How do you deal with Other A's (not your qualifier)
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Midwest
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Hi Firesprite.
I have read through all the posts and agree that keeping your distance is probably the best thing on Halloween. The cousins can always go together next year. Or there could be some community Halloween activity that is not on the actual day of that they can enjoy together.
That being said, my thought in reading your description of the evil clown is that if he is anything like my AH he will promise to go trick or treating with your sister and nephew and then not show up at all. My AH tends to promise a lot and then magically not appear. Never made it to any of our son's Saturday morning soccer games; was in no shape to take our son to a pro soccer game I had bought tickets for as a father/son outing, etc. i have stopped making plans around what he says he will do and it makes me far less crazy. you could tell your sister that you are going trick or treating with your own family but if her plans change she is welcome to join you. Just a thought.
And good luck to your sister. This guy sounds despicable. I wouldn't want him around me either.
I have read through all the posts and agree that keeping your distance is probably the best thing on Halloween. The cousins can always go together next year. Or there could be some community Halloween activity that is not on the actual day of that they can enjoy together.
That being said, my thought in reading your description of the evil clown is that if he is anything like my AH he will promise to go trick or treating with your sister and nephew and then not show up at all. My AH tends to promise a lot and then magically not appear. Never made it to any of our son's Saturday morning soccer games; was in no shape to take our son to a pro soccer game I had bought tickets for as a father/son outing, etc. i have stopped making plans around what he says he will do and it makes me far less crazy. you could tell your sister that you are going trick or treating with your own family but if her plans change she is welcome to join you. Just a thought.
And good luck to your sister. This guy sounds despicable. I wouldn't want him around me either.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Literally moments after I posted my last thoughts in this thread my sister called. I knew it was coming, I could feel her unease because when we left off texting she wasn't getting the acceptance that she was pushing so hard for.
It started out rough but after an hour we made some headway.
She eventually admitted that she chooses to see things through rose-colored lenses when it suits her, that she often chooses the path of least resistance as a fallback mechanism from childhood. She finally recognized that a couple of weeks of changed behavior isn't enough to prove a person has truly changed and that when she judges herself she assumes I am doing the same and holds me to that opinion whether I've expressed it or not.
She owned that she is trying to find happiness by making every other person in the equation happy first; I warned her that this is never going to bring her peace & is kinda unrealistic when you get down to it. It's impossible to make everyone happy, 100% of the time in ANY dynamic, regardless of how healthy the relationships are. And it isn't fair to others to expect them to change their opinions or behaviors to suit her needs; no one is asking this of her.
She also does a lot of future-tripping.... IF we handle Halloween this way this year, will that set the right tone for four years from now? I told her I do NOT choose to plan my life that way, scheduling around the "maybes".
She kept (at first) trying to stick by her stance that she really just wanted to check if I'd be uncomfortable & I rewound through the texts & reminded her that I had very respectfully answered that question on our VERY FIRST exchange yet she continued pushing for a different answer when that one didn't suit her. I reminded her that her decisions are her own & that my boundaries are there FOR me, it's not a personal jab or a judgment against anyone. That just as she's entitled to do whatever she chooses with her life, I don't have to explain or justify my decisions to her.
I suggested - strongly- that she make some time to educate herself about all of this - not just about her ex, but going way, way back to the roots of having an AF. That communication wasn't just about how you SAY things but also how you choose to HEAR them sometimes - she constantly hears things very differently than how I say them and that isn't MY fault or something I could fix.
For all the judgmental attitude she accused me of, she could not cite a single example to back it up from the last year & a half or so. I really put her to task with this because all the while she is pointing the finger at me, all of the judgment was really only happening in her mind & the way she interpreted things. I know this because part of my therapy is that I pay extremely close attention to the words I choose & how I present my thoughts to her.
I also pointed out that she is very much the frog in the pot of boiling water - she is very able to minimize the truth in a situation when there isn't an imminent crisis.
I also reiterated that things would be different if they were IN an active relationship - it would be entirely different if we had to share every holiday & family event together. But this is her EX we are talking about & we have no future relationship to salvage. I told her that I am not trying to pretend that I know exactly how her situation is, our life situations are very different so I don't know what's it's like to walk in her shoes nor am I trying to tell her how to live her life.
It started out rough but after an hour we made some headway.
She eventually admitted that she chooses to see things through rose-colored lenses when it suits her, that she often chooses the path of least resistance as a fallback mechanism from childhood. She finally recognized that a couple of weeks of changed behavior isn't enough to prove a person has truly changed and that when she judges herself she assumes I am doing the same and holds me to that opinion whether I've expressed it or not.
She owned that she is trying to find happiness by making every other person in the equation happy first; I warned her that this is never going to bring her peace & is kinda unrealistic when you get down to it. It's impossible to make everyone happy, 100% of the time in ANY dynamic, regardless of how healthy the relationships are. And it isn't fair to others to expect them to change their opinions or behaviors to suit her needs; no one is asking this of her.
She also does a lot of future-tripping.... IF we handle Halloween this way this year, will that set the right tone for four years from now? I told her I do NOT choose to plan my life that way, scheduling around the "maybes".
She kept (at first) trying to stick by her stance that she really just wanted to check if I'd be uncomfortable & I rewound through the texts & reminded her that I had very respectfully answered that question on our VERY FIRST exchange yet she continued pushing for a different answer when that one didn't suit her. I reminded her that her decisions are her own & that my boundaries are there FOR me, it's not a personal jab or a judgment against anyone. That just as she's entitled to do whatever she chooses with her life, I don't have to explain or justify my decisions to her.
I suggested - strongly- that she make some time to educate herself about all of this - not just about her ex, but going way, way back to the roots of having an AF. That communication wasn't just about how you SAY things but also how you choose to HEAR them sometimes - she constantly hears things very differently than how I say them and that isn't MY fault or something I could fix.
For all the judgmental attitude she accused me of, she could not cite a single example to back it up from the last year & a half or so. I really put her to task with this because all the while she is pointing the finger at me, all of the judgment was really only happening in her mind & the way she interpreted things. I know this because part of my therapy is that I pay extremely close attention to the words I choose & how I present my thoughts to her.
I also pointed out that she is very much the frog in the pot of boiling water - she is very able to minimize the truth in a situation when there isn't an imminent crisis.
I also reiterated that things would be different if they were IN an active relationship - it would be entirely different if we had to share every holiday & family event together. But this is her EX we are talking about & we have no future relationship to salvage. I told her that I am not trying to pretend that I know exactly how her situation is, our life situations are very different so I don't know what's it's like to walk in her shoes nor am I trying to tell her how to live her life.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Originally Posted by RhodeIsland 
He is family to her right now. He is someone she has chosen to be her partner. It's not necessary to me or you, but to her it's everything. It's her having a "family". It doesn't have to make sense.
This has to be addressed with DD - that she is not to lie to you. DD and you as well needs to make it clear ahead of time to the aunt - that DD will not lie to her. Don't even ask, that's the boundary YOUR family has. It was wrong of her to lie to you. That is a valid reason to be angry, and in the future it might have to be that DD doesn't go over there without a parent present. Or if DD does, then this has to all be settled out. Arguing with her the reasons will only elicit a defensive response. It has to be clear you're not OK with it. That's all. I wouldn't explain, justify, or any of it. I'm not here to argue, I"m letting you know I don't want my daughter over there if your A will be there and we're not present. That's all. I respect your right to make the decision to have your A in your life. However, I don't want my daughter over there if he's there. She needs to respect your boundaries - and you must respect her choice. As painful as it is.
It's the only way you, and your daughter will have a relationship with her while her A is still part of her life. It sounds like otherwise, she's a good person.
The next time he hurts her, the next time he abandons her, or is drinking... when she moves towards fixing herself and ending her codependency with him - you can be there. Being non-judgemental is what people on this forum do, and we see people who are in deep, deep denial about their A's, their relationships, travel across the spectrum and end their codependency. You love your sister, and she loves you. It's a lot easier to approach you when things do go bad if you're still seeing each other and talking.
This has to be addressed with DD - that she is not to lie to you. DD and you as well needs to make it clear ahead of time to the aunt - that DD will not lie to her. Don't even ask, that's the boundary YOUR family has. It was wrong of her to lie to you. That is a valid reason to be angry, and in the future it might have to be that DD doesn't go over there without a parent present. Or if DD does, then this has to all be settled out. Arguing with her the reasons will only elicit a defensive response. It has to be clear you're not OK with it. That's all. I wouldn't explain, justify, or any of it. I'm not here to argue, I"m letting you know I don't want my daughter over there if your A will be there and we're not present. That's all. I respect your right to make the decision to have your A in your life. However, I don't want my daughter over there if he's there. She needs to respect your boundaries - and you must respect her choice. As painful as it is.
It's the only way you, and your daughter will have a relationship with her while her A is still part of her life. It sounds like otherwise, she's a good person.
The next time he hurts her, the next time he abandons her, or is drinking... when she moves towards fixing herself and ending her codependency with him - you can be there. Being non-judgemental is what people on this forum do, and we see people who are in deep, deep denial about their A's, their relationships, travel across the spectrum and end their codependency. You love your sister, and she loves you. It's a lot easier to approach you when things do go bad if you're still seeing each other and talking.
We talked AT LENGTH about the situation with DD. I pointed out to sis that regardless of how she thought she "handled" it, it needed to be brought to my attention because *I* know my DD in ways she does not understand. That I interpret that "red flag" entirely different than she did & no matter how small of an issue she might have thought it to be, it was BIG in my mind. My relationship with DD is very different than hers with my niece & they are very different children.
DD and I have talked at length about this incident since it happened last summer, she & I have an amazing relationship and she talks to me about everything. She's pretty clear about stuff like this and asked a lot of great questions.
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Join Date: May 2012
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Firesprite, you remind me of my older sister. Sometimes she sees things before I do. For example she spent more time in therapy dissecting our family. It was some years later that I understood some of the things she was trying to tell me. She wasn't always right, but sometimes she was, and I couldn't see it at the time.
It's very difficult to be close to someone and not offer unsolicited advice. When you're that thick, well, you talk about everything. It's good you get to speak your mind though, and that you have a close sister!
Sometimes we have to wait, wait for people to want to see things differently, even if we can see their train wreck coming miles away. I suppose that goes for us all.
Who can know things before they want to know them?
It's very difficult to be close to someone and not offer unsolicited advice. When you're that thick, well, you talk about everything. It's good you get to speak your mind though, and that you have a close sister!
Sometimes we have to wait, wait for people to want to see things differently, even if we can see their train wreck coming miles away. I suppose that goes for us all.
Who can know things before they want to know them?
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