 8 he told me that I was the reason why my older sister ran away (she was 10) after he had sexually abused her. I apologize if this is too much information but I don't know how else to say it. In that same conversation he told me that I was a bad kid and that I had no friends. I have what feels like hundreds more stories of him just like this one - like the time when I was 13 and he told me that I was a 'rotten kid and didn't deserve a birthday present'. Or the time he broke the laundry table when he threw me onto it because I hadn't washed his clothes. I could go on and on but I think you get it. He is/was bad news.
When I first cut ties with him, my mother (who is divorced from him because of his cheating and the fact that he left her for another woman) and my sisters (even the one who was sexually abused by him) rallied on his behalf and applied pressure on me to reconcile with him. I refused. I held my ground. My decision to cut ties with him was not that difficult, in retrospect, compared to the amazement and pain I had seeing my sisters and mother still under his control and domination. Now, in the last couple of years and more than 15 years after I cut off ties with him, my older sister no longer speaks to him nor does her daughter (my neice) and my mother has apparently expressed to my neice that she thinks he is 'atrocious'.
To be clear: My father is a closed chapter in my life. He does not bring me anxiety and I have no emotion when I rarely think about him. I don't want to see my father suffer at all. I just don't want to be subjected to him. I don't want him to be a part of my life and I don't want to be a part of his life.
So that's the situation with my father.
My mother and sisters are another story. They are a whole other source of frustration and confusion for me. And it is with them that I'm considering cutting off ties (again) with as well and it is not as straightforward as it was with my father.
To describe my mother I could pick any number of things that Amanda has already written about her own mother. My mother is a peice of work. In a nutshell she is just not much of a mother. She let my father do and say things to me and my older sister that he should not have been able to get away with doing. And she herself has said some really mean things to me over the years. But I think the biggest disappointment that I have regarding my mother is her blatant abandonment of me (as well as my older sister) when things got/get difficult. Shortly after I cut ties with my father, I found myself in a very challenging and stressful and life changing situation. My mother and I had different points of view as to how to resolve the issue and when I didn't do what she suggested she proceeded to put me down and condescend to me. The line I remember the most was: "You know, you're not going to get what you want". As if she would know. I told her that if she couldn't refrain from bringing up the issue that she should not call me. So she stopped calling me. And as a result my sisters stopped calling me (I lived and still live in another state from them). My younger sister will refer to that time period as when "sb took a break from the family". I guess that was sort of true but then it allows them to not take responsibility for that fact that they didn't call me either. Were they taking a break from me as well??
Moving on. A few years later, I did 'reconcile' with them. But it was rough. I remember the first time I saw my mother after many years. She came to visit me in California. I remember driving my car down beautiful Big Sur having a raging argument with my mother. I asked her why she let my father abuse my older sister in the way that he did. Her response: "Well if it doesn't bother M(mysister) then why should it bother you?". This was when they all still had a relationship with him.
Is it just me or is that incredibly dysfunctional?
I wasn't trying to do my sister's bidding for her but she is my sister and I do care about what happens and has happened to her.
I don't know how I managed to get beyond that conversation with my mother but I did. But after the most recent situation that I've had with her I am rethinking my approach to my relationship with her. Last January my live-in boyfriend found himself in an unfortunate situation which he admits that he had partially caused. My mother happened to have called me two months after it happened. She loves my boyfriend (probably more than she does me
) and she was in shock. After a few more comments to me I said to her "you know he could have done XYZ to prevent this". She then said to me in the most judging and snappish (is that a word?) tone possible: "You didn't say that to him did you?" I was livid. I wrapped up the conversation quickly and decided not to ever call her again.
After all the work I had done to try to make my relationship with her better/good she hurts me by snapping at me with that judgmental comment. This is a woman who basically stood by and watched her children be abused by her husband. And she is judging me?? Where does she get the right?
NINE months later she called me (last week) not to apologize for snapping at me but to wish me a happy birthday and to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
This is a long post and it feels good to get this off my chest. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you reading this. And I appreciate all of your previous insights and comments. It really is very helpful.
sb