thoughts about exAH who has passed away
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
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How awful. People do really terrible things. I am sorry you are feeling triggered, I believe I would too. Sending a big hug! How is your DD doing?? I have been thinking about the both of you a lot with the holidays coming up and such.
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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Thanks for asking. The past few days she’s been really sullen and snarky, when she does deign to speak to me. It’s also an “anniversary” of the day her father died. I tried last night saying “I know it’s been six months today since your dad died, this might be a tough time for you and I’m thinking about you”, and she responded “No, it’s been SEVEN”. I counted and she’s right, I missed a month. This was her cue to say “you don’t even remember when he died! And anyway I don’t care and I’m fine, stop bothering me”.
She’s doing well in school, active in sports, has friends and is in good health. So it could be worse.
She’s doing well in school, active in sports, has friends and is in good health. So it could be worse.
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
I have to say I think part of it just comes with the age. My DD is close in age, and she is the snarky queen right now. I am sure everything that has happened contributes, but I just wanted to let you know in the snarky department you are not alone!
You are two strong people who will come out the other side closer than ever, even when it does not feel that way in the moment.
Continued support friend!
You are two strong people who will come out the other side closer than ever, even when it does not feel that way in the moment.
Continued support friend!
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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Today's reflection, as I plough through the mess of debt and craziness that ex left behind (getting closer to the end ...):
Settling the estate of someone who died without connections to friends or family is a strangely lonely affair. It feels empty because mourning is absent - the emotional core of someone's passing is simply not there. In all human societies (as far as I know), the tasks after death are a communal affair - funerals, rituals of remembrance, family or kin drawing closer together to mourn one of their members, etc.
In ex's case, all of that is just ... not there. His workplace had a short afternoon event with coffee and cookies that lasted about half an hour and That. Was. All. One of his sisters came to the afternoon thing, then she went home. His former friends are all sufficiently alienated that they don't want anything to do with him, the woman he was living with at the time of of his death has disappeared. I'm filling out various forms and closing accounts and thinking "shouldn't there be some other people around somewhere? Don't deaths normally involve a lot of people feeling sad?". It's a strangely lonely experience for me.
Settling the estate of someone who died without connections to friends or family is a strangely lonely affair. It feels empty because mourning is absent - the emotional core of someone's passing is simply not there. In all human societies (as far as I know), the tasks after death are a communal affair - funerals, rituals of remembrance, family or kin drawing closer together to mourn one of their members, etc.
In ex's case, all of that is just ... not there. His workplace had a short afternoon event with coffee and cookies that lasted about half an hour and That. Was. All. One of his sisters came to the afternoon thing, then she went home. His former friends are all sufficiently alienated that they don't want anything to do with him, the woman he was living with at the time of of his death has disappeared. I'm filling out various forms and closing accounts and thinking "shouldn't there be some other people around somewhere? Don't deaths normally involve a lot of people feeling sad?". It's a strangely lonely experience for me.
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: maine
Posts: 1,548
Your experience is unique in that you are settling the estate of someone from whom you had emotionally distanced yourself. It seems as if he burned all the bridges he had.
As a widow, I can tell you that after a couple weeks, there isn't a whole lot of support. Those not directly affected, the second tier friends and acquaintances, the more distant relatives move on.
Settling an estate for a loved one is sad and lonely. Settling an estate for someone who alienated most of the people he knew is sad because you have some compassion left. But even if you had still been married, at seven months out, chances are you'd be doing it alone, anyway.
I am sorry.
As a widow, I can tell you that after a couple weeks, there isn't a whole lot of support. Those not directly affected, the second tier friends and acquaintances, the more distant relatives move on.
Settling an estate for a loved one is sad and lonely. Settling an estate for someone who alienated most of the people he knew is sad because you have some compassion left. But even if you had still been married, at seven months out, chances are you'd be doing it alone, anyway.
I am sorry.
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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Originally Posted by velma929 
Your experience is unique in that you are settling the estate of someone from whom you had emotionally distanced yourself. It seems as if he burned all the bridges he had.
As a widow, I can tell you that after a couple weeks, there isn't a whole lot of support. Those not directly affected, the second tier friends and acquaintances, the more distant relatives move on.
Settling an estate for a loved one is sad and lonely. Settling an estate for someone who alienated most of the people he knew is sad because you have some compassion left. But even if you had still been married, at seven months out, chances are you'd be doing it alone, anyway.
I am sorry.
As a widow, I can tell you that after a couple weeks, there isn't a whole lot of support. Those not directly affected, the second tier friends and acquaintances, the more distant relatives move on.
Settling an estate for a loved one is sad and lonely. Settling an estate for someone who alienated most of the people he knew is sad because you have some compassion left. But even if you had still been married, at seven months out, chances are you'd be doing it alone, anyway.
I am sorry.
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 10,944
Yep, grief---mourning. All very common experiences and yet lonely very often. I'm a widow, too. I mourned too much for some people, not enough for others. It's like you can't "do grief" right for some people.
In your case, I can't imagine having the history you have with your ex and also stepping up to settle the estate so that your daughter just might possibly get something positive from all this.
Hang in there!
In your case, I can't imagine having the history you have with your ex and also stepping up to settle the estate so that your daughter just might possibly get something positive from all this.
Hang in there!
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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Hi everyone,
Here's an insight that occurred to me (with help from the therapist I've been seeing):
Getting past the death of an alcoholic who was also rage-filled and vindictive in his last years is challenging because so many feelings coexist. Here are a couple of contradictory ones:
1. I understand myself as a victim of ex's persecution during the last three years before he died. He was verbally abusive, he kept starting court applications against me, he stalked me and he attempted to manipulate our child and turn her against me in classic alcoholic triangulating ways. The police were involved, I was in the process of getting an emergency protection order on the day he died. So I experienced those years as things that were done to me - I was defending myself and trying to keep him at bay.
2. At the same time, now that he's dead, I understand myself in a weird way as the winner of a battle I never wanted to be in. I'm alive and well, Kid is alive and well, I'm doing much better in my life on every front than he was when he died. Ex saw the world as polar opposites, black vs white, ex vs Sasha. And if you look at things that way - Sasha won.
These two identities, victim and victor, don't sit together well. If you're one, it doesn't make sense to also be the other. I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
And having contradictory emotions, thoughts, identities is not only happening all the time in the aftermath of ex's death, it's also really tiring.
Here's an insight that occurred to me (with help from the therapist I've been seeing):
Getting past the death of an alcoholic who was also rage-filled and vindictive in his last years is challenging because so many feelings coexist. Here are a couple of contradictory ones:
1. I understand myself as a victim of ex's persecution during the last three years before he died. He was verbally abusive, he kept starting court applications against me, he stalked me and he attempted to manipulate our child and turn her against me in classic alcoholic triangulating ways. The police were involved, I was in the process of getting an emergency protection order on the day he died. So I experienced those years as things that were done to me - I was defending myself and trying to keep him at bay.
2. At the same time, now that he's dead, I understand myself in a weird way as the winner of a battle I never wanted to be in. I'm alive and well, Kid is alive and well, I'm doing much better in my life on every front than he was when he died. Ex saw the world as polar opposites, black vs white, ex vs Sasha. And if you look at things that way - Sasha won.
These two identities, victim and victor, don't sit together well. If you're one, it doesn't make sense to also be the other. I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
And having contradictory emotions, thoughts, identities is not only happening all the time in the aftermath of ex's death, it's also really tiring.
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Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 436
These two identities, victim and victor, don't sit together well. If you're one, it doesn't make sense to also be the other.
sasha,
I don't think we can be both at the same time, but we can be either one at different times. It's not a straight line, it loops and curls.
Feelings do co exist and one seemingly opposite feeling does not erase the other.
Your husband mistreated you. That is a fact. You felt bad, you felt victimized.
You are alive and well. You overcame the hardship and got to a much better place. That is also a fact.
You can go to either of these places whenever you like. They both happened.
Would you even have got to the place of feeling like the victor if you had never experienced being the victim?
sasha,
I don't think we can be both at the same time, but we can be either one at different times. It's not a straight line, it loops and curls.
Feelings do co exist and one seemingly opposite feeling does not erase the other.
Your husband mistreated you. That is a fact. You felt bad, you felt victimized.
You are alive and well. You overcame the hardship and got to a much better place. That is also a fact.
You can go to either of these places whenever you like. They both happened.
Would you even have got to the place of feeling like the victor if you had never experienced being the victim?
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Western US
Posts: 9,009
That is really interesting Sasha. It makes sense that you are both victor and victim although it is contradictory.
Your post death experience continues to be interesting to read about. I appreciate your posts.
Your post death experience continues to be interesting to read about. I appreciate your posts.
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 583
Sasha
I went through this as well. We don't have to identify ourselves as this is who we are. Today I'm like 'this is what I went through'. Can I grab hold of one or the other? Sure.
For me, I needed to feel both and accept that was ok. I accepted my part and my shortcomings and forgave her for being human too, and not what I wished/wanted her to be.
AG
I went through this as well. We don't have to identify ourselves as this is who we are. Today I'm like 'this is what I went through'. Can I grab hold of one or the other? Sure.
For me, I needed to feel both and accept that was ok. I accepted my part and my shortcomings and forgave her for being human too, and not what I wished/wanted her to be.
AG
Originally Posted by Sasha1972
Hi everyone,
I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
.
I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
.
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Posts: 1,132
Originally Posted by Sasha1972
Hi everyone,
Here's an insight that occurred to me (with help from the therapist I've been seeing):
Getting past the death of an alcoholic who was also rage-filled and vindictive in his last years is challenging because so many feelings coexist. Here are a couple of contradictory ones:
1. I understand myself as a victim of ex's persecution during the last three years before he died. He was verbally abusive, he kept starting court applications against me, he stalked me and he attempted to manipulate our child and turn her against me in classic alcoholic triangulating ways. The police were involved, I was in the process of getting an emergency protection order on the day he died. So I experienced those years as things that were done to me - I was defending myself and trying to keep him at bay.
2. At the same time, now that he's dead, I understand myself in a weird way as the winner of a battle I never wanted to be in. I'm alive and well, Kid is alive and well, I'm doing much better in my life on every front than he was when he died. Ex saw the world as polar opposites, black vs white, ex vs Sasha. And if you look at things that way - Sasha won.
These two identities, victim and victor, don't sit together well. If you're one, it doesn't make sense to also be the other. I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
And having contradictory emotions, thoughts, identities is not only happening all the time in the aftermath of ex's death, it's also really tiring.
Here's an insight that occurred to me (with help from the therapist I've been seeing):
Getting past the death of an alcoholic who was also rage-filled and vindictive in his last years is challenging because so many feelings coexist. Here are a couple of contradictory ones:
1. I understand myself as a victim of ex's persecution during the last three years before he died. He was verbally abusive, he kept starting court applications against me, he stalked me and he attempted to manipulate our child and turn her against me in classic alcoholic triangulating ways. The police were involved, I was in the process of getting an emergency protection order on the day he died. So I experienced those years as things that were done to me - I was defending myself and trying to keep him at bay.
2. At the same time, now that he's dead, I understand myself in a weird way as the winner of a battle I never wanted to be in. I'm alive and well, Kid is alive and well, I'm doing much better in my life on every front than he was when he died. Ex saw the world as polar opposites, black vs white, ex vs Sasha. And if you look at things that way - Sasha won.
These two identities, victim and victor, don't sit together well. If you're one, it doesn't make sense to also be the other. I don't really want to be either one of those things because I never wanted any of this to happen - but it did. So now I am victim and victor, living a contradiction.
And having contradictory emotions, thoughts, identities is not only happening all the time in the aftermath of ex's death, it's also really tiring.
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Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 32,382
Ex saw the world as polar opposites, black vs white, ex vs Sasha. And if you look at things that way - Sasha won.
That was his battle.
Sasha endured, and grew.
Best wishes always to you, Sasha.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Christchurch, NZ
Posts: 517
My sister, 2 years younger than me, died about 26 months ago. Her Dr was blunt / honest enough to put "Chronic Alcoholism" on the death certificate.
She drunk dialled me quite a few times ... it was just the disease talking.
Copped a few in person sprays too, again, alcoholism talking.
She drunk dialled me quite a few times ... it was just the disease talking.
Copped a few in person sprays too, again, alcoholism talking.
Having known her from a baby and me 2 years old, I knew the real her. What happened towards the end wasn't her. That person was gone.
It helped to separate the person from the disease.
It helped to separate the person from the disease.
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 10,944
Oh, Sasha! Yes, you can be both. It's not as though you were a victim and a victor all at the same time--then they wouldn't not jive.
But it was a timeline--your timeline. You *were* a victim. You *are* a survivor! And a Champion!!
But it was a timeline--your timeline. You *were* a victim. You *are* a survivor! And a Champion!!
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 1,618
Hi everyone,
It's been a while.
Lockdown is tough, but it also means that I've had time for interactions with Kid that have more substance to them than in "ordinary time" when most of what we were doing was getting from point A to point B and communicating about trivia.
We had one long conversation about her father (she was doing the talking, not me). I was blown away by how balanced and insightful she was. I'm summarizing some of it here because it's a window into how kids/adolescents experience their alcoholic parent:
Kid doesn't hate her father - she loved him and wants to remember good things about him. He was energetic, fun to be around, and had great ideas for fun things to do. She is sad because there weren't a lot of good times to remember. She said that for her, he "started to die" from the time she first learned about his drinking (from his second ex-wife, about three years before he died), and that events after that, like relapses and various drunken incidents, made him "die a little more" to her each time.
She says she can now see how, as a younger child, she was manipulated by her father and also by his second ex-wife - she perceives X2 telling her about her father's addiction as motivated by spite rather than by concern for her. She believes that being pulled into alcoholic triangulation means that she "lost her childhood" because the adults that should have been protecting her and looking after her were too busy sniping at each other instead, using her and her former-stepsister in the process. She is angry with her father for taking advantage of her naïveté and telling her things about other people (e.g. me and X2) that weren't true.
She is also aware of the dissonance between what her father said (she's the most important person in his life, he loves her more than anybody) and what he did (missed birthday parties and special events, embarrassing her in front of peers, scaring her when he was drunk, etc). She says this makes it hard for her to believe anybody really likes her because she's always waiting for them to "show their real colours".
She's sad that she has very little in the way of actual material things to remember her father by and asked if I had anything that had belonged to him that dated from "before", i.e. before the addiction had gotten really bad. I found a pair of earrings that he had given me many years ago and polished them up for her.
I was, of course, waiting for her to say "And Sasha, you are the best super-awesome mom in the whole world! You were totally right to stand up to my dad and not let me live with him, and I understand and agree with absolutely everything you did!". But equally of course, this did not happen. (I got a little bit of gratification when she veered off onto a tangent about the behavior of some of her teammates and how rude they are to their mothers - "I can't believe how disrespectful they are to their moms! I'm like, dude, THAT'S YOUR MOM! Show some respect for everything she does for you!").
It's been a while.
Lockdown is tough, but it also means that I've had time for interactions with Kid that have more substance to them than in "ordinary time" when most of what we were doing was getting from point A to point B and communicating about trivia.
We had one long conversation about her father (she was doing the talking, not me). I was blown away by how balanced and insightful she was. I'm summarizing some of it here because it's a window into how kids/adolescents experience their alcoholic parent:
Kid doesn't hate her father - she loved him and wants to remember good things about him. He was energetic, fun to be around, and had great ideas for fun things to do. She is sad because there weren't a lot of good times to remember. She said that for her, he "started to die" from the time she first learned about his drinking (from his second ex-wife, about three years before he died), and that events after that, like relapses and various drunken incidents, made him "die a little more" to her each time.
She says she can now see how, as a younger child, she was manipulated by her father and also by his second ex-wife - she perceives X2 telling her about her father's addiction as motivated by spite rather than by concern for her. She believes that being pulled into alcoholic triangulation means that she "lost her childhood" because the adults that should have been protecting her and looking after her were too busy sniping at each other instead, using her and her former-stepsister in the process. She is angry with her father for taking advantage of her naïveté and telling her things about other people (e.g. me and X2) that weren't true.
She is also aware of the dissonance between what her father said (she's the most important person in his life, he loves her more than anybody) and what he did (missed birthday parties and special events, embarrassing her in front of peers, scaring her when he was drunk, etc). She says this makes it hard for her to believe anybody really likes her because she's always waiting for them to "show their real colours".
She's sad that she has very little in the way of actual material things to remember her father by and asked if I had anything that had belonged to him that dated from "before", i.e. before the addiction had gotten really bad. I found a pair of earrings that he had given me many years ago and polished them up for her.
I was, of course, waiting for her to say "And Sasha, you are the best super-awesome mom in the whole world! You were totally right to stand up to my dad and not let me live with him, and I understand and agree with absolutely everything you did!". But equally of course, this did not happen. (I got a little bit of gratification when she veered off onto a tangent about the behavior of some of her teammates and how rude they are to their mothers - "I can't believe how disrespectful they are to their moms! I'm like, dude, THAT'S YOUR MOM! Show some respect for everything she does for you!").
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 1,618
Hi everyone,
It's been a while.
Lockdown is tough, but it also means that I've had time for interactions with Kid that have more substance to them than in "ordinary time" when most of what we were doing was getting from point A to point B and communicating about trivia.
We had one long conversation about her father (she was doing the talking, not me). I was blown away by how balanced and insightful she was. I'm summarizing some of it here because it's a window into how kids/adolescents experience their alcoholic parent:
Kid doesn't hate her father - she loved him and wants to remember good things about him. He was energetic, fun to be around, and had great ideas for fun things to do. She is sad because there weren't a lot of good times to remember. She said that for her, he "started to die" from the time she first learned about his drinking (from his second ex-wife, about three years before he died), and that events after that, like relapses and various drunken incidents, made him "die a little more" to her each time.
She says she can now see how, as a younger child, she was manipulated by her father and also by his second ex-wife - she perceives X2 telling her about her father's addiction as motivated by spite rather than by concern for her. She believes that being pulled into alcoholic triangulation means that she "lost her childhood" because the adults that should have been protecting her and looking after her were too busy sniping at each other instead, using her and her former-stepsister in the process. She is angry with her father for taking advantage of her naïveté and telling her things about other people (e.g. me and X2) that weren't true.
She is also aware of the dissonance between what her father said (she's the most important person in his life, he loves her more than anybody) and what he did (missed birthday parties and special events, embarrassing her in front of peers, scaring her when he was drunk, etc). She says this makes it hard for her to believe anybody really likes her because she's always waiting for them to "show their real colours".
She's sad that she has very little in the way of actual material things to remember her father by and asked if I had anything that had belonged to him that dated from "before", i.e. before the addiction had gotten really bad. I found a pair of earrings that he had given me many years ago and polished them up for her.
I was, of course, waiting for her to say "And Sasha, you are the best super-awesome mom in the whole world! You were totally right to stand up to my dad and not let me live with him, and I understand and agree with absolutely everything you did!". But equally of course, this did not happen. (I got a little bit of gratification when she veered off onto a tangent about the behavior of some of her teammates and how rude they are to their mothers - "I can't believe how disrespectful they are to their moms! I'm like, dude, THAT'S YOUR MOM! Show some respect for everything she does for you!").
It's been a while.
Lockdown is tough, but it also means that I've had time for interactions with Kid that have more substance to them than in "ordinary time" when most of what we were doing was getting from point A to point B and communicating about trivia.
We had one long conversation about her father (she was doing the talking, not me). I was blown away by how balanced and insightful she was. I'm summarizing some of it here because it's a window into how kids/adolescents experience their alcoholic parent:
Kid doesn't hate her father - she loved him and wants to remember good things about him. He was energetic, fun to be around, and had great ideas for fun things to do. She is sad because there weren't a lot of good times to remember. She said that for her, he "started to die" from the time she first learned about his drinking (from his second ex-wife, about three years before he died), and that events after that, like relapses and various drunken incidents, made him "die a little more" to her each time.
She says she can now see how, as a younger child, she was manipulated by her father and also by his second ex-wife - she perceives X2 telling her about her father's addiction as motivated by spite rather than by concern for her. She believes that being pulled into alcoholic triangulation means that she "lost her childhood" because the adults that should have been protecting her and looking after her were too busy sniping at each other instead, using her and her former-stepsister in the process. She is angry with her father for taking advantage of her naïveté and telling her things about other people (e.g. me and X2) that weren't true.
She is also aware of the dissonance between what her father said (she's the most important person in his life, he loves her more than anybody) and what he did (missed birthday parties and special events, embarrassing her in front of peers, scaring her when he was drunk, etc). She says this makes it hard for her to believe anybody really likes her because she's always waiting for them to "show their real colours".
She's sad that she has very little in the way of actual material things to remember her father by and asked if I had anything that had belonged to him that dated from "before", i.e. before the addiction had gotten really bad. I found a pair of earrings that he had given me many years ago and polished them up for her.
I was, of course, waiting for her to say "And Sasha, you are the best super-awesome mom in the whole world! You were totally right to stand up to my dad and not let me live with him, and I understand and agree with absolutely everything you did!". But equally of course, this did not happen. (I got a little bit of gratification when she veered off onto a tangent about the behavior of some of her teammates and how rude they are to their mothers - "I can't believe how disrespectful they are to their moms! I'm like, dude, THAT'S YOUR MOM! Show some respect for everything she does for you!").
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