Has anyone put it together, realized that I did the very thing that my daughter did? She was trapped and her husband was in the “divide and conquer” mode
when he dismissed me, and she was----let me call it “speechless”-----unable to understand. We didn’t know about Ns
When she was divorced for 2 years and very busy with work, University and 3 children, we didn’t see much of each other but her e-mails helped to close that gap that not seeing each other had created. Being in her presence still made me/us uncomfortable.
Then I met the N. I was charmed off my feet. Saw him every day, sometimes twice in one day, dinner, movies, walks in the park, traveling around to visit his friends and knew he was leaving for the West to start a new business here. I remember saying, “I miss you already and you’re not even gone”. And he responded with, “Who knows. You might be coming with me.” He searched for his birth parents and, found them and took me to meet them----I “ hated” them both . He loved his mother but not his father and was just like his father.
Then the relationship took off and I moved west with him.
His mask fell off and I had a raging, verbally abusive N on my hands., just as my daughter had.
He suggested I invite daughter and 3 kids for summer of ’99, which I did. Take out a houseboat for 5 days. Scenic trips. I was making all the plans, when he said he wanted his son to come out and made plans for him to catch the very same flight. I knew, after the fact, he had set me up,
Now everything was HIS and I never had a chance with Daughter to talk. I had given her the keys to my car and said she could use it whenever! And very often she was gone in the a.m. for the latter ˝ of her visit. I knew then she was regretting coming out. I knew it was the N.(Just like I knew how I felt around her N.) I couldn’t get a chance to talk/ask, whatever. 3 kids running around, 8, 11 and 13. oh and the Ns son 17 who was more immature than my 13 yr old grandson.
‘Twas the 8 yr old’s 8th birthday, June 13, and N and his son took off and didn’t join us, but daughter’s ˝ sister was there with her 3 kids.
ALWAYS somebody around and who arranged that? Not me!! Might have been daughter, but N sure had a hand in it.
We had a huge disagreement and he threw the keys to the Van at me—rented Van for all of us Cost $1000.00.
GOOD!! I then handed them to my daughter and said, “You are driving us back to Vancouver for the flight home”.
We packed a lunch and off we went to stop at her ‘sister’s ‘ on the way. We were all left waiting as they walked over the hill to look at the horses, after N said, “You have just 15 minutes!” After 15 minutes he just blared the horn, and after a few times I said, “The more you blare the horn, the longer they will be. She was married to Gus. Remember?”
I tell you she is one great driver. It was raining and she was driving the Highway, past Hope Slide and was taking pictures with her camera at the same time and never a flinch of trouble. (I taught her, at age 10, how to drive! Bravo! Me!) In the meantime N had to sit in the 3rd row of seats and did nothing but b*tch and complain about the heat, the lack of air, etc and that is what the kids had gone through all through the Van travels. He never put it together. They never see comparisons, and he had crabbed to me about the kids in the 3rd row crabbing.
He was so upset at all the money he had to spend, and all I said was, “If you had left your son out of it, it would have been ALL MY expense. The houseboat, the Van, but since you brought him in to help ruin things for my family, you PAY!
My daughter and I have been through the same type verbally abusive relationship and I cannot, yet, get her to see the parallel, but I’ve told my Therapist that I HAD to meet the N to know what my daughter had endured for 10 years.
Comments????
Izzy
