that the plan was for me to finally understand and accept that I will never have a place in theiir lives...that they are sick...and that no matter how much I may love them, they don't return it...that they don't care 1 wit about me and never will. I'm wondering if the purpose was for me to undertand this, grieve it and move somewhere.
Sunblue, I TOTALLY understand what you're feeling right now. It also took a crisis in my family to get me to see the truth. In my case, it was my NM who got sick. She's allegedly is dying of cancer, though she's two years past her expiration date, so I'm definitely not being told the truth. But regardless, her illness brought out the true colors of both my Co-F and Co-Sis. (My brother, the GC, seems irrelevant at this point since he's too into himself to care and is staying out of this.)
After NM got her diagnosis, my Co-F changed in a very dramatic and abrupt way. He did some very cruel things to me in the interest of pleasing his dying queen. My Co-sister, who I always kind of felt sorry for, also ran to the defense of my mother. It was like being hit in the head with a brick. Suddenly, after decades of making excuses for them, I realized the truth. My Co-F NEVER loved me, and co-Sis probably didn't either. I made the decision to sever ties with my father last year. I too, have had to learn to accept this and to grieve, and to move forward from here. I am now NC with my entire family. It's exactly as you said, that I now realize that I will never have a place in their lives. So I felt that my only option was to leave.
Maybe, in some twisted way, this is a good thing. Had I not found out the truth about Co-Father now, I probably would have spent my life savings caring for him in his old age, only to find out that his precious son, the GC, was the sole heir. Better to find out now, before I could get hurt any further. Of course, none of want to be hurt at all, but IMO it's inevitable that we learn the ugly truth about our FOO, so maybe it's for the best that we DO get hit with that brick on head, and at least have the chance to move on. The hurt, for me, becomes less with each day. And as each day passes, I'm able to see the silver lining. At age 50, I still have many years ahead of me where I can be happy and free of their torment. So I guess you could say it's a gift of sorts, to learn the truth while you're still young enough to have a second chance at happiness. It's going to be easier now, at this age, to find a way to cope and move on, than if I were at the end of my life myself. Even though they stole 50 years of my life, if I'm lucky, I may have another 30-40 years of happiness. It's a bit like being re-born, I guess.
I hope that made sense. It's always hard to find the right words to discuss a situation that's so darned weird.
