Ok, on to my father’s business. I live with my mother in the house we have lived in since I was in middle school. The business phones are in this house, so that my brother and I can answer them so the business stays alive. My dad does pay for these phones, including the home phone and all of the cell phones including moms. I have seen my mom write that she will take these phones out, she doesn’t need the home phone, cause she has her cell phone. Dad pays for that cell phone. If the biz phones leave, why would he pay for her cell phone. She is constantly complaining about a lack of money…she certainly can’t afford a cell phone then. Both my brother and I have argued with her about this topic. It is mind boggling that she does not understand how paramount those phones are to all six of our lives. I know she doesn’t care about dad, but I would think she would care about herself and her children. If my dad goes down and doesn’t make money, all of our lives collapse. We are all dependent on him. I think it was Java who said, he makes more money and probably has bigger bills in response to my mom complaining that my dad makes more money. His bills are tremendous and he does cover all of our major expenses. The little bit of water, electricity, and toiletries we use do not even come close to vehicles, vehicle insurance, health insurance for the ones who are insured, activities we do, the youngest’s instrument costs, band trip costs, band fees, all the little bills that a person racks up, all of the animal bills including vets and feeding. Mom does not have to cover those and no one expects her to.

I will not include food in this, and I know this is one of her biggest things she says “feeding 5 people”. It is not true. My father picks up a lot of these expenses too. When we go out to eat, he pays. When we order in, most of the time, he pays. He has brought over sacks of frozen food numerous times that he bought on sale. When he stops by he usually asks if mom needs anything from the grocery store. Usually she does, and he picks it up. When I cook dinners, usually once to twice a week, I go to the grocery store, buy a bunch of food and he pays. Yeah, this is another point of complaint for me. My mom says I do nothing, yet she has never eaten better in her life then when I cook, which remember, most of the time dad pays for. When I cook, it is not a box of mac and cheese. I am in the kitchen for anywhere from 2-4 hours making exotic, ethnic meals that you could only find in the finest restaurants in France, Greece, Turkey, India, China, America and more. She will probably complain shortly that I don’t do it anymore. Well, I obviously didn’t cook while I was gone out west and I haven’t cooked a lot since I got home. I use a lot of heavy pots and tend to have to move fast when making dinners and my arm can’t quite handle it yet as it is fractured and in a cast. Not to mention I was battling some sort of stomach flu for a week and a half of the two weeks I was home. In another couple weeks, I will be back up to par. Though I did manage to make some apple pie crepes before she went to church on Sunday. Got up early to start the batter so it could sit in the fridge for an hour. I see she forgot to mention this.

Ok, on to my mother’s torn rotator cuff. I am sure you have all heard the different stories about that. Ok, so you all believe what you want to believe. What I am here to talk about is her healing. There is no reason why this shouldn’t be healed yet, except she will not let it heal. I believe in some deep way she wants to stay injured as an excuse to continue staying angry. Why do I say this? Despite, numerous times of me telling her to leave heavy stuff alone, she does it anyways. She pushes herself and pushes herself to keep doing stuff that inflames the rotator cuff. Most recently, when she picked me up from the airport, the very first thing I told her was to not pick up my bags, knowing that is what she would do. One of them weighed close to 60 lbs. She did it anyways, and I had to go and take the bag out of her hands. This is pure stupidity, I have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn’t do things like this. She should not want to do these things, she should want to heal and realize she can’t heal until she stops pushing her body. I am sure her doctor would have a fit if he knew she was lifting 60 lb bags, even after being explicitly told not to by the person who owns the bags. She does this kind of stuff every day, stuff she does not have to do. Yet she does it anyways and continues to re-injure herself. I know she knows how to heal, as she was a nurse and she has healed other injuries she has had in the past.

As for all this moving out stuff she talks about, believe me I would love to move out. However, in order to start a biz, I can’t as I would have to spend all my time working some menial job making just enough to survive. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. My mother only gets into her moving out speeches when I disagree with the things she says about my siblings, my father or me. She does this same thing to my brother, she has told him numerous times to move out when he disagrees. She says on these boards we are being disrespectful, in truth, the only times these fights occur is when she starts trashing our father or us in front of us. It is enough to make one’s blood boil. Yes, we do lash out, it is difficult to ignore it even though we should. All four of us have a chip on our shoulders that will take time to go away if things ever become “normal”.

So, you should have noticed a common thread here. My mother is representing a warped view of the truth to you all. She focuses on only the bad things in her life, which is why she quotes so many passages from the Bible about the Lord’s vengeance, about how people will suffer and pay. She rarely speaks with love and faith in the house. She cusses my father out extensively in front of us kids. She uses obscene vulgar language to describe in vivid detail the affair to us children. She twists the truth to meet her needs of being victimized.

I am not attacking my mother though. Underneath it all, she is an extremely hard worker, is artistic, expressive, smart, and thoughtful. What I am doing is presenting you all with the other side of the story. What my siblings and I want, is for her to move on with her life, heal herself, stop worrying about my dad and get rid of the anger. She will never have a relationship with any of her children if she continues the anger. I would like to see her get out and enjoy life, meet new people and create a new life for herself. If she does this, she will regain respect from her children and can enjoy fulfilling adult relationships with them, instead of completely driving them away. I have never had an emotional relationship with my mother and if she continues on her path, it will be something that I was denied of having in my life.

I am heartened to see the comments from Peachy, Sunrise, Lupolady, and Not-So-Silent. You have nailed it on the head. I do fear at times there is no hope at all and it is difficult to watch someone you love fight with herself.

Words of advice to all of you. Within your household, keep your comments to yourself. Do not involve your kids in your arguments and try to berate your spouse/ex-spouse. All that does is make you look bad in the eyes of your children. AND, GET OVER IT. Life is too damn short to sit here and complain and complain and complain. Yes, life is not fair. I have been stabbed in the back by extremely close friends, I have grown up in a dysfunctional household, my family is non-existent, yet I still see the end of the rainbow. Yes, I have seen that it is hard to pick up from a divorce, especially the older you are. You know, instead of looking at how bad your life is, why don’t you look at the positives? Many of you live in the land of opportunity; where anyone can be anything they want to be at ANY age. You are not a slave working in a sweatshop. You are not starving on the plains of Africa. You are not selling your body in India to keep your family alive. You are not living under the constant fear of being shot by rebels. A past best friend of mine is Indian (grew up in India) and my best friend is Turkish (grew up in Turkey). Get some international friends from second and third world countries, it will really put your life into perspective. The world does not stop while you sit wallowing in your self-pity and anger. Your clock keeps on ticking and those are seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even years that you are wasting being mad at the world as you move nearer to death. Instead, embrace all the wonders of this world. Go outside, take a deep breath of fresh air and look around you and what God created. This was built with love not anger. Now, go build your own masterpiece.

To end with, if you could all could do my siblings and I a favor, the next time my mother, Faith4me, complains about her no good nothing kids and starts her “woe is me” mentality, please remind her that she is sitting on a gold mine (not just monetary, but in support and love), if she would just back us up and help us in our endeavors; instead of emotionally berating us and convincing herself she is going to live the rest of her life in a cardboard box in a ditch somewhere.

OMG!! How long did it take you to type that? My friend, welcome to our forum. Also, you put a great deal of work into your writing. It is thoughtful, clear and detailed.

I am also a child of divorce and I have observed some of the behaviors that you list from your family.

I hope you can find some answers here. Have you read the articles on the main site? Any of the books by the authors? Perhaps thats a good place to start. Also, Boundaries for couples by clould and townsend which will help you better understand how husband and wife can truly interact.

I don't know if you're married or not but I hope you equip yourself with the tools that will help you avoid mistakes that were made in your family.

God bless,

I'm impressed too with your tenacity to type all of this out. You did a great job! Don't have time to type much today, but will tomorrow. Just wanted to welcome you and tell you that you sound like a wonderful young woman.

God Bless.

I don’t know what I don’t like more… your mom’s posts or – yours!

I know you had to pickup some negative consequences from your parents’ marriage… but you are big enough to take out of it what’ll teach you not to do the same in your life!
(Just a little sample – she doesn’t respect your privacy in your room… you don’t respect hers, here…
She finds excuses not to be healed, you find excuses not to be on your own without dad’s money… Btw, if mom had more money, would the situation be somehow better?… And, do you find excuses for your dad's affairs? - Please don't!)

Your mom needs help! You might need it too! Actually, if you both turn to each other and LISTEN with all of your hearts what’s said, adding mom-daughter LOVE and RESPECT – you could get out of this healed and stronger than ever!
(You might need some counseling together for this? Maybe you can talk here too, some wise MBers could direct that…?)

Don’t judge! Don’t forget years of her care for you!… It's your time now to give some of it back!!!

You cannot heal anyone like you try(?) here!
Try with love, understanding and - respect!


Best wishes for both of you!

I commend you for attempting to set the record straight. I believe that this could have been written by my daughter in a few years with the exception of your dad's affair. She feels as you do about her mom. I also try to console their feelings and tell them that their mom loves them. I hope you can move ahead soon with your ventures, your mom doesnt need you there to spill on. She needs to heal, and should look for help in that area outside of your family. It is hard for people to split their lives up, starting over, from scratch, all that they knew to be true is dead. I understand her grief, and hope she doesnt hurt you anymore than she has. Keep in mind that she is a human being, she does love you but is so consumed by hatred and betrayal that she cant function productivly. She needs your help and understanding. She needs us all to be there for her. We all know she will read what you have written and it will hurt her, but it may open her eyes to you and she can begin the healing process. I was hoping that is what my many truthful letters to my STBXW would have done. Not pushed us into a divorce. Good luck and god bless you.

There are deep seated problems here and I wish that this could be a safe place for your mom to come...not to fear being stalked via a forum to pick her brain.

And I understand your frustrations and had to read everything two or three times to really understand how you feel. But I mean...I would like to add that being a woman who's xh betrayed her time and again that an affair is very damaging to the other spouse. Sure, your family's sitch was completely different than mine, but I know it still hurt her.

In doing this, your writing and doing all of this, I am seeing more finger pointing and blame and sides taking place in the end. If you really want your mom to heal, then listen to her and help her get where she needs to be...with the proper doc and meds. And you keep saying how she can work with you, get along with you, etc. in the family business when I would bet 100 percent she does NOT feel part of this family anymore.

I know the manipulation, but I also see her desperation and am worried that this might bring about some kind of serious situation to occur now. Get her help now ok?

And your dad may be a good provider, but remember..it takes 2 to fight. Wanna know how to end a fight? Walk away. Yea, walk away. Hang up. Whatever. Don't engage. That takes people many years to learn. My x hasn't learned quite that yet. He's no angel and I know b/c I've read the way he kinda spouts out his views as though they were pearls of wisdom directly outta buddha's mouth.

IMHO, they both need help. And we all realize here that some people state things the way they are and a few don't. That's a given with anything and can happen anywhere btw.

But your mom is in crisis mode and I am worried your posting will not bring about your desire of healing for her. We are not here to keep score and please remember that.

And I would like to say this...after college, I got my first job and I had immediate insurance. It'd almost be worth getting some part time thing so you'd get covered. First big job for me was at 23...

And I see her patterns of behavior clearly. What worries me is how she cycles/swings. She jumps from faith issues to practically profanity about the former OW. That's not consistent behavior. I would advise next time any discussions of the sex, that you call somebody...anybody and get out of the house. You've heard enough.

BTW...my mom was a horror when I was younger. She would yell @ my sis and I and always get in our faces and be rather abusive with her actions...like telling me that I was a "loser" if I didn't keep making a 4.0 and I remember getting sworn at b/c my best friend got homecoming queen and I didn't...Heck, I didn't want to as I had just won my state's miss teen beauty pageant and I wanted my buddy to win something too. And my mom would do the 180 when my dad would come home...be all nice and act like we were lying to our dad. Our dad couldn't get it. Why we weren't close to our mom and why we'd make up (?) such things about her. When I went away to college, I didn't come home for the first year at all. Nope. I didn't want to see her. Only after being confronted with that did healing take place. My dad saw what was happening finally and they worked things out. And yea...my dad stuck with our family. He didn't cheat..He didn't leave..He didn't abandon my mom even though some other men would. And until he died four years ago, they had a much happier marriage after that.

So I know what it's like to live with somebody like your mom. And I also know that my dad didn't abandon ship and go out searching for other women because he chose not to deal with it anymore. Vows and families are meant to be forged in faith. REAL faith. In the good and in the bad. Should your mom get some serious help like my mom did, then you'll see the huge difference that good therapy can make. And I know how my parents' marriage was saved in the end.

As for me? I married a man who had silent tendencies like my mom. But were well hidden btw. So leawrn now what you can do to help her and learn about yourelf and heal yourself too or one day you could repeat the same mistake again and choose wrongly because of some life experiences you didn't ask for..but didn't deal with properly.

I started over at 32. And life has changed considerably. I won't make any of those same mistakes I made and will choose so much more wisely when it comes time for this chickiepoo to settle down again I can tell you.

Get her the help today ok? We want to see a good ending here.

I would like to applaud you for your hard work and determination in your schooling and jobs. You seem to have taken it all very seriously and succeeded at your goals.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I can easily be self-supporting, I have proved that already, but I sure won’t start any businesses spending all my time in a regular job. If I get a regular job, and slave away in a regular job like most of the working class does, how will I ever get the businesses off the ground. These businesses take more time than a full time job. So, in short all my chances will be shot. This is the time in my life to live meager, work hard on my businesses and be supported by my family so I can succeed. I am not talking about just financial support either; I am talking about emotional support. My mother should embrace this chance I have to make myself and thusly this family independently wealthy, instead of trashing it.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We all have our chance to become independently wealthy. We don't all have our moms to coddle us along. And most of us have to work at regular jobs until we succeed. You are not entitled to live at home just because you are trying to get a business started. Did you ask her if you could stay there until you got your businesses going or are you just assuming she owes you this, along with her emotional support? It seems like you expect it and that is wrong. Nobody owes you anything.

If she is letting you stay there I believe the gratitude should be oozing from you...not the other way around. The marriage dynamics have nothing to do with this part of your life. You either live in her house with her rules and angry outbursts or you leave and live under your own or someone elses rules. Simple.

This is not to minimize your pain and suffering at the hands of your parents..but you don't have a right to anything because of it.

diff view,

In case you didn't see it, there is a thread started by KaylaAndy titled A Diff View - Please Read.

Take care

marriedandlonely, I addressed points simliar to yours on the other thread:

a_diff_view please read

Running away from problems is never the answer!