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Crazy family and trying to recover after my husband died????

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Bettyanne:
Thank you, Two a Penny, Lighter, Skeptical, and Hops,
So nice and kind of you all......
I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond......Maybe its finding myself in all of the years of abuse by my childhood family and then having Bill and it was not trouble free but we could work things out......talk about it......He was in AA for 35 years had his great coins with the years on them.  He was a teacher for 43 years and he helped others as they helped him. He had so many good friends whether we were in New Jersey or Washington state.....people helping people.....I went to some 4th of July celebrations....that were mostly AA people and their families. 
That to me was different from what we both grew up with....
I think my life has been a big lesson.....of how to love which I didn't get from home.  Home was more of you don't appreciate anything and my N mother was always looking for herself to be praised.  Putting her back in the grave now, I'm not sure because of religion that was always sending you to hell.....I plain didn't like my mother or grandmother and my dad was sweet and nice to me and my poor brother could only laugh or cry poor sweet soul.....I always felt bad for him and myself the mess we lived in.

I want to thank you for all your responses.....I do realize that missing Bill isn't going to go away over night and perhaps normal......It took me years to get over missing my dad as I was 20 when he passed and the same for my brother.  I don't miss my grandmother or for sure my mother...maybe the biggest lesson they taught me was how they didn't love anyone but themselves.....if that makes any sense????
The loss of Bill and finding myself.......is next on the list......My kids are kind and loving and I am grateful I have them.....they are not perfect like myself.......Life is a lesson.
Thank you all again.....I take what you all wrote seriously.......
Bettyanne

Bettyanne:
When I was 20 my dad died he was 51 years old, he had melanoma cancer which spread all over....he was a kind person, unlike my mother.  She would take his medicine capsules for pain and put sugar in them and delete the meds.  He would say to her something is wrong they don't help.  I saw this and I was so so upset......
In the meantime my brother was dying too and so was my grandmother......my mother was so mean or acted it???? so with in six months they are all dead....except her.....omg I am left with a bitch of a mother.
I get married a few days after my brother died and she tells me at the wedding I don't care about anything....but  I am lost without my dad......who was so kind and loving to me. 
I am just saying here......I have never forgotten her meanness and uncaring ways.....
She left for England a
 for 3 months and oh poor poor Betty she was so so upset.....what bull crap she was really relieved everyone was gone. 
I was all she had......and she told everyone how bad I was and my husband.......bad I like to know what I did .......??
A week after my dad died she told me she was glad he was dead?? I think she didn't like I had a close relationship with him??
Did any of you have anything like this what I put up with her?? I don't think I'm alone here in this group.....I never had a family member I was close with except my dad.......and of course Bill which is so so difficult now.
AS I have said before she lived onto 100 and was never happy with me for sure.....she bought my kids with money but nothing I can do or ever could....?? I do know now I should have gotten away from her and broke this relationship while she was alive......I never had a therapist tell me to do this??
Thanks.......freinds.......Bettyanne.......PS I was named after her which I never liked.......

Hopalong:
Hi Bettyanne,
I never experienced anything like the viciousness of what she said to you after your father died. I do relate though to what it's like to have one safe kind person in your childhood world (your Dad), and how it feels when that person is gone.

I was lucky to have my Dad's quiet gentleness as a presence in my life. He never protected me from my brother's bullying (always done out of sight) but I did always know he loved me. He couldn't possibly intercede with my Nmother, because he had no idea what he was dealing with there (narcissism? what's that?), and he loved her. To get between us (to relieve my stress) he would have had to betray her. And he honestly was out of his depth and believed there was something primary about what "the mother" wanted more than a father, so wasn't able to help the sad little girl. Plus, I kept my misery quiet as I wouldn't have added distress for him for the world. He was much too passive, I realize, but his gentle nature stayed with me and is a comfort to think about always. I was also lucky to tend him during his long illness and death, which brought me deep peace.

I was less lucky with Nmother because I was so brainwashed that comforting and catering to her was more important than any dream of my own. I was also keeping a deathbed promise to him. Implicit was the same old contract -- let her talk to you until your brain screams, attend to her whims and just accept she was the center of the world. So I moved in with her and took care of her for ten years. That was a big mistake. Not the being kind and responsible toward her part, but actually living there. Hindsight.

I'm sorry you have such painful memories to contend with, along with the loss of your dear companion. I imagine that Bill would want to remind you now that his love hasn't gone anywhere, and hopefully the felt memory of being loved by him will continue to give you strength as you work through this chapter of grieving, finding the meaning YOU choose in this new chapter of your life, and coping with the changes it will mean. Sometimes small beauties, small comforts, or smaller spaces take on extra power in older years.

Your dignity and value are already in you, Bettyanne. You deserve to respect yourself, to accept that understanding things takes as long as it takes. And if you never saw the things you see now so clearly until five minutes before the end of your life, it would still be okay.

Your life has not been a waste at all. And you can find happiness even after this loss. It'll take a while, but it's how humans work. We aim toward peace and contentment, even if there are sad undertones. We're still here. The beauty of nature, the sight of a bird, the sound of a wonderful singer, and the expressions on the faces of children....they're still here for us.

hugs
Hops

Bettyanne:
Thank you Hops.......
My NM had it in for me why?? I don't know.  I know she lost her dad at age 4 which was not my fault of course....but she was angry and also very into herself......Like work I think she got praise??? is the only thing I ever came up with......I think she didn't like me having a dad...or anything like she relived her childhood in me.  But she also wanted praise from me and I didn't do it....... but even if I did praise her at times it was a waste of time for me. 
I think she needed praise like 24/7 all the time.....I think the men at the office must of liked her or something like that......who knows......I never knew when I would be yelled at or what ever....she was never proud of me because I don't think she could go that far???
I think not having any brothers or sisters.....I was alone and it was hard to defend myself.....for what I never was taught anything. 
I knew my mothers job or getting out of the house was so so important....the most important going on....her mother was not the same but just as bad as she was.  She screamed and yelled a lot if I wanted a friend over as a kid.....the friend was told to go home.
So its taken a lot a way from an innocent kid......and I was never taught how to be an adult.....mostly just figuring things out on my own and when Bill came into my life that made a big difference.  My NM didn't like Bill.....she told me he was a smoothy.......what ever that meant???
Thank you......for you kind reply and it makes me see I am not alone......not that seeing anyone else in pain is good either.  But I sure appreciate your reply. 
Thank you so so much.....
Bettyanne

Twoapenny:
It's so hard, BettyAnne.  My own take with my mum is that she took all the awful things that happened to her when she was younger and kind of projected them out onto her own kids.  She was never praised so she didn't praise us, no-one was affectionate to her so she wasn't affectionate, no-one protected her so she didn't protect anyone and so on.  It's taken me nearly twenty five years of really hard work and soul searching to get to a place where I can kind of see her now as a grown up version of a kid that no-one loved, rather than feeling so much hurt and anguish over what she did and didn't do for me over the years.  It's a tough way to grow up and even harder to work through it all, I think.  It's just very difficult, whichever way you look at it.  I suspect she described Bill as a 'smoothy' as a way of trying to invalidate his genuinely nice character.  It can be hard for some people to just accept that someone else is nice and doesn't have an ulterior motive when they're not used to that themselves (my mum always thinks people are only doing something nice if they want something.  It's one of the reasons I don't get back in touch with her - I know she'll tell everyone I'm after her inheritance, which isn't true, but she wouldn't be able to see any other reason for it.  I think she's invisible to herself, in a way).  It's very hard, but it sounds to me like you didn't pass all of this on to your own kids through the way that you raised them.  You sound like a much closer, healthier family than the one you came from and that's good.  Your kids will do a good job with their own kids, I'm sure xx

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