Beth- I laughed aloud at the image of shouting pixies rule while wielding a paint gun! Love it! Maybe I'll go back to a pixie cut too (only reason I grew my hair out was bc I could not justify spending the money to keep up my short hair) and D6 and I can make t-shirts that say "Pixie's Rule"! LOL!

And I need to remember the wise words about how seeing her grand-daughter is a privilege, not a right.

My mom for all that she wasn't a great or healthy or nurturing mom, IS great with my D's. She is loving and praises them and I see no purpose whatsoever in a grandparent telling a child anything other than that they are wonderful (at least at this young age).

It's interesting that Life Recovery mentioned recognizing that your MIL had never really known you... I don't know if I posted that here yesterday too or not, but I was writing in my journal and said that very thing yesterday. MIL has no idea who I am. Clearly has never wanted to know me. I've felt that who I was wasn't right for her and tried to figure out who I should be so that her crap would end. Clearly I serve a deflection purpose for AH and his family and not a single one of them ever knew me or appreciated me for me. Their loss. I don't doubt that there will be tough times ahead still, but the recognition in my mind that I am happy with myself and there's nothing to be guilty about or ashamed of about my steps to be healthier, helps me a great deal with not caring quite so much what they think.

A majority of my pain/angst comes when I care what others think of me. I guess what matters is what I KNOW to be true about myself and the people who surround me who I respect and love DO know the real me and I need to focus on that, instead of the few naysayers.

WTBH, my sole purpose in life as a grandfather of 5 is to give hugs, candy, self esteem and lots of fun and support to my grandkids. It is not to raise them, already did that with my daughters and most certainly NOT in anyway put them down or make them sad.

Even though I am separated from my wife I make sure I set aside time to either see or talk to them on a regular basis and to be honest I do it for me as much as them. It makes me feel good to see them getting the kind of childhood I wish I had had.

So, good job and don't let her get to you. Put the ball in her court on contacting the girls and then forget it.


Your friend,

It's time for you to get really selfish. Your feelings count, you have a right to your opinions, you have the right to do what's best for YOU. You have the right to surround yourself with positive thoughts and people.

How can this woman not know pixies are totally in style for 2012?
Look at Emma Watson! stunning!

http://www.fhm.com/imgs/307/409/0/or...ack-dress.jpgx


Hugs WTBH, :) Its a great idea to go back to pixie, I have had it all my life and this year when I finally wear my hair longer, pixies become more trendy :lmao hmm, now I want to go back to it too.

Thanks for sharing as I struggle with others opinions and been tormented about them as well, it is just not worth it, we have to remember WHO WE ARE. Someone told me recently I was a lier and that "that was my personality" and I was so angry and frustrated... if I am anything is HONEST!!! oh well. Whatever. This was not a good person after all, and my life is better without her.

"I know who I am" today's motto

Minus the movie star good looks, that's totally what my hair was for years and years. I love it. Watch out, I might just go get it cut today! I actually work with a woman who is a teacher during the day (art) and goes to hairdressing school at night and offered to cut D6 and my hair! Maybe I'll take her up on it!

Mike, my mom says the same as you-- she raised us, now her job is to do the fun stuff, be loving, see perfection in her grandkids... My MIL is pure evil. No sane grandparent even thinks about criticizing their grandkids, let alone actually doing it! Now, if the girls misbehave of course I expect anyone to be allowed to correct them. But out of the blue "hey your haircut is like a boy and I don't like it and it's not girly" is just plain nasty.

Screw her. She has a hideous haircut, her daughter is jealous that I have 2 girls (she has one son) and I am leaps and bounds above them in beauty inside and out so I can see I guess that jealousy and anger and misery rears its head in lots of ways.

Hair can grow back (if D6 decides she doesn't like it still) but ugly insides within people are there for good. The inlaws are the losers in all of this. I should pity them instead of dislike them. For now I dislike. Maybe I'll get to pity in a bit....

WTBH, about the over-communicating: Here's one thing someone pointed out to me, and it's a pattern that I've been able to see once it was pointed out: Every time I let my guard down, accommodated him, or admitted to any kind of emotion in an e-mail, AXH advanced and asked me to do something for him.

Like when someone had screwed something up royally at AXH's work and he told me heneeded to work a weekend when he was supposed to have the kids to fix it. So he asked me if we could trade weekends.

My response should have been, "Can't take them this weekend, have plans." But instead, I said something like, "Oh man, I'm sorry you have to sweep up after someone else. I'm actually going out of town this weekend, but maybe you could call [insert people here] because they're usually happy to have the girls over?"

The next e-mail was, "Why don't you call [people] and set that up -- you know them better than I do."

All of a sudden, I was in charge of getting him set up with a baby sitter...

I hate to have to be this way, but I really have to handle my AXH like a bully. Any time I show weakness (being reasonable=weakness), he takes advantage of it. The only way to avoid that is to not give him the opportunity..

And Cyrano?
You're becoming this sage on the mountaintop in my mind -- the one who says things that are so wise and at the same time so damn obvious that you feel like an idiot for not thinking of them yourself. :) Thank you.

lillamy- wow, you totally just described my way of communicating and how it is i wind up getting jerked around. i offer more info than is necessary, assuming that xAH for ex will take the info and get a move on, and like in your case, it turns into "well, wtbh why don't you just do it". i guess i am still stuck in fairly co-dependent mode and until i read your post i didn't grasp just how much i set myself up.

a normal person would appreciate ideas and take the initiative on their own to solve their problem. but my xAH and many other family members on both his and my side, see suggestions as implied offers to do for them what they can do on their own. and saying no ='s you're selfish so i have been trapped in this pattern for a long time.

i love all that i continue to learn. it is liberating! thanks for your post! you have no idea how much it helped. from now on, however unnatural it feels, i will give a short and sweet response to those who i know will take advantage of anything i offer (give an inch take a mile kind of folks) and i will deal with the fall out as well as my discomfort as i back away from my continued codie behavior.

i don't think i realized until right now just how codependent my way of communicating can be. offering more than is needed or asked for and then being upset when the person that info is offered to expects me to fix their problem is all caused bc of my offering more than is needed.

the 'don't do for others what they can do for themselves' has taken on a whole new meaning.

Thank you for this. I still resist the codependent label... But I hadn't even considered this. Probably part of the reason my posts are usually soooooo long. *sigh* bleah

I thought your AH was a real obnoxious prat, but wow his mum is the absolute pits.
What sort of malign evil b**ch could treat her small grand-daughter this way? I felt like choking the #&>>#@$%% at the very least.

Tell her next time she calls, that she is a nasty and miserable piece of work and you don't want her anywhere near yourself or your precious children. As for daddy....let him know that if he can't see what poison his mum dumps on his kids is bad for them, then he is even sicker than you thought he was.

If it is impossible to tell these creeps this, then keep it in mind and limit contact to as little as possible.

You have done wonders with this rotten situation and I do admire you so much.

Jadmack you crack me up!! :rotfxko Nice to see you back!

Looks like th apple doe not fall from the tree and no wonder your AH has some issues! Look who raised him. Can't imagine all the wonderful things she was saying to him as a child!

Bravo job mom/grandmother in building self esteem in young children! :c011:

Thanks Jadmack!
During a moment of weakess about a year or so ago, I did sort of tell MIL precisely what you recommended. AH reminded me of how cruel I was for saying those things for a good long while.

And during my melt down of last week and engaging with AH I did point out to him that while I'd grown to expect him to not support me with regard to his family, it took things to a whole new level to see that he wouldn't stand up to them for his daughters either.

And, in following the advice of one of you who pointed out that a r/s with grandkids is a PRIVILEGE and not a god given RIGHT, I have quietly and in one sentence, told AH and his mommy that until I see a change in behavior (actions vs. words) the girls are off limits to his family. AH was dumb enough (or smart enough bc it helps me immensely) to respond and say "that sounds reasonable and I support that".

End of story. There's no way I can be accused (well I can be accused of it but I have AH's own words saying that's fine) of keeping the girls from his family against his will.

I feel such an immense sense of relief knowing a) I don't give a $h*t anymore what they say about me and b) I don't ever have to deal with them again bc I'd bet everything I own that there will never be a day that they own their behavior. And this may come off as if I want to punish them by keeping the girls from them, but really, this is about protecting them. If MIL is as toxic as she is right in front of my face, there's no way I am trusting her to not hurt/manipulate/put in the middle of her hate toward me when the girls are with her alone.

D6 already has had it with MIL and D3 has been all but ignored since birth by AH's family. The only time that they see the girls is when I run around crazy coordinating visits around their schedule.

AH's interest in being a father ends when there is no audience to show off in front of and it appears that his parents are the same. I really don't think the girls are going to be missing much by not having a r/s with them.

Jack Russell Girl- you're right about the apple/tree thing... MIL wasn't the harsh mean one of his parents. She was the one who convinced he and his siblings that they a) couldn't function on their own with her oversight and b) once they left the coop if they weren't equally enabled by their spouse, that spouse was a horrible, evil, unloving person.

So, AH was totally disabled and not taught anything about how to function on his own and why that is healthy. He is so utterly enmeshed in his mothers life and vice versa and of course neither of them see it at all.

The fact that as a mother, she emails her grown son (to his credit he did show me these emails over the years but then never really confronted mommy about them) and asks "how is WTBH treating you? I worry about you" or "I suspect WTBH is trying to come between you and your born to family and I want you to know we would never harm you but I worry about how WTBH treats you"...

Does any sane parent send that to her grown son? I tried for years to point out that that stuff not only shows she has no respect for ME, but also no respect for HIM or his ability to make choices on his own (ie: marrying me, having a family together etc...)

So, that ought to give a teeny glimpse into the toxicity level of AH's family...

I feel bad for the bunch of them. They are living in an emotional prison of hell that they are afraid to leave. They'd rather stay with the misery they know than take any risk at all.

I ought to send them a copy of Scaredy Squirrel (my avatar photo is the character from an awesome kids book about trying new things even when you are terrified).