My Year of Meaningful (2011)

>:-%

My family is sooooooooooo disfunctional and psycho I just have to do these things. For my own good, for my own future, for whatever type of "family" setup I may ever end up having.

So here's the latest:
This time Dear old Dad gets to be involved. The background is: Dad = desperate to come down to BW to visit Daughter, but Mother says "no" because she wants a "personal invitation" to be extended. Daughter's Husband agrees to issue said "personal invitation" and sends Mother an email saying "would you like to come in September?". No answer. Daughter leaks the news to Father that invitation has not been acknowledged for over 2 wks now, and subsequently dad goes off to investigate... Let's put him in blue:

Just had a somewhat lively discussion. While it is still fresh on my mind I shall attempt E-mail. In response to my query to Mom about possibly visiting you she conveyed much disappointment about daughter. Daughter did not call on Mother's Day. Daughter sent present by courrier (Brother). Daughter sent no card as she has done in previous years even while being in distant places. Daughter did not respond to E-card or something like that. Mother is still mad about daughter's remark about mother's clothing at Glenribben. Mother gets many queries from friends with daughters, all who ask, "What did you hear from Jill on Mother's Day?" Mother's tearful response is "Nothing."

Mother will not address invitation to Botswana from son-in-law because daughter doesn't care enough to make invitation herself. Why would Mother want to spend $X,XXX to go have miserable time with insensitive daughter? She could just as easily spend same amount somewhere else and not have to create mayhem for herself and others due to personal opinions, hurt feelings, insensitivities and all of that stuff.

Father and daughter's husband don't deserve to get caught up in Mother/Daughter hostilities.

Will continue to read your (Bots) blog. Dad

So I debate whether or not to write back. Do I dare to perpetuate the farce by even acknowledging it? Will I be "stirring" the situation up even farther only to regret it later if I comment? Or will ignoring it only fuel the family fire and bring on even more retard-o emails?

BOLLOCKS!!!

Let's put me in green:

Dad
As usual I am genuinely sorry that you have to get caught in the middle of this totally bizarre situation. For the record though, I hope you can see all those random rantings for what they are which is complete rubbish! i.e. daughter/son-in-law DID call on mother's day, mother DID hear nice voicemail left when she could not be reached, daughter SENT PRESENT in the only way she could physically arrange it to get there ON TIME since mother's day is not the same in BW and the 13th of May snuck up on her pretty haphazardly, etc. etc. (believe me, the wrath would've been 10x bigger if present arrived LATE). And quite frankly, since when are we expected to send a "thank you" response to someone else's "thank you" e-card??? Good grief! It's obviously just not ever enough, and each item on the list will surely go down in history at the top of the "most terrible things ever done to anyone" in mom's eyes.

And while my lack of interest in gratuitous grovelling and delivering ingenuine pleas for forgiveness is obviously having a negative impact on you, please understand my position whereby now that I am not used to being manipulated any more. I live a generally manipulation-free lifestyle these days. I do not handle these games in the way that perhaps I used to when I was living in your house (i.e. caving and fake/insincere begging for mercy) when the routine threats of groundings or taking away phone privileges, etc., got me to dance like a puppet however mom wanted at any time. Notably, only to lead me to a place where I believed that "it's ok to lie to your parents about being sorry and grovel to get what you want". At age 31 I can see that routine isn't sustainable, and I choose to not deal with this kind of vicious circle in that way. Please don't think I can't see this from your point of view - I hate it that now when the going gets rough, I'm being punished by mother holding father hostage, and punishing him as well. Notwithstanding all the disingenuous and false apologies I've ever made in my life, I am really, really, very sorry about that, Dad.

Anyway I'm not making excuses when I say that honestly the last email I got from mom IN APRIL, was the following:
Enjoyed reading your recent updates on the blog today but so disappointed you've chosen to get cats. I guess we won't be visiting, you know that I'm allergic and thus can not handle being in your house.

Nothing more, just that. It's these kind of passive/aggressive childish acts that make the idea of begging and pleading with mom to grace us with her presence leave a very bad taste in my mouth. And as far as setting an example for a lesson in apologies, even after we set her straight on the cat issue, I've seen nothing. Literally, nothing with even so much as a "whoops, unfortunate case of jumping to conclusions, my fault!" slant to it. But suffice to say, I've moved on will not hang around holding it over her head for the rest of our lives. Actually I'm annoyed with myself for realizing I still have that email in my inbox

Which is why I will always be happy to host my parents whenever they choose to come visit, and would not let petty nonsense get in the way with showing you both a good time while you're here. But I hope now you can understand that my outlook on the situation is that I want mom to come when she's good and ready, and if that is 10 years from now, then so be it. We all know mom and if she wants to do something, she does it. She's a big girl and has never needed my permission nor written requests or anything else to do what she wants or go where she wants, and I think this is one of those cases where she just needs to decide for herself on her own when she's going to come visit.

We've tried it this way, by Johannes extending the invite -by his suggestion, not mine- obviously that isn't good enough (surprise), and her ignoring of his request is just frankly, rude. So I think it'll be better for everyone if she comes whenever she's good and ready and WANTS to come. I don't want visitors who don't want to be here anyway.
With that said, I think you should come whenever you want to, as well, even if it's by yourself. Obviously you won't, but I think you should, for whatever that's worth.

As for involving you, I don't want to. I'm not asking you to be a panderer or a go-between on my behalf. History shows that it doesn't seem to work anyway and you only get the raw end of the deal. However, Johannes gets involved on his own dime. Believe me, if it were up to him he would've sorted mom out in a way that would've given her a coronary if I haven't stopped him countless times. In these situations he has a very confrontational temperament and I applaud his attempts at diplomacy during times when I would rather just let the mom-issues go and ignore her. But never have I actually put him up to "getting caught up" against his will. He is kind enough to step in when he knows that it may work in our advantage (i.e. mom doesn't play the same emotional-manipulation games with him that she does with me), but never on anyone's account other than his own. Not that I feel like I have to defend either of us, but rather just so you know.

Oh the fun and games. And now I've wasted MY time posting this RUBBISH into my blog, rather than filling up a happy page or two about my fan-tabulous camping trip over the weekend, full of good food, booze, good friends, and hella giraffe.

DAMN these people!!

Oh well. my new yoga class starts tonight and I'm officially as of RIGHT NOW going to go back to being semi-excited about it. Ta-DOW!