Fly in the ointment

So, things are going pretty well with the marriage counseling and the hubby and I are feeling pretty good about the progress we are making. I think we both see improvements in each other and our ability to listen and respect each other, and that’s been a huge improvement. We are definitely headed in the right direction.

Here’s the problem: my daughter is absolutely against the whole thing. She won’t even entertain the idea that we might work things out, she has said she won’t move back in to the house if that’s what I decide to do, and when I suggested she accompany us for some counseling, the next thing I know I got an angry phone call from her father about what I was supposedly “forcing” her to do against her will.

This kid has spent the last six months overinflating every negative encounter she has ever had with my husband and convinced herself he is Satan in human form, which he certainly is not. In fact, overall he has not been nearly as disciplinary with her as I have been. Now, everyone else in the family is willing to put the past behind us and work on the tools we need to move forward in a more positive way, except her. She absolutely will not let go of every tiny little injustice she feels she’s been dealt, from as far back as second grade (she is going on seventeen). And her dad is just fueling the fire. He uses terms like ‘outcast’ to describe her and it makes me absolutely nuts. She has never been treated like anything but a complete and total member of my family, often to her disliking.

So what am I supposed to do? If I let her move in with her dad full time, I can guarantee her diploma and any purposeful future will go right down the drain. But I have spent sixteen years trying to love this disrespectful, hateful little user, and when is it time for ME to get a break? I have tried, and tried, and tried… and her affection and respect for me only go as far as what she’s getting from me. The minute ‘NO’ comes in to the picture, I’m a rotten bad guy all over again. People, I am so exhausted.  She has worn my heart right out.

My husband feels hurt, and is hurting for me right now that she would turn away from me and her brothers simply to avoid the effort of making a new start with him. She can’t face the fact that she has been truly awful to him over the years, and our entire family has spent a great deal of time walking on eggshells as a result of her moods and tempers.

So what do I do? How can I move forward? I have told her I will never choose between her and my husband, but it seems she HAS made a choice… how do I deal with that?

The clouds are gathering…

Well, that’s a terrible way to start a post about my mother coming to visit…

but if the shoe fits…

My parents are coming this weekend. My stepdad, God love ‘im, has already arranged to stay with my soon-to-be ex-husband, figuring that’s where the boys will be. (?) My mother, with a tone sounding much like she’d just lost a bet, then called to inform me she’d be staying at MY place for the weekend.

My parents are not allowed to stay in the same household when they come visit; it’s complicated. When you go to their house, you have to put up with how they are. When they come to yours, you don’t. I guess that’s how they figure it.

I can only imagine what my brother must be thinking. Is he upset that I stole his default parent?

Or is he just relieved?

Probably a little of both… my mom can be like that. I asked her once, when she had shown up at my house and immediately started re-cleaning everything I had just cleaned in preparation for her arrival, if she did the same thing to him at his house. Her reply? “Don’t have to anymore… HE got a MAID.”

I love my mom, I do. She just makes me crazy sometimes. I can never do anything right, and even at my age she can make me feel like that stumbling nervous kid who doesn’t know what to do or say next because for sure it will be wrong. I believe she doesn’t mean to do that. Most of the time.

Now here she comes to inspect my new apartment, and hey, I think I have done pretty good for myself considering the circumstances, but sure, I am living pretty lean right now. Will she give me credit for what I’ve accomplished, or look down on me for the decisions I’ve made? I never know what to expect.

I love my mom. But to be honest, there’s a part of me that will always be a little tiny bit afraid of her. I think she would be angry to know that, on the outside, but some tiny part of her on the inside would be satisfied to know that’s still in there.

And here I sit, thinking, ‘there’s no way she could ever find my blog, right?’

He’s a Nutjob… but it’ll make a great book someday

My stepfather is an interesting man. By interesting, I mean he’s a total freakshow. My mom and dad divorced when I was very young, around 3 years old, and they both remarried almost immediately. My dad married a lovely woman of intelligence and poise, and my mom married… well… HIM.
HE, spent his career as an environmental scientist in the field of solid and hazardous waste. You have no idea how many jokes started that way. We used to say that he must have used his whole brain at work, because by the time he got home at night, it seemed he had not an ounce of common sense left. Over the years, there were so many ridiculously comical incidents in our home, I’ve joked that the eventual book royalties will almost make up for my traumatic childhood.
Here are a few of the chapter titles:

1. The First Time He Fired a Gun Inside the House

2. What Happens When You Light Yourself on Fire

3. Dog Fights Should Be Left to the Dogs

4. The Second Time He Fired a Gun Inside the House

5. That’s Not Your Wallet, You Have a Dead Mouse in your Underwear

6. Never Sit on a Railroad Spike when you’re Wearing a Breechcloth

7. “I Promise, This Time It’s Not Loaded” -or- The Third Time he Fired a Gun in the House

8. Please Don’t Tell My Stepdaughter I Almost Shot Her Husband (I Didn’t Think It Was Loaded)

9. Never Pee in your Best Friends’ Hat

10. Never, EVER Drink Bleach Just Because it’s Sitting in a Glass by the Sink

11. Never Stand Sideways on a Cattleguard

12. (My personal favorite) Never Knock Yourself Unconscious by the Side of the Road Next To Your Campaign Poster when you’re Running for Public Office

People, I could go on. And on. But I really wanted this to be more of a coffee table book, not a novel.
My stepdad is retired now; he has been for about thirteen years. It gives him a lot of spare time to do stupid things. The most recent was the cattleguard incident; he turned sideways on the cattleguard to talk to my eternally annoyed mother who was sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck, and boom! both feet slipped between the grates and his big beefy calves became horribly lodged, and of course, immediatley began to swell. My mother quickly tried to swing the door open and jump out of the truck to assist, and succeeded in whacking him soundly in the head with the door. By the time she scooted out of the passenger door and ran around the front of the vehicle, the two of them could not pry his pudgy legs out of the steel slats. It took almost twenty minutes to get him out.

God, I wish I had been there.

Even now, a year and six months later, you can still see the long scarred lines across both his shins where he was stuck. They go nicely with all the other various and sundry souveniers/scars of his previous escapades and misadventures.
Lots of times during my youth, I was frustrated, irritated and impatient with my stepfather. We never saw eye to eye, we argued constantly. As I’ve grown older, I have learned to appreciate my stepdad for the reasons I can find – first and foremost, the fact that he’s always good for a laugh, he will LET me laugh at him, and he can laugh at himself.
If there’s one good thing I’ve learned from him, aside from NEVER EVER ASSUMING A GUN IS UNLOADED EVER EVER EVER… it’s that.