Dealan-de,

You are the sweetest <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> any flare prayers are welcome, jinxes etc all are good.

My dad finally fed my brother, but while at it he let him know he thought he was inmature, a traitor, and a tell tale for telling me and my mom. That the three of us are insane for making a storm in a glass of water.

My brother didn't take any of the crap. I am getting even madder at my father by the minute.

May he develop carbuncles on his a$$ till he comes to his senses...and may SHE only find red-neck trailor trash desirable for the rest of her days...

How's that for immature?

Those are mildies. I have a book, though.

I dunno about you, but your poor brother doesn't need this crap for BEING AN UPSTANDING HUMAN BEING. Tell your bro there are a bunch of people he's never met that wish there were more like him in the world.

(((ALOSTWIFE))) Those are squidges for you. Now breathe! The madder you get, the less creative. Ride the tide, chica....then you'll think clearly.

How's your mom? It's an ucky feeling once you first find out. Very....ugly/surreal. If she needs us, we are here.

- Kimmy

Dealan-de,

I let my brother know of your good wishes, and he is very convinced he did the right thing. My mother and I reassured him he did exactly what he was suppossed to and she and I couldn't be prouder of his quick response.

My father is still fuming at him and refuses to speak to him again after getting out all his spiteful venom. Just what you'd expect from a WH that has gotten caught and has gotten his fantasy world crashing down in a matter of minutes.

He told my brother he had no moral fiber for reading an e-mail that wasn't his AND for making a copy of it behind his back. My brother rolled his eyes at him and reminded him that:

1- he didn't write the e-mail
2- he didn't crack open his password and stole the e-mail, the idiot let it out on my brother's computer and then left!
3- he had to copy it to make sure he wasn't making a big stink out of nothing.

Still my father who is thick in the fog of denial still insists we should have come to him first and asked him about it, but even though my brother asked him to "Please close his e-mail account when he left the room, and his PC", he didn't say anything but looked really pale, went over to the PC and saw that it was his kissy kissy e-mail to this OW. He then asked my brother if he was mad, and he answered "Should I be?", and all my father said was "Nope".

Now he says he didn't say anything because it was a joke e-mail and it wasn't such a big deal so we shouldn't be upset at all (a joke e-mail that the moron had left threaded and included at least 6 back and forth exchanges between the two of them that just kept scalating with ILU, ILU more, etc etc). But it is funny how he ran into his room, locked the door, and proceeded to clear all his e-mail history and we think he tried to e-mail or call the OW and try to frantically find my mother before we did to make damage control.

He had the audacity of telling my brother he had wounded my mother pretty badly thanks to his revelations and that it was all his fault if she felt bad or was overly worried.

But he also said he had "no hard feelings toward us" and "held no grudges", but at the same time he called us "inmature", "little slugs", and made it pretty clear that we knew nothing of the ways of the world, and said that once we grew up more we would realize how retarded we were and how very wrong we had gotten all this mess.

News flash though. I am an adult woman of 25 and my brother is close to 20. I have survived an affair that nearly drove me off the deep end, and I KNOW of the ways of the world, and unfortunately I know the devastation of continued contact with an XOP and the delights of the fog.

This man is so deep in his world of denial I just want to smack him out of it.

Edit: My mom instructed my brother to tell her when and if my father ignored him or wouldn't talk to him. Apparently this morning when my brother tried to start a conversation with my dad with a simple "Good morning dad!", he just turned around, pretended he wasn't even there and left the room. Before going into the shower my brother and my mom talked over the internet, and he let her know he was still ignoring him, so I guess she scolded him and that prompted him to feed and talk to my brother.
Following her instructions though, my brother is taking note of the completely different history that he is feeding him and my mom. He is telling her he is all apologies, and that he won't talk to us because he is soooo embarrassed, yet it is obvious is all anger and spite, and he doesn't believe he is wrong at all, he think it is all in our insane brains, and that we had unjustly sided with my mother for no real reason whatsoever.
He also has made himself a victim and claims we judged him and put him in jail without him being able to represent himself, but after 25 years of repeated offences over and over, you tell me, what should we do <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />?
Maybe we should have told him about it, and let him try to convince us we are insane and guilt trip us into silence before we told my mother. I think NOT!

Oh wonderful... (irony)... yesterday my brother and I waited for my mom to log back in to update her on what has been transpiring between my dad and my brother.

In the course of the last 24 hours my mother's brain must have been removed though. When my brother told her about the exchange between him and my dad, and how he had the gall to accuse him of causing all the trouble and hurting my mother in purpose, she just said:

"Weeell, if you see things from his side... you can see, the poor thing has a right to be upset i mean... neither of you went up and talked to him" as if he was the victim on the whole ordeal.

She also hinted that we "might" have been unfair and overreacted. By this point I just threw my hands up in the air and didn't want to care any more.

She is letting herself be talked into the same pattern over and over again, but I shouldn't be surprised, this has been going on for 25 years afterall.
I was a fool to think she'd open her eyes having a solid proof that my father doesn't give a rat [censored] for what she thinks, and since she lets him off the hook every time he will keep doing whatever he wants.

No NC letter has been sent, and she hasn't asked about it anymore. For all we know he just brushed us all off and is still holding his childish grudge untill he cools down and goes back to same old routine.

I am feeling sick to my stomach, and I really just want to not talk to either my mom or dad for about 3 months or more

I'll be back, breakfast calling.

Back. What is making me frustrated is the way she has turned around on both my brother and I. Surely my dad guilt tripped her nicely telling her she has "turned his kids against him", that he is "living with his enemy", etc etc, because I have heard that tune before from him, but my mom is choosing to ignore it or be stupid about it and letting him manipulate her.

I understand she doesn't want to create a rift in the family, but this is doing it more than helping it. The only way I can see of this getting mended is if my father really goes to NC, actually stops acting like a kid, and apologizes to my mom and brother for real.

I really don't care if he apologizes to me or not, he is always right on his mind, sort of border line narcissit, so if he can only muster an apology for my mom and brother and hates me, well so be it, I don't have to deal with him everyday anyhow.

It makes me mad he keeps saying we both are kids and we just are so stupid we just don't get that this is all a very sofisticated grown up joke of his that we are too childish to understand <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />.

I never told either of my parents about my FWH's A with a former gf, in between other things because I didn't want them to worry, didn't want them to hate my FWH, and they are not pretty good at helping sometimes. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

So they believe that since I haven't been down that road I am just too dumb to know what the consequences are. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Right.

My brother now feels betrayed by both his parents and feels like he just did an awful thing. He won't let on to neither my father or mother, but I did tell him to never mind either of them, that one was in denial, and the other in his cozy foggy lala-land, and that he was in the right, no matter what either of them say.

My mom will just keep letting my dad do whatever he wants and talk and kick his way out of things. I really don't care anymore. This time we thought she would stand up for herself because she had solid proof. Well she blew it, and she doesn't want anybody to talk about it any longer. She wants to let it be swept under the rug to fester untill it pops up again in a couple of years and the whole drama repeats itself over and over and over again.

This just makes me sick.

alw:

Believe ME, the BS fog is just as real as the WS fog. Particulalry in dealing with LTAs

Even this past week, I found myself WANTING 2 believe some of the half-assed excuses ("we hardly communicate at all"), so badly that I was getting msyelf entrenched back in2 the dull emotional pain lifestyle all over again, because I wanted so badly 2 believe in HER.

Be prepared, this has only just begun. Your dad has a 25 year addiction 2 overcome, and his strategy is clear: If he can make your mom (and you and your brother) believe that his R with HB isn't all that serious or, dare I say "harmless", he won't even have 2 address the addiction at all, so there won't be anything 2 overcome but the reaction of his family.

He won't get over HB without help. Bank on that.

-ol' 2long

2long,

They are my thoughts exactly, but my mother seems to have deluded herself into thinking everything is right and that my brother and I are the ones that are insane.

My father will dismiss us as small kids that know nothing, and she'll go along with it. Unfortunately for my dad my brother and I refuse to believe his lies and keep all the information that we ever come across. I never forgave him for 12 years ago, and this boost shot might just keep me wanting to strangle him for the next 50 years.

The funny thing is that everytime he is short on money, gets stuck in a war, looses his wallet in the middle of a civil war ridden country I am grown up enough to have him call me and see if I can magick money out of thin air to get him out of a mess.

I have saved his sorry bottom so many times for the last 3-4 years and I am still in debt with my bank! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> It makes me so angry he can be so dismissive of my opinion.

But I guess thats the way some parents go. My FWH's dad can be a piece of work himself sometimes too.

I know what my father is getting for father's day this year though, and it is pretty much a vacuum devoid of any sort of tie, golf clubs or cards. And to think I was scrambling my brains a couple of days ago figuring out what to get him.

Now I am wondering what is a good way to tell him to get lost for a while, since he asked my brother to ask me for some art work for a project of his, and BTW he needs it ASAP, colored, inked, and looking picture perfect in 2 days.

He is just darn lucky his neck is not at reaching distance.

Alostwife, you did the right thing and I think you know that. I hope you continue to reassure your brother that he did the right thing, and assure him that his parents are in denial.

It is very freaky to witness your parents deny reality - when you are young - because then you start doubting yourself. If you are looking at a dog and your parents insist it is a CAT, it makes you wonder what is wrong with you that you can't see a CAT.

My parents had me convinced by the time I was 5 or 6 that I must be an incredibly stupid girl because I just could not understand how it was ALRIGHT for my dad to take me to hotel rooms to meet his latest ho'. [among other things] That just seemed wrong to me but since no one would say it was wrong, I decided I must be none too bright to not be able to see what everybody else could see. I just always believed I was incredibly stupid because nothing made sense to me - nothing added up. [my parents were great evaders of reality: 60s radicals]

You did the right thing, no matter how badly your parents have chosen to react. Doing the right thing comes with no guarantees so don't let it discourage you.

alw:

"I have saved his sorry bottom so many times for the last 3-4 years and I am still in debt with my bank! It makes me so angry he can be so dismissive of my opinion."

Maybe it's time 2 stop saving him. Maybe when he has 2 fight his way out of a war zone on his own, he'll cogitate about the value of the help he did get.

"Now I am wondering what is a good way to tell him to get lost for a while, since he asked my brother to ask me for some art work for a project of his, and BTW he needs it ASAP, colored, inked, and looking picture perfect in 2 days."

Make him a deal. You and your brother will do work for him if he gets professional help and proves that he's doing so. Your mom, 2. Don't let him go back 2 "business as usual" anymore where you and your brother are concerned.

-ol' 2long

Melody,

I know what you mean, this A has been ongoing for as long as I have been alive, and sometimes my mother would be a complete nervous wreck. My dad would tell us it's because she is histerical, some sort of genetic female malfunction he'd say.
My mother would get even more enraged when she would hear this, but always let him get away with it in the end.
Because of this sort of thing I became a rather unfeeling child, didn't want my father to see the weakness my mom seemed to have in me.
I never cried, never asked for help, never got angry, never threw a tantrum. But in the same measure I always seemed distant, detached and somehow a bit scary.

Now I just tell things like they are and if I get angry I get ANGRY, but most of the time I can control my murderous instincts by concentrating obsessively on artwork.

I don't know how my brother will cope, but he has always been way more relaxed than me, he just goes with the flow and lets things roll off his back. Still he has a tender heart and he can get hurt really easy, so he worries me.

I realize that what we did was right, I just get tired sometimes on the injustice of some things. Sometimes it seems to me that the people that cause the worst messes and the most pain always get away without having to make amends and it is everybody else who pays the price.
I know my father has been rolling this giant bad karma ball around, and one day it'll catch up to him, but that thought is also scary since he likes running around war zones every other year.

2long,

I'd love to let him fend for himself next time, but I just give in due to the fact that he is the only breadwinner for my mom and brother sometimes, and he decides to go running off to places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, right in the middle of the conflicts without any life insurance.
Last time I had to get him out of Haiti his best buddy, who was always with him, stayed behind to get some pictures, and he was shot to death.

About the artwork i might just send him a bill charging 80 dollars for each pen stroke, and extra for color, and then he'll stop harrassing me so much.

--

My father always dismisses anything I say, and no matter how much he does it, it still annoys me deeply.

I know it wouldn't matter if he knew I knew what devastation an A can bring, since he dismissed my pain when I was right out of the hospital after bleeding slowly to near death for 6 hours and having been opened up like a turkey for thanksgiving. He just told me to stop whining and get back to work and school already.

Later on, when his buddy died bleeding himself to death due to a shooting he was trying to photograph, he suddenly felt renewed interest in knowing how painful it could be and he finally realized that indeed it must have hurt, and I might have been indeed incapacitated for 6 months.

It seems to me that anything my brother or I say will be deflected away, and he'll only knock it off when another person he respects more than us lets him know what a grave error he has done.

alw:

Then you need 2 do what I just did: Read Coach's thread, especially his update 2day.

You can do what I did all these years, and let your mom take the tidbits of love that your dad does offer her, or you can jolt the rat [censored] awake with some reality in hopes that he'll choose the happiness that comes as a direct result of taking responsibility for a change.

It's hard. I know.

-ol' 2long

Hmmm... read a book and drink a relaxing cup of green tea, or jolt rat [censored]?
Heck thats no choice! Jolting rat [censored] is my fav hobby! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

This is just great, NOW I keep having re-runs about all these years of family breakdowns on my sleep.

All the impotence of trying to keep my brother fed and my own sanity while both my parents would disappear leaving us no money, having bill collectors at the door and breaking my little brother's piggy bank to scramble for some money here or there.

It woke me up today and I have been in an even worse mood. The collateral is my FWH, who gets to try and figure out if he'll be the next target of my anger due to the fact that he still got to make many improvements and knows that I am not yet satisfied with some parts of his attempts to recovery.

My stomach has been killing me for the last 2 days, when I am angry, or upset, my spleen decides its going to be uncooperative and my stomach becomes hard as rock.

I keep trying to get myself to talk to my father, but I keep running simulations on my brain about what it would be like, and it would pretty much end up with him thinking he is still right, that I am nobody to tell him whats wrong, etc etc. I know very well, that the only person now that can stop this madness is my mother, but she doesn't want to, she keeps on denying, she is burying her head in the sand deeper and deeper. She is breaking my heart.

Everytime I try to talk to her about the concept of an EA she literally plugs her ears and starts lala-laing, or simply tells me to shut up and let sleeping dogs lie. But these are not sleeping dogs, these are really awake hungry rabid wolves scratching at her door, but she doesn't want to care.

I feel defeated, sad. I was planning on moving to SF to be closer to my family, but mostly to attend school in their academy of the arts, get my masters. But now I am really rethinking that plan of action and thinking of staying in Florida, and move towards Orlando and study there, so I have a pretty good excuse to not have to be involved directly in this drama ever again.

I keep blocking and unblocking both my parents off my messenger, and trying to figure a way to scheme a plan to make this work. But my brain is tired, I have barely slept trying to find a way to make my mother look at the facts and get it going, however, it is very easy to see that, no matter what I do, if she doesn't want to do it, she won't.

She will hide herself behind the banner of "Family Unity", claiming that if we forget that this ever happened we'll all be better off, we will still be united, but that's a load of bull.

Secrets, lies, denial, destroy marriages, destroy families, destroy individuals. It is like a poison in the well we all drink of, and we get sicker and sicker everyday, we know why, but we keep on drinking.
I have told them both this several times, they always agree, but only when it is someone else in our family doing it. If an aunt is an evil asp stealing from her sisters, mistreating her children, they'll have the guts to call her on it, expose the truth as it is, and claim that secrecy is the death of family.
But when it is their own faults, when it is them in the wrong, they'll clam up and throw my brother and I to the wolves if necessary, to pretend everything is fine and dandy.

I hate the double standar, I have hypocrisy (and I hate spelling that word too).

I feel so sad today...

<sigh>

((((ALOSTWIFE))))

That's all I got, chica. Give a little to baby bro for me, too. I'm so sorry...being a grownup sucks...but sounds like your 'rents are regressing.

(((Dealan-de))))

I appreciate any words, hugs you can send my way.
My parents are definitely regressing, but they were never too mature to begin with.

Is at times like this when I wish they had their head put up straight all through my chilhood, so at least I could have acted like a kid when I was suppossed to.

And then people ask me how come I have kiddy toys and act like I am only 9 when I run around stalking co-workers and classmates with water guns.
I waited years to have my own fun, and nobody is going to stop me now.

*goes off to the gym and to splash in puddles afterwards*

Those new super soakers rock!!!!!!!!

There's also a new brand of bubble juice that guarantees "billions of bubbles"....I LOVE THOSE!!!!!!!!!

I just painted on my daughter's room:

"A princess lives here!

Trespassers will be curled, polished and lipsticked!"

How fun is that?