karmic retribution

Interesting world of Facebook has recently come to my attention. My partner of almost 6 years (in just a few weeks) also joined this week. I know only because I snoop. Interestingly he has not invited me. He's pals with his mother, his nieces and a friend who moved away. He lists himself with no relationship. Also from snooping I know that he spent last Friday with his mother, took her out to dinner, rushed back home to furtively by v-day stuff for me & his daughter. In retrospect, when I queried him last night about what he was doing and his answer was "Ummmmm" I should have just walked over and poked my nose right in, but I was on a mission to get laundry, food, something done. I'm sick to my stomach, weepy and want to get mad, but am not finding anger, of all things, readily accessible. He's out of town, conveniently. I'm sick, it's been raining and my birthday is tomorrow. Conveniently he's out of town (I already said that, didn't I?). I have so much to be happy about. I'm employed, live in an amazing home so close to my sister I can walk (but fat ass that I am, never actually do). I have a beautiful, funny daughter and good friends. OK, tomorrow's a new day. No energy to analyze, just wanted it all recorded for posterity or something. meh, ugh & blah.

MIL will be the end of this relationship

Trust issues. They keep coming up and I don't know what to do with them. They sit in my gut like a stone, wake me from terrible dreams and set me back emotionally decades. This weekend my partner picked up an appliance from our old house (in prep for sale). His mother was supposed to be in town for a sailing regatta and was going to leave a truck for him to convey said appliance from old house to new house. My gut said NOOOO, don't use the truck, rent a truck, borrow a truck from a friend, carry the frigging thing on your back, anything but rely on the most unreliable, screwed up, narcissist (his mother) that I've ever met. I got lazy and said nothing. On his way out the door he took a chandelier. When I inquired about it he said it was to stage the house. Yes, I said, but your mother, who insisted that we sell the house so she could get her money out of it, turning our lives upside down for 18 months, is supposed to be FULLY in charge of prep & staging of the house (which was supposed to be done by end of December and it's now mid-January, but that's another blog), so WTF, why are WE supplying stuff for her to stage? Reply back was snarky, "If you don't want to stage it, then I suppose you're willing to forgo the proceeds?" At this point, if it makes your mother go away permanently then, sure I'd forgo the proceeds. But right now, I'm tempted to ask you to go too, asshole.

Flash forward. I arrive home to find that he's back, appliance is installed and he's got some god-awful smelling substance permeating the house. WTF (again) and he says, "Sorry I put down this resin to prep for tiling and it's just really awful." How'd you make it back so quickly, I innocently inquire, already knowing in my heart the answer. "My mother followed me back." So you've been a dick to me and shown your mother where we live (which I really have made clear I did not want to have happen, she has been HORRIBLE and I want nothing to do with her, including her knowing where I live. I've even blocked her from calling my house as she thinks that 6:30 am - 11pm is an acceptable window for calling BS with her son). "She didn't come in the house, she just sat outside." The woman wears 400 oz of the most nauseating "perfume," probably to cover the stench of her evil, and coincidentally my partner has dropped some resin that would cover the smell of death. But she never came into the house. Right. I call bullshit and I am pissed.

He agreed that it was best that she not be invited to our new home. He agreed that she wouldn't. He said he respected my feelings, didn't agree with them, but would comply with my request. So now, what am I to do? he's clearly decided that my feelings and requests are not worth his regarding. Do I just go out and fuck strangers and say, Gee sorry honey, I guess I "forgot" that I wasn't supposed to? Do I leave? Do I toss his ass out? He really isn't leaving me with much choice. When your supposed-partner completely disregards your feelings, where do you go from there?

Crazy Train

I'm standing at the station of the crazy train. My MIL who requires so much explanantion is suddenly (after 4 years) concerned that she doesn't have a place in her son's family. My suspicion is that she has finally figured out that I will not engage in her mind games, that I will turn around, shut down, leave altogether and take my daughter (her "granddaughter" by biology but not anything else) with me. She is also about to lose the last foothold she has into our lives, the house she and my partner jointly bought.

I finally said F-it, in the midst of the falling real estate values, in spite of it having been my daughter's home for her whole short life, regardless of loving the town and the neighborhood and getting to say I live on an island, I finally said, let's GO! Over the last year my partner's mother has engaged in the most manipulative emotional blackmail and I just couldn't take it any more. She's financially set, living in a completely paid for multi-million dollar home, stocks, rental units, social security and a pension. She decided that she wanted her "half" of the equity in the place we were living in. The place that, almost a decade ago, (before I entered the scene) she and her son shared a downpayment on. Since that day, she hasn't paid another penny. Most unfortunately she is on title as a joint tenant. And since her original demand last year she's vacillated between demanding "her half" and telling my partner that she plans to put her share into a family trust and it would go to him upon her demise (which couldn't happen soon enough says the bitter woman I'm becoming). Someone had to stop the madness.

Maybe she fears losing her baby boy. She won't. He's incredibly forgiving and tolerant. I'm not.

What she should have gotten a whiff of is that I came from crazy, lived with and survived crazy, rejected crazy in my own mother, with whom I have chosen to not have a relationship. She's never met her granddaughter, I haven't seen her in 20 years, haven't spoken to her in longer than that. She was physically and emotionally abusive and when I escaped I made the decision to not go back. As a result of my upbringing, I have an acute aversion to crazy and drama queens. My partner's mother is both.

A mother's love

My almost 4 year old daughter is now re-potty trained. On on outing this weekend she insisted on going to the bathroom by herself and locking the stall door in a public restroom. Against my better judgement I relented. Naturally when she tried to unlock the door she was unable to do so and proceeded to panic. I reassured her through the door, tried to coax her into continuing her attempts at unlocking it and after several tries, gave up and crawled on the floor (ugh!) into the stall to free her. Several women in line commented that my action was a true demonstration of love. And I laughed and flippantly said, "A mother's love knows no bounds." And while I inherently believe that same love should extend to all other living things, I can't say for certain that I would be so generous with a stranger. Would you crawl under a public bathroom stall to free someone you didn't know?

Message to my nephew who got 2 puppies

Drew & Savanna- Y'all have let the Texas heat go to yer brains, child! Whaddaya thinkin'???? Cute, sure. Mischievous, you betcha. But they's gonna grow up to be TWO BIG SMELLY, HAIR SHEDDIN' FLATULATIN' POOPIN' beasts!!! Y'are crazy!!!
Seriously, they are too cute. And now you have a reason to keep your jobs, never leave the house without them, wake every morning at the crack of dawn when THEY decide they want out and generally turn your lives over to a being that has a brain 1/4 the size of yours but somehow knows more!!
And remember when they chew the remote and your shoes and the CDs you left out, and when they dig up the entire acre of plants you spent ALL weekend digging and planting, and when they tear holes in the screen door cuz they want out, they don't mean to be bad, they just can't help themselves.
And everyone lies. Dogs are not "just like having kids." Dogs you can leave outside all day (unless you live somewhere godforsaken, like Texas), dogs will be OK if you forget to feed them once or twice. Dogs will self-entertain for a long, long time. Dogs will not pretend to be potty trained then change their mind, while they are sitting in your lap. Dogs will not make you get up 6 times in the night for months at a time. Dogs do not have an uncanny ability to know when you are really in a hurry and stage a meltdown 5 minutes before you are about to walk out the door. Dogs don't projectile vomit down your front and back & sides, leaving you to wonder how a stomach so theoretically small could possibly hold that much. Dogs won't say to their teacher "Mommy hit me." Dogs don't announce during a quiet moment, "That man has a penis. He has a penis. HE HAS A PENIS, doesn't he momma????!!!" Dogs won't ever say that the busboy is "ugly" leaving you to wonder in which plate he's going to hok a huge looey. Dogs don't turn into teenagers, they just get old and start behaving like your parents- whining and arthritic. Insisting that they must stay right next to you every moment you are around.
Congrats! And, get them and you trained. I think you're going to need it!!

Does the Y chromosome make you unable to think about others?

My partner travels about 50% of the month. It's OK with me for several reasons. One is that he has ADD so whenever he is gone I can be as compulsive and obsessive as any mother of a 3 year old is allowed. The surprises are reduced significantly (as in Surprise! The milk was left out all night long (again), or Surprise! The flame on the stove has been left on all day or Surprise! There's no more (insert common household item here) and you'd better get creative cause you still need to pack a lunch). The possibilities are endless. The second reason is that I've been pretty self-sufficient and independent for a long time and grew up in a household with a parent present only about 25% of the time. And thirdly he is an absolute slob. So when he said that he'd agreed to put up his 16 year old twin nieces for 3 weeks in our already overcrowded 1100 square foot house I was understandably reticent. The week & the weekend before their arrival he was out of town. I caught a monster cold and had no relief for a full 7 days, plus had looming pressure of important deadlines at work and no way to get any extra time in at the office. I was, understandably, stressed. I had asked for the schedule for this 3-week-visit about a dozen times (not an exaggeration, this is life with someone with ADD, you can ask, but you are unlikely to receive) and had not had a chance at all on the weekend to get any groceries in the house. So I left work a little early on Monday hoping to get a few things done before the arrival of the nieces and he calls me while I'm in the car to say that he's going to get dinner ready for the girls & was planning to put chicken on the grill & then head to Trader Joe's for food for them for the week. I reminded him that I'm a vegetarian and probably wouldn't eat the chicken and asked what he was planning to get for his family for the week. Nothing- this is just a trip for the girls. Then my eyeballs exploded out of their sockets and I saw red and just lashed into him. How inconsiderate. And I was reminded of an evening at the end of a long weekend when he & I and our 12 month old were at the grocery store and I was so very tired I coul barely think and he walks up to me & announces that he's found something for himself, we can go now. He just presumed that the kid's menu was my responsibility, like he assumed that it's my job to make sure there is food in the house for the family and despite him making dinner, he wasn't about to make the effort to make something that we all (including me) could eat. Just didn't occur to him at all. Is it the ADD? Is it the y chromonsome? I checked in with my sister and she said her husband does the same thing. Comes home with a bag of groceries for himself, without calling to see if she needs anything at home. Her husband doesn't have ADD, but he does have the Y chromosome...

Dear Joan Letter

Dear Joan,

My daughter, your son's daughter, is now at an age where she asks a lot of questions. She is completely observant of her world and capable of expressing many facets of emotion. Your presence is confusing to her. Who is this woman who periodically shows up at my house? Why doesn't she engage with me? Why is my mom so tense when she comes? Momma, did she hurt your feelings? She doesn't know you as a grandmother, she doesn't know you as part of her world. Do I answer her questions honestly, " This lady is not our friend. In addition to being a bitter, jealous gossip who spreads lies (yes, Joan everyone you complain to about me tells Greg what you have said, your daughter included, and he shares everything with me), on the 3rd day of your life she passed out drunk with you in her arms, she is abusive to her grandson and she is an inconsiderate, narcissist who is unable to relate to another person. She is too self involved to be trusted with a child. And if that isn't enough to convince you, she is happy to see your home, all that you have known for your short life, taken away from you in her fit of greed and vindictiveness."

I think you will agree that it's best for everyone if you just stay away from my child and home. You were allowed in on Saturday as a nod to Shannon, who probably doesn't know how horrible you truly are, but I'm not feeling so forgiving any more as I see what your presence does to my child.