chicory

I would love to ask a question, of other ACA's. First a bit of my story.
I had two alcoholic parents. My father was an alcoholic when he married my mother. he had been married twice before, with three children from each wife. He had us three girls with my mom.

All i remember is fighting, when he came home from the bar, and him passing out. Lost jobs, due to drinking . think he took off several times, on binges, coming back months later, begging and promising. we lived with my grandmother half of my childhood, as he drank his way out of jobs. He and my mom fought, and he would always ruin every holiday, being drunk, and argumentative. My mom would try to calm us, but she was not in the best of mental states. She was probably depressed, and never kept house very well. I remember my dad, when sober, begging her to clean the house.

when he was sober, he loved me, and taught me manners, told me stories, and held me on his lap while watching sports or reading the paper. He was pretty much unavailable for anything of my school events. I was always ashamed to have any friends over, and felt ashamed from an early age, about what we did not have. when I was 12, my mother finally decided to divorce my dad.

I was the oldest of us three girls, and the responsibility of taking care of us girls fell on me a lot. My mom did not make sure we had breakfast or clean clothes, let alone clean house. She promptly went to work uptown in a bar, and began to date, leaving us alone a good bit, at night, after her bar shift. we were exposed to several alcoholic bf's- tho they were usuallly married men and were only occasionally seen.

we had to move, and went to stay with grandma again. on her farm, the best times of my life. she taught me how to work, how to love the natural things. how to garden, and how to be clean, and care about how i looked.
mother was depressed i'd imagine, and read, slept, and smoked most of the time. we never had her ear, about any problem. did not even go to her for anything, as she always seemed "sick" or tired. I realize she was very depressed.

we lived out of town, and she was not working, and did not even try to find a way to support us. she met and married the mailman, and finally we had things that we had never had before- new clothes, a nice house, laughter and fun. my own room- wow!

mother became pregnant, had our little brother, and things went south. she began to be unhappy cleaning, cooking, being a new mom again. she began to go uptown to the bar with a girl friend, and did this too much. she began to drink a lot. she made a choice, to let her marriage fall apart. step dad was a good man , and i stayed close to him , until his death, a few years ago.

to make this short, my stepdad divorced her, and when it became apparent that she was becoming an alcoholic, he got custody of my brother. with our blessings, cause she became a monster, drinking vodka, all day long . she got a job, at a factory, making good money , but lost that job, by taking vodka to work in her thermos. she drank so badly, she passed out each night.burning holes in the chair she sat in nearly 245/7. she was terrible, and evil when drunk.
we girls got married quickly, moved out, my two sisters getting pregnant first then marriage. my mothers health deteriorated quickly, she lost a kidney, and had to stop drinking. too late tho, for she died at 62 of heart attack, due to ruining her health, with drink and smoke. my real father died when i was 17, and he was 51 years old. he had quit drinking too , but smoking and drinking took its toll on his heart too. i had not seen him since he had moved far away, and i was 12. all of us girls have struggled with marriages, and relationships.

it was when i was 35 and attending cosmetology school that i made a friend. she and i hit it off, and she said that she could tell that i had background of alcoholics. she was a recovering alcoholic, and introduced me to ACA meetings. I then found out what was wrong with me. I learned so many things, and stopped doing some very destructive things, and learned to forgive myself, and others. i have shared it with my sisters, tho the middle sis and i to this day have no relationship to speak of, as she is always a "victim", pushing us away.tough situation, even now. she denies being so mean to me, and its ramifications. iknow that she was just a victim, then, but it is hard now, as i think she may have a personality disorder.

my problem , among others, is that i am so jealous when i am in a relationship. i have been married 4 times,the last divorce being two years ago. never married an alcoholic, #1 was a selfish patholiogical liar (i think), #2 was the most gorgeous man in the world, and I was so insecure, i was consumed with jealousy when he was around other women. #3 was a rage-aholic, and i married him on the rebound after divorced by #2, who i still loved, but lost. #4 was discovered to be a porn freak, and creepy, as i realized he was lusting after my grown daughters. divorced him about 2years ago. only had three children with #1- glad I kept it simple that way-lol

I have just always felt so jealous, when i am in a relationship, and they are around any women i feel inferior to. i know that this is gross, to be jealous. and i tried so hard to over come it. my kids are afraid of me to meet anyone else, for fear ill just do it again. so am i, to be honest.
i have always been fairly attractive, and had no really good reason , except that everyone of these men were not honest with me, in some capacity. as soon as i found that they were capable of lying , it made me really distrustful.

one note- i had an uncle-by marriage- who was a molester. he fondled us, when the adults were not in the room. as soon as i was old enough to realize i did not want to go around him, i avoided him, but never told anyone. my sisters were victimized as well, and we just stayed away from him- may he burn forever in h---.

i cannot believe that no one realized that this man was hanging around the children too much. they were stupid, or naive. he did this to others in the family as well.

my other sisters did not turn out to be jealous- just me. i do remember that sometimes my father, when he was drunk, would take his other daughters pictures (from his first marriage) and brag about how beautiful they were. that stuck in my memory, so maybe it bothered me?

how could my whole life be ruined by jealousy, tho three of those marriages shoudl not have happened, and the other is questionable really. i am happy to have my three children tho. they were the sunshine in my life, and i was a happy mom, determined to make our relationship better than mine was.
i remember crying myself to sleep, wishing my mom would come tell me she love me and good nigiht. i remember getting up and going to her, crying , and telling her i loved her. she did put her book down long enough to kiss me goodnight. we never hugged or any of the good stuff.

i do remember that my mom and my middle sister always made fun of me, for something like tripping over my own feet, or my nose being big ( it was not, just bigger than my little sisters) my sister was trying to get the approval of my mom, who seemed to have a very sick sense of humor. and no idea of how a young girl could be scarred for life, by things like that.

I know that we were fortunate, as we were not beaten, but the verbal abuse from my mom was relentless. she always smacked us in the face, or called us s--t a--. we would dodge as she walked by us, and if we did it in front of others she would get so embarrassed, and laugh like she did not know why we did that. my mom was really sick. and i see it so clearly, as i write about it.
i have forgiven her and my dad- they did the best they could, being sick as they were. i know they loved us. only they were sick, and messed up them selves.

I just want to know, why has jealousy ruled my thoughts and life, when i am in a relationship? It's always something.........

thank you, for letting me tell my story. I have never done this, and it hurts to see how we were treated.