So, my mother got married last weekend to a man who lost his first wife (after a protracted illness) last May. She is in her late 60's and he's around 70. Theirs was a whirlwind courtship in a conservative county that still frowns on sexual relations outside the confines of marriage. Never mind the fact that Marilyn wasn't virginal for her first wedding, (I stand before you as proof in all of my bastardly glory) the happy couple decided to do it right in the eyes of the Lord for this, my mother's fourth holy union. And one of the groom's adult daughters apparently saw it as her duty to help enforce this geriatric morality/passion play by accompanying the betrothed couple on all trips up to the wedding day and sharing a room with my mother while her husband slept in another room with her father. :cool2
cont.....
Quote from: "laughingwillow"And one of the groom's adult daughters apparently saw it as her duty to help enforce this geriatric morality/passion play by accompanying the betrothed couple on all trips up to the wedding day and sharing a room with my mother while her husband slept in another room with her father.
Yipes.
You're the normal one in the family, aren't you?
LOL Well, amom, that point (normality) is still up for debate, imo. However, the parties above would certainly beg to differ.
However, you do allude to an interesting facet of this narrative. The groom is extremely close to his children and grandchildren. The daughter mentioned above lives with her family in a separate house on the same property as her father. (And now my mother.)
On the other hand, my mother has almost no relationship with me and a tumultuous one at best with her daughters. (My two half-sisters.) Early on, I became real curious as to how our mother would explain away the bad relationships to her new family. Well, curious anyway as to the details of any explanation, not the gist. hehe
cont.
hey LW--
Moved this one into the Long House...seems a better fit :)
Aside from that, what morality were these people working with? Really makes one wonder if people like this are just practice for fully conscious people. Like DNA doesn't get it right every time.
On the other hand, these are your loved ones, and have other virtues to them. We all have people close to us that sometimes seem more than a little sheeple-like.
Hope the old folks rock the van now that the nuptials are had :P
of all the brady bunch possibilities in the world, i wouldn't have placed you in that role, LW. So, please, continue on with the narrative and help me visualize your up and coming family gatherings.
No problem, cen. I did wish this to be part of the library rather than long house, but I guess its all the same in the end. I really just need a place to get this all down...
Now, where where we? Normalcy....
When I was real little it was normal for my mother to be psychologically abusive to me and therefore my half-sisters also grew up thinking that sort of behavior was a normal way to treat their older half-brother. Some of my earliest memories are rides my mom and her best friend would take me on in the friend's GTO when I was about four. They would often drive into the country and pretend to be lost until I'd start to cry. Another of their favorite games to make me cry was to drive into the country at night and tell me we were running out of gas and would soon be walking home. I still remember these rides. Threats of being sent to an orphanage were also regular events at that age. On the other hand, I do realize my mother was pretty young at the time. ANd I'm guessing that every time she looked at me she saw my father; the guy who knocked her up soon after she'd graduated from high school. The same guy who pocketed my mother's wedding band as well as my grandpa's watch before hightailing it out of town soon after that, her first wedding day....
cont.
lw
Isn't it funny how the gods of one's childhood get old and feeble in later years? Yet we remember all this, all you're talking about...the abuses and cruelties of decades past...the kindnesses too...
Don't know if I believe in karma, but I do think that in the human world what goes around comes around, more often than not...
Anyway, I grew up with a loving grandmother and grandfather who treated me like their youngest child. So my mother's behavior didn't prolly have the effect it could of had under different circumstances. Suffice it to say that my relationship with my mother has never been "real" good but I didn't really see myself as lacking anything as a child. At least at the time.....
The day I met my wife was the day I felt the old shackles fall away. Hanging out with her family opened my eyes to how family members interact and accept one another. I had become so used to scorn and criticism that watching a mother show love to her children blew me away at times.
We started splitting holiday time between her family in the city and mine four hours out on the rural prairie. But that came to an end the year my mom called us to let us know she had set up a blind date for christmas eve and instructed us not to rush to her place. We arrived on christmas eve at about 11:45 pm after driving through wintery conditions for well over four hours. We walked up to her door and knocked. Pretty soon the door opened a crack. "You're early," my mom whispered. "My date isn't over yet."
"So, what..... You want us to leave?" I asked incredulously.
"Oh will you? Thanks!" she offered before quickly closing the door and getting back to what ever activity was making that first date more appealing than spending time with the child she saw a few times a year at most.
So my wife and I rode around town looking at all the the pretty christmas lights reflecting off the snow. I remember really being hurt at my mom's desire to spend that holiday time with a strange man. A guy my mother dated for a few weeks and then dumped for not being her type......
cont..
lw
anyway, I spent many years attempting to have a "normal" relationship with my mother. My wife helped a lot. I remember one visit she made in particular. She actually spent time with me and my wife instead of just the daughters with grandchildren. It really seemed like she had fun with us. And then a while later we found out that she was visiting Des Moines fairly regularly and not even calling us when she was in town.
The bottom line is that I have pretty much stopped making efforts to spend time with my mother in the last decade. I just feel better that way. So when my mother called a couple of months back informing us of her impending nuptials I was happy for her but didn't have much of a desire to participate in the process. Especially after watching her marry and then promptly chew up and spit out her last husband (#3) back in 1990. I really liked her last husband. Sure, getting to know all of our new family on his side wasn't easy, but it was nice those months it lasted. :cool2
Which brings us to the present, gentle reader. My mother just married one hell of a nice guy. And for all intents and purposes, she has certainly managed to show her new beau (and his family) her best side. As a matter of fact, they all seem to love Marilyn. And during a discussion by telephone a few daze ago my youngest half-sister learned from one of our new step sisters that holidays would be different for our mother now that she has a family who WANTS to spend time with her on these most special of occasions.
And this is where it gets sticky for me. I wish my mother all the happiness in the world. And the last thing I want to do is sabotage her relationship with her "new" family. So I'm trying to get used to being the insensitive prick who doesn't have enough compassion or sense to spend time with his lonely mother on the holidays. So I wish her all the happiness in the world. At least as much as I can from this spot, here, under the bus where I feel I've been thrown. And if it makes my mother happy, I hope the discrepancy between my normal and hers/theirs is never discovered by her new family. But I'd just as soon watch it all unfold with a telescope rather than a microscope, if'n you get my drift.
lw
It's hard to find that right distance in such a situation. Really hard. All sorts of pulling, pushing emotions. No right answers but I agree with you, better ones than worse. A brave series of posts, brother LW. Thank you :)
Thanks, cen.
As for up and coming gatherings, sistah judih, I'm really not sure.
While I can only imagine the things Marilyn has told her new family in order to make herself look saintly in the eyes of her new family, mrs lw and I both agree that being gracious and kind around them is the only way to go.
On the other hand, I had all but severed ties with my mother before she met and married her current husband. And nothing that transpired in the last six months has changed a life time of hurt. Interestingly, all three of her kids have noticed that she acts way different when she's with her members of her new family than she does when she's alone with us. Its like she is putting on airs, but her new family doesn't know her well enough to realize it. Yet. And I hope they never do. With any luck, Marilyn will take this opportunity to reinvent herself and create good relationships with her new stepchildren/grandchildren. Her new husband is one heck of a nice guy and is loaded to boot. As the owner of a large company, I'm sure he has managed people as complicated as Marilyn. Maybe he can help her grow. However, as it stands, I view Marilyn as more of a sibling than parent. And lately a younger sibling at that.
We had a joint family meal to celebrate the engagement earlier in the fall. Everything went ok and Marilyn did her best to play nice but just came off like a commercial for an artificial sweetener. That is, until my new stepsister asked me what I'd been doing for fun lately.
The question did perk me up. "I've actually been playing drums with a friend of ours at some gigs he'd set up," I told her.
From my left I heard a scoff and then Marilyn joined the conversation. "You don't play the drums," she hissed.
About then I broke eye contact with my new stepsister and looked at my napkin before confirming that I must not play the drums, half to myself, half to my new family member......
Why rock a boat I don't want to be on anyway?
lw
Yeah, I was pretty surprised when you said in the global warming thread you had gone to the wedding, but I didn't feel it my place to mention anything less than congratulatory.
My mother made a lot of mistakes with her first born (myself) and continues to do so to this day, but she also does a lot to help my family as well... at least I have some positive to balance out the negative in my situation, though. In her case, at least she tries...
you go ahead and play those drums. Play them with confidence and love. When you talk to those step-siblings, play your drums, play your full self. Your mother (marilyn is my mother's name, but you knew that, of course) will have to swallow you just as she's attempting to taste a new self of her own.
Don't feed her delusions, LW. Be you. Fill up your essence otherwise you'll never have a true piece in the new puzzle. And while you're being you, you will make connections. While you're playing your mother's version of yourself, you're just a shadow self. who needs it?
It's a new cardgame. We've got your back.
If she's falling into traps of her own making - let her new husband help her deal. Better now than after years of building her house of cards.
love to you and L,
judih
Thank you, friends. It means a lot to me to get this kind of understanding and feedback. (Judih: Your post is making me cry.)
lw
Quote from: "laughingwillow"Interestingly, all three of her kids have noticed that she acts way different when she's with her members of her new family than she does when she's alone with us. Its like she is putting on airs, but her new family doesn't know her well enough to realize it. Yet. And I hope they never do.
Not to be cynical, but they will. I don't see how it could be otherwise, unless your mom is a gifted sociopath (and while I must admit I don't like her much based upon your description, she doesn't seem to be at that level).
I think you're right in being something of a fall guy (which reason of course--only as far as your dignity as a human allows). Nothing will come from confrontation, but it you allow things to unfold on their own accord, there is a possibility that things will at least progress.
When I'm in a similar situation, I placate myself with the belief (or the pretended belief) that "(s)he's doing the best (s)he can, given her situation and history (even if "best" is kind-of crappy)."
Just to clarify......
When Marilyn told me that I didn't play the drums, I don't think she was trying to be mean. Rather, she reacted as she did because she didn't know that I play the drums. (I've been playing for 22 years.) And apparently she subconsciously decided she would look better in the eyes of her new family by stating that her son doesn't play the drums, rather than admit that she didn't know it. Never mind our house is full of hand drums or the fact that she has visited us two or three times in the last 18 years. Marilyn is so wrapped up in her own psychodrama that she knows virtually nothing about my life. And I guess I can live with that. From a distance.
Unfortunately, when Marilyn informed me in front of her new family that I don't play the drums my first reaction was to feel real little, shitty and vindictive. I was afraid that if I didn't just shut my mouth, I'd later regret what came out of it. The last thing I wanted was to be seen as a barrier to Marilyn's romantic happiness/success. Lord knows she needs all the help in this area she can get. For some reason. when I'm with her and am offered a glimpse into her tortured little self-centered world I develop animosity real quick-like and feel the poison rise in my blood until I know its time for me to leave or risk making a scene.
And I'm pretty sure Marilyn feels the same way. We ALL see the separate and new personality she has cultivated since meeting her new husband six months ago. She's not the same person around them. My wife says she can even tell while talking to her by phone if she is alone of there are members of her new family lurking. Anyway, its obvious to me that she's doing her best to keep her shit together in front of her new family and realizes that I bring out the worse in her and vice versa. And that wouldn't look good, now would it.
As an aside, we were informed awhile back that our new step-father owns the largest house on lake Okoboji. They also own a house directly across the street the children occupy in the summer. It seems they want to have a big get together so we can all get to know each other better. Marilyn told mrs lw that the groom's children will stay in the house across the way, her daughters and grandchildren will stay in the big house with her and the new husband and mrs lw and I will be put up at a near by hotel.
It has made it a little easier to view my mother as a younger sibling. My grandma has filled the role of mother for me admirably. And without mrs lw, I'm not sure where I'd be today. While its better for me to see my mother as a younger sister, I'm still not mature enough to spend much time around her in that capacity. It still just stirs the past and hurts too much.
Thanks for letting me get this off me chest.
lw
Quote from: "laughingwillow"For some reason. when I'm with her and am offered a glimpse into her tortured little self-centered world I develop animosity real quick-like and feel the poison rise in my blood until I know its time for me to leave or risk making a scene.
For some reason? FOR SOME REASON??? What, you haven't been canonized a saint yet?
QuoteAs an aside, we were informed awhile back that our new step-father owns the largest house on lake Okoboji. They also own a house directly across the street the children occupy in the summer. It seems they want to have a big get together so we can all get to know each other better. Marilyn told mrs lw that the groom's children will stay in the house across the way, her daughters and grandchildren will stay in the big house with her and the new husband and mrs lw and I will be put up at a near by hotel.
Not to be vindictive, but... bring your drums ;)
You know, music is the language of love!
amom: I just read your reply.
Thanks for the kind words and insight.
As far as Marilyn's ability to fool people.......
One night a few years back I got a call from my first stepfather. (The guy who raised me.) He said he wanted to apologize for the way he treated me as a kid. He then explained that for many years when he would call home from the road (He drove truck and was gone for 2 to 3 weeks at a time) marilyn would often complain about my behavior and that because of that he often was very strict with me from the moment he would arrive home after an extended absence. But when I left for college, Marilyn started doing the same thing to the oldest daughter. And at hat point he realized Marilyn was really the problem because she had never said one peep about her daughter's behavior when I was around to fill that role. (Incidentally, awhile after I left home the oldest daughter got so fed up by the new and offensive treatment by the hands of her mother that she confided in a friend that she wanted to stab Marilyn in the stomach with a knife.
lw
btw amom: I'm afraid I have to disabuse you of the notion of me deserving sainthood. When I'm forced to interact with Marilyn, mrs lw is the one who bears the brunt of my sorrow and anger. ANd I don't like that one bit. She has been the saint in this situation, imo. Without her love and guidance, I'd surely be less of a man today.
lw
Quote from: "laughingwillow"btw amom: I'm afraid I have to disabuse you of the notion of me deserving sainthood. When I'm forced to interact with Marilyn, mrs lw is the one who bears the brunt of my sorrow and anger. ANd I don't like that one bit. She has been the saint in this situation, imo. Without her love and guidance, I'd surely be less of a man today.
Well, not to state to obvious, but that's the way a family
should be, and you probably at least deserve beatification for creating one of this nature, as opposed to re-creating the one in which you grew up.
i hear you. i hear the seven billion triggers she engages. i can imagine mrs. lw's power in helping you descend that sharp peak of pain.
still, you get to be in a hotel! yay!
morning meditation, drum, sex, whatever you want.
and you can always 'forget' something in your room and take a break from the home scene to go get it.
If new papa is well-off, he might just build a geodesic dome for you and mrs. lw.
You're working it, LW. And it's bound to be an excellent chance to work your own cleansing psychodrama (here or privately)
LOL Yea, that whole hotel scene is sure a bittersweet situation.
On the one hand, I'm not close enough to any of these folks (with the exception of one half-sister, her husband and three kids) to mind spending time in a hotel alone with my wife rather than in a house with the rest of the "family."
On the other hand, I'd sure like to be part of a family and to have other people want me to be a part of it.
However, due to the conservative nature of the step family, and the judgmental bent of my blood relatives, I'm guessing there are aspects of my life and spirituality which I find very important that would be repugnant to the rest of the crew. So that means hiding my little light under a bushel basket when they are present. And for that, a hotel is always best. But I don't want it to be that way; always a given that I'm content to be the odd man out...
We're hoping Marilyn gets so wrapped up in her new life that she leaves us alone. I don't want any of the guy's money. Hell, I wouldn't want them to pay for any hotel we stay in for that matter. We're adults and its possible that mrs wants/needs a little more shag carpet between her toes than what the step-family realizes or expects for themselves.
My hope is that Marilyn's new husband helps her grow and evolve as a person. The guy sure seems nice. The real question is wether Marilyn is willing/able to really open her heart to her new husband and allow love to work its magic. However, until that process is under way, I'd rather watch from afar. And if that means having the new step family think I'm cold and callous to my mother, I guess that's the price I'll pay for sleeping better at night. (I'm usually a wreck for a week or so before and after hanging out with Marilyn. The first week is filled with dread and the second usually loathing.)
lw
ps: Now that the foundation has been laid, I'd like to make a few observations concerning the title of this thread.
However, shoveling dirt on the steps will have to wait. A friend is coming by to take me to a Pakistani feast as we speak....
Thanks for everything, friends.
lw
OK, so, the Brady bunch.......
We'd met three of the groom's adult children before the ceremony. I know there are more kids, but am not quite sure how many. One adult child, his wife and young daughter sat in front of us at the ceremony. As I'd heard that the only young child from the groom's side invited was a granddaughter. SO when I attempted to introduce my wife and self to the couple I was a little surprised when the mom grabbed the child and turned her as if shielding the girl from harm's way. I felt like I'd been branded a child molester or something and mrs lw later said she felt the same way. Needless to say, I left those folks alone for the rest of the celebration.
Later, my sister explained a few things to me. It seems like this daughter-in-law is having a tough time dealing with grandpa getting married so soon after grandma died. (6 months) It seems that any time the woman was in a room with my mother she would burst out crying and flee. Nobody was sure if they were going to attend the wedding or not. My sister once asked the new step-sister in question if she was close to her deceased mother-in-law and the answer was "No, not at all."
And yet this woman is crying any time she was forced to be in the same house with the future bride of the old man. From here, I smell greed caused by money, but what do I know. That's just a guess. The folks in question looked at me as if I had slapped them when I attempted to introduce myself.
If they only knew what we have in common. I also usually want to cry after spending time in the same room as Marilyn. But I hope this is something they never know.
lw
interesting. i'd like to have an aerial view of that one.
btw...... The process of putting this situation into words has really helped alleviate the pain.
Thanks to all who have voiced support.
lw
so good to be here, listening.
when group support is good, it's good, alright
THe more I think about it, the more I have to wonder if Marilyn and I failed to bond when I was an infant. MY first year was spent living at my grandparents and I was their first grandchild. I bonded with them. My relationship with Marilyn has been another story....
lw
Jeez, I have not been around much of late, and just now had the opportunity to read this thread.... Makes me so hyper-aware of the relatively 'normal' loving upringing I recieved... The fact that you have become the person you are, as well as the character of Mrs. Willow, as you relate it; is in a word, astonishing... I ache for all the psychodrama you've had to endure LW.. I doff my derby to 'ya bro... I don't know exactly why, but I do wish your Mum well also, although by her previous track record, that seems unlikely... Hang tough bro, and it's good to know 'ya got that 'drum thing' in your soul...
Maybe Marilyn has the same troubles as you do, with her parents, for raising you instead of letting her do it, troubled as she is.
syd: Well, Marilyn and I lived in the same house all along. My grandparents just filled a need that she didn't, for what ever reason.
sal: Here's the funny part...... As far as I was concerned, my childhood was completely normal. Looking back, I never really faulted Marilyn for the way she treated me when I was young. As my natural inclination was to verbally fire right back at her when attacked, I always felt I had at least 50% of the blame in our rocky relationship. I guess sometimes ignorance IS bliss.
I can't count the number of times that she left our house happy and came back just pissed off as hell at me. The total would surely be nearly equal to the times she stormed out of the house pissed off at me for what ever reason, only to return acting as if nothing had happened earlier.
For me, personal exploration through the use of an active sacrament coupled with the love of my wife is what enabled me to see this situation for what it really was/is....
lw
Now we know the origins of the superhero know only as lw!
BTW: My Moms name was Marilyn as well... Methinks maybe alot of people at that time must of found that to be a popular name to bestow on their daughters....
what a fantastic idea for a book:
the children of Marilyn
wanna write a collaboration, sal and lw?
Who else around here has marilyn for a mom?