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Death of a Mother in Law

Started by Prissy, May 11, 2009, 07:08:38 PM

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sadDIL

Yes he is (unless he stole it from somewhere, but I really doubt it). I can email you the link to his "wonderful" blog where it is posted, but I don't want to post it on here.

Our battles began many years ago. DH and I started dating in 1993 when I was 17 and he was 18. Yes we are still together and have 2 children. It has been a constant struggle with them. I would never say that it is all their fault and I know I have been partly to blame. BUT, I am not the total blame. There are many stories that I could tell where it was their fault and there are many I could tell that were my fault. The reason we haven't spoken is that we moved out of state away from them (and away from my own parents as well) to get better jobs (like over $20K more a year) and better schools for my children. I am a teacher and I would not even send my own children to the public schools there. If you reread How a daughter... then this is the last step. HAHA!

I have tried to reconnect with them and much of the time I feel like giving up. DH has given up and doesn't care to have anything to do with them at all. I know it hurts him tremendously to do so, but his own father posted that he was dead to them because of me. How unfair is that a man would choose to have a good life with the woman and children he loves and get disowned?!?!?!

I wonder to the MILs out there, have any of your DILs tried to reconnect and you refuse to do so? I don't understand when I have begged for DH and my childrens' sake to get over this. It's really sad and everyone tells me what goes around comes around, but it's hard to believe that when you are constantly hurting like we are.

luise.volta

What I read and re-read here is how hard we all try and that encourages me. And when we give up, that encourages me, too, because survival is often what prompts us to do that.

Every time someone says that it wasn't all the other person's fault, I am touched. These issues are so real and so hard. Perspectives (and needs) can be so different...and I feel love under all of it. I really do.

My eldest son passed away before we were able to fully resolve our differences and my DIL, after ripping me to pieces right after his funeral, moved on. Yet there was love.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

SunnyDays09

quote from sadDIL: 
I wonder to the MILs out there, have any of your DILs tried to reconnect and you refuse to do so? I don't understand when I have begged for DH and my childrens' sake to get over this. It's really sad and everyone tells me what goes around comes around, but it's hard to believe that when you are constantly hurting like we are.

   In order for that to happen son/dil would need to answer the questions I put to them back in 04.  Why were those many many things done?  Some, I suppose I am ready for the "coincidental" explanation.  Or the "what do you mean?/we don't know/huh?"  or the "play dumb" explanation.  But not all.  Certainly not for the actual physical assault on me and my dd that CANNOT be explained away in any category.
  She will have to be willing to say why she and HER MOTHER chose to treat me and my family in this way.  I would be most interested in hearing her/his side. 
  So much was done.  I allowed it and took it for over two years.  It seemed any time my family and I were somewhat REQUIRED to be around them in the presence of HER family something happened to mine.  not worth the trouble!

luise.volta

Prissy; I will try to expand on my observations about the underlying love if I can.

My DIL sent me a poisonous letter nine days after my 52 year-old son son died of sleep apnea in 2000. He appeared healthy and happy and his death rocked our family to the core. He was an amazing man; an icon in the computer world for his work in computer C-compilers, a teacher at Microdoft University and the owner of his own company.

For me, that letter from my DIL came out of the blue. I knew she wasn't a happy person, by nature, and I knew she had serious issues with her mother but I thought her barely-veiled dislike of me was more about her personality and history than it was about me.

I also knew that my son had wanted to send me back to the drawing board since he was around 13. He wanted everything about me to be different but at the same time he tried to get past it. At the time he died, he had been calling me weekly for nearly five years just to chat. A month before his death, he had taken me to where he was doing contract work to show me an actual slide built into their building that went from one floor to the other; letting me use it...just for fun. Then we went to a movie at the Seattle Center about dolphins. It was the last time I ever saw him. (I'm surprised how hard it still is for me to write about that day. Whew...)

Back to the letter: it was pages and pages of how evil I was, what a rotten mother I was and how I was directly responsible for every negative experience in my son's life. I made the mistake of responding sympathetically regarding her shock and grief and, of course, got a second letter that made the first one look like a love note. I didn't see her or hear from her again for over five years.

I think that her love for my son was the underlying emotion behind her attack. I think she was posthumously defending him in some way out of loyalty and horrific despair. Yes, she ripped my heart out when it had just been irretrievably broken but under it all was her love for him. I sincerely believe that.

I wasn't the mother he accused me of being. That's my perception. That's my younger son's perception and as far as I know, that's the perception of everyone who knew both of us. He was my first-born and the center of my universe as only first-borns can be. I can't explain what went wrong in his teens...we tried counseling, a private school...you name it but he remained fixed on his "Somebody Done Me Wrong Song."

My point is that I believe that love, no matter how distorted, was the underlying principle. That's my experience. I believe he loved me until he died even though he wanted me to love him more or differently; I have no idea. We were never comfortable together after he entered his teens and I walked on egg shells for forty years...criticized, basically, for breathing...and not understanding. Never understanding. But love prevailed. 

When I got a Voicemail on June 20, 2000 from his youngest son, then in law school, saying to call him...that "something terrible had happened"...I knew. From his voice I knew nothing but the death of his dad could cause such anguish. I turned to my husband, nearly struck dumb by the impact of it, and said..."____is dead." At that exact moment, I "heard", "I'm fine, Mom."

I weep as I write this, of course; nine years is nothing, not really. No one else "heard" anything to the best of my knowledge. But I went through what was to follow at peace. I made a lovely scrap book of his life, from his first baby pictures to some of him with his granddaughter, and took it to his memorial which was held at their home. My DIL placed it on the dining room table; putting candles on both sides of it so everyone could look at it.

I feel love was what mattered to all of us. I think he wanted my love for him to "fix" everything that happened to him and I don't think it did or could after he entered his teens...that's only a guess. I think the love he shared with my DIL was strong but a little distorted and I think her love for him made her nuts for a while after he died.

And love is what is left. I saw my DIL at my grandson's wedding; (he's now an attorney in Seattle) and we hugged and visited. I think love can outlast and outweigh every other emotion. My deep-down belief is that it triumphs.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

luise.volta

Regarding Prissy's original post about how DILs do what the do; I though it was original. It says on our Home Page: (Only your own original works, please, since we need to respect copyrights.)

I think I just violated that when I posted a little, humorous and anonymous prayer recently that someone in my senior community gave me. 
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

luise.volta

Prissy: I am sending love. I am. That is what heals. This website was my gift to you on Mother's Day of this year and I believe it is here that healing will occur when you allow it to; when any of us allow it to.

There has to be room for healing to take place. We all have to let go of being wronged and of being right. We must learn to cherish healing above all else and have others be the way they are. The painful experiences have to become just a story and the details have to become data. When the fire is fanned, it continues to burn and we live in the then, not in the now. When we can separate the two, love can enter the now for us. When that happens, it really doesn't matter if that's true for anyone else or not.

We can get support from others but no one can do the almost impossible work but ourselves. The operable word is "almost."

Love...not hate is the answer. No matter how much hate seems to rule, love is under it; somewhere. When we focus on that, it becomes a critical mass. It does.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama


luise.volta

Prissy: I did, too. I should at least have written where I got that little prayer from and that it was anonymous and not called it "Luise's Prayer." None of us are doing this perfectly.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

luise.volta

H/Ds: That makes a lot of sense to me. You are describing a huge elephant in the middle of the living room. I don't see how issues that have not been faced can be resolved. That just doesn't compute. They are still at the "What elephant?" stage. PULLEZZE!

Annie: What was your "Amen" about? We have lots going on here...(bless your hearts!)
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

AnnieB

September 05, 2009, 08:45:49 AM #159 Last Edit: September 05, 2009, 08:48:22 AM by AnnieB
Quote from: luise.volta on September 05, 2009, 08:31:14 AM
Annie: What was your "Amen" about? We have lots going on here...(bless your hearts!)

To your post right before that...

"Love...not hate is the answer. No matter how much hate seems to rule, love is under it; somewhere. When we focus on that, it becomes a critical mass. It does."

You say it all much more succiently and right to the heart and point  (I'd just done a long post which had kinda attempted to say the same thing, in a more roundabout way, lol)

http://www.wisewomenunite.com/index.php/topic,74.15.html

sadDIL

I wasn't trying to cause conflict. I have seen that website and no that's not the one he wrote. It was first written on his blog and copied to several other sites I have also seen. I agree that we shouldn't post the website, but don't play it off as if it is yours. I am not trying to stand up for him, after all the things he has written about me. I promise you that. I'm sorry everyone on this site is hurting in one way or another, but we have to come together to keep our own sanity. I know I am a DIL not a MIL, but sometimes we are hurting too. I started reading this forum to try and understand where I could have gone wrong, because my ILs really HATE me! I don't hate them like they think but they have always thrown in snide remarks that everything is my fault. As usual, there are 2 sides to every story. One day, maybe they will want to hear mine.

SunnyDays09

September 05, 2009, 10:23:46 AM #161 Last Edit: September 05, 2009, 10:27:24 AM by HappyDays09
Luise!!  I am sooo sorry what you went thru after your son passed away.  I cannot wrap my brain around the need for anyone to send a missive like that to a grieving mom.
   What was she trying to prove?  What had he told her? 

  I feel the same in a way.  That suddenly this "woman" shows up and saves him from his terrible choices while his terrible mother just finds faults and brings his attention to each and every one. In my case, only.
   She wasn't there to bail him out of jail.  She wasn't the one that met with teachers/school board etc to plead for him to stay in high school one more year against the rules, she was NOT there to pay for every bad thing he did.  His family and I were!  Not her!  And I did put up with the terrible things he brought into our home.  She would also be the one to point out how awful I was to him and how she saved his life by standing by him thru thick and thin.  Right.  She needed to fulfill a dream of being married at a certain point in her life.  He just happened to be dating her after the first choice bowed out!
   She is delusional.  I was the one that put the "SEEK HELP WITH AA" clause on the loan to save his truck from repossession - that she needed to drive herself back and forth to school.
   (I once asked to borrow for a day, right after paying the $1300 of back payments, and was told by son, "No.  I have limited miles"  Limited to me.  Not her.  I was in shock BUT I TOOK IT.  Just like any unhealthy mother that loves and trusts her son to the core.  I was a fool)

   That dil of yours isn't human in my opinion.  If she had such an item to share why didn't she come to you to discuss?  If he was continuing his really great relationship with you, didn't it dawn on her you were worthy?  I don't get it.  Never will.  What drives these insane people to do the things they do.

 

luise.volta

Prissy - We can find love "under" things we can't find love "in." There was no love "in" my DILs hate mail to me right after my sons death.

Each of us, including H/D has to find the river of love under the conflict. I can't speak for her, but what I get from reading her posts is that any time her son and DIL are willing to admit to overt torture and apologize, she is open to listening and working at rebuilding. I get that her love is still factored in.

The saying "I love you but I don't love what you have done/are doing" is based on that.

H/D?
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

SunnyDays09

  I actually thought about this last night.  After seeing a furniture commercial?  ????
   I really feel this woman (dil) was expected to do these things by her very unbalanced mother who chose to hate me.  I also believe there was some type of incentive. DIL to be and I got along very well before the engagement.  Before the "DOMINATE ONE" came into the picture.
   It would just be very strange if they did ever decide to discuss what had happened.  I really have nothing to offer them financially or otherwise, and that is very important to them.  Why bother with people who have nothing to offer in terms of perks/cash/etc?  I truly believe this motivates them. 
   Her mother was on the other side of her along with her father to walk her down the aisle.  It appeared quite comical to me.  But her mother wanted to drill it in every body's head that she was paying for the shin dig when in reality it was daddy's money.  MOB did everything but grab the mike away from the officiant and tell everyone:  this wedding brought to you by ME.  Mother of the Bride.  Who is and always will be the one that Controls EVERYTHING!  Have a nice day. 


   

luise.volta

H/D - Well, it wasn't really a happy relationship...it was an unsatisfactory, tenuous, walk-on-eggshells relationship in which I/we monitored everything said. (He sitting on his "laundry list" and me scared I would say something to set him off.) The other side of the coin and the beauty of it was that we never gave up. A month before he died, on Mother's Day, he sent me fresh daisies in coffee cup that had a teddy bear holding the handle (with Velcro) and on the side it says, "Big Hug Mug."

His complaints, started around age 13, were about everything...how I spoke, sang, laughed, smiled and walked. Did mention cooked and drove? When his first child was born (at home), he called his brother, then in high school and without a clue about post-natal care, to come down and aspirate fluid out of the baby's mouth so mom and dad could get some much needed sleep. I'm a nurse! But my younger son was told the baby couldn't be exposed to me because of my "bad vibes."

The search for logic at the time or in retrospect, as far as I can see, is futile. My elder son passed all of that on to his wife...who had a very similar laundry list about her mother and they fed each other's anger. What followed was her letter(s) after he died.

And love still wins...hands down.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama