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Good grief, DS!!

Started by elsieshaye, November 05, 2011, 04:54:46 AM

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elsieshaye

DS and NXH were supposed to be coming Sunday to pick up the rest of DS's stuff. I called DS to see if I could narrow down the window, and apparently they got turned down by the relative they were going to mooch travel money off of, so they aren't coming.

Then he said "and you'd BETTER NOT throw away my stuff!" I said "telling me what I'd better or better not do is ill-advised," and he absolutely went off on me. He demanded an apology for kicking him out, and criticized me for being "all happy" when I called him, among other froth-mouthed rantings. It was seriously a face full of angry crazy.

So I hung up on him, and researched how to go about boxing up his things and mailing them to him.  I'm picking up the boxes today during my errands and should have everything boxed up by tonight.  I emailed him and his father this morning to let them know not to bother to come, because I was going to ship the stuff.  I'm also going to simply not be home tomorrow, so even if they do somehow come up here, it won't matter.

The entitlement just blows my mind.
This too shall pass.  All is well.

lancaster lady

This is a different lady than a few weeks ago !
Well done !
hope we helped the transformation ....... :)

Pen

Oh, I love the pronouncements and demands from children who've behaved badly :) Good grief indeed!
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

sesamejane

Good for you Elsie - get it over with!


Keys Girl

Good for you, I would change the locks on the doors and ship the goods on a slooooow boat to China since you are picking up the tab.
"Today I will be as happy as a seagull with a french fry." Author Unknown

pam1

Good for you!  And yes, Keys Girl had an excellent suggestion - change all the locks asap.

I do believe in your area that the police will come out for courtesy calls if you even just suspect there will be a problem with him picking his stuff up - I know you're planning on shipping it to him, it's just another suggestion.  They might even let you exchange at the police station, from my knowledge, they are pretty good about that stuff in your area. 

And with the amount of vitirol being directed at you, it might not be a bad idea to just talk to someone in law enforcement and give them a heads up with your situation.

People throw rocks at things that shine - Taylor Swift

luise.volta

Yippee Yay...Hip, Hip Hooray!
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

elsieshaye

Thanks, Everyone.

@LL - of course you ladies were!  It takes me a while, but when I hear the same solid messages over and over again, they do sink in. :) 

@Keys and Pam - the locks are changed and I have door and window alarms.  I did actually talk to the police, and was met with a less than helpful response ("call us if anything happens").   ::)
This too shall pass.  All is well.

luise.volta

Good for you for being proactive! Sending love...
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

Pooh

Seriously?  He demanded what you would do?  Silly man....
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell

elsieshaye

Thanks for saying, that, Pooh.  Thinking of it as "silly" helps.

I should know better than to read anything DS sends me now, but of course I did. I feel like throwing up - his version of what happened and mine are so completely different that it's hard to believe we were both there for the same events.

"Ma I was gonna tell you this, when I came up for my things. but since you sent them down already, i'm emailing you instead. I don't think you understand the degree at which you hurt me. Hustling for food was the easy part, but the feelings of abandonment were the hardest with which to deal. I know you told the resident manager that you felt your life was in danger because of me. I know that she banned me from the property. I heard this not from her, not from you, but NeighborName in the complex. they seemed to think that I was physical. And as far as I know, ma, you were the only one that ever raised a fist in our relationship. I now know why the lil things you did disgusted me. My gut was telling me that the real issue was our relationship, not dad and mine's. I can't find the words to describe what I think of you now. They only one's that come to mind are selfish, coward, and manipulative. I was in your life to boost your self-esteem. I was your lil' trophy of who the perfect mother is. this explains why you would always worry about whether or not you were doing a good job. And when I told you that you were, I was lying. But not with Malintent. You're my ma, and said you were out of loyalty. I don't think you understand how much I trusted you despite you not having my back when I was 11, when I was 14, when i was in school. You disregarded a sacred virtue, ma. You took my loyalty and you kicked out the apartment with me, you're own blood. you neglected. I'm trying to reconcile my anger. Dad seems to think your "ill." I'm hesitant to believe that. I think you have a lot you have to figure out right now, just as I do. But I'm not ready to think you ill. I'm also not ready to forgive you ma. BUt I do want an apology. I want a gesture that you actually care, that you're not the selfish coward, I've seen in these past dark months. I was testy when you called the other day, because I felt disrespected, that you called me with such glee, with now apology, no curiosity in to how I'm feeling, how I'm holding up. I felt disrespected that you jumped straight into moving logistics. Ma, I need to know if those 17 hours of labor meant something to you or if I'm just another brick in the wall for you, disposable when i don't serve your needs. If you could give me that, I'd much appreciate it."

There were two occasions in the last two years where I did "raise a fist" to DS - literally, that's what I did. I didn't hit him, but I did brandish my fist in anger and take a step towards him. And, once I slammed my hand down on his laptop (I had asked him if I could use it, and while I was we ended up having an argument about something). He knows I feel really horrible about losing my temper like that, because I always worked hard to keep myself reined in, no matter how much he was raging.

Really, I feel completely done with him, and I am so glad that they didn't come up here. I have zero interest in ever speaking to him again. Part of me knows that I will miss him at some point, but right now he sounds and acts so much like his father that I want to write him off. I know I won't feel that way forever, and I understand that from his perspective he is very angry and wants to hurt me as much as he feels hurt. I also know that his father is feeding his rage for his own reasons. (The "she's sick" thing is a recurring theme with him - any time I said no to him or set a boundary, it was evidence that I'm "sick".)

Right after that, there was also another email where he was asking me politely to send him a hardcopy of our new insurance cards, written in an almost poetic way. I wonder if he was high when he wrote it? The entitlement and surreal quality of dealing with DS makes my head spin. And, of course, I'm now second-guessing myself and feeling like a monster.
This too shall pass.  All is well.

Pooh

No second-guessing Elsie.  He's playing the perfect "victim" card and trying to manipulate it into everything that you as his Mother did wrong and caused because he didn't get his way.  The proof is in the second email, where when he once again needs something, he becomes all nice.  Because he broke the rules, again, he wants to play up that you neglected him.

Hogwash! 
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell

Keys Girl

I second the no second-guessing Elsie.  Let him go tell his sob story to someone else, stop reading those emails, they are meant to take you off the path to doing what is best for you in your life.  Did it ever occur to you that you might have lost your temper because he had provoked you......wasn't he the one who was raging? and then he gets to play the victim card because of it? Two wrongs don't make a right, but he doesn't hesitate that to put you on the spot.

I wouldn't give him any insurance cards or anything else, but I would get a new email address and leave his to arrive in the old address.

He's trying a new tactic, he tried being aggressive with the "You'd better not...." and now he's trying the "guilt/blame/blah, blah, blah", hoping to find the chink in your armour, he's trying to determine which one will work and probably will try something new if that one doesn't.

In pointing the finger at you, he's got more than a couple pointed back at himself.

"Today I will be as happy as a seagull with a french fry." Author Unknown

FAFE

After reading his message, I'm thinking that he is a pompus little azz. I know you're his mom and you love him, but good golly, what child had the perfect childhood?  You keep on keeping on and let his whatever run its course and when he grows up he will revisit his entire life.  He will probably see things a whole lot different then. 

Please go and do something fun for yourself. 

elsieshaye

Thank you both.  I feel better, but it was quite a shock.

Keys, he's already enrolled in my insurance, so it doesn't serve a purpose if I don't send him the card since it's too late to take him off now (plus, I already sent him the information electronically so that he has it if needed, so it's kind of moot).  I've included it in a packet with some of his mail.  But, I'm not going to respond to his email.  He'll get his stuff next week, and his mail later this week, and I think that's all the contact he really needs from me for a while.

You make a good point that he's just trying different approaches to see what happens.  I have his emails filtered out right now.  I use this particular email address for everything, so changing it would be a lot of work.  But this does reinforce why I need to keep his emails away from my view for a while.
This too shall pass.  All is well.