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« Last post by lighter on September 10, 2025, 04:21:59 AM »
My cousin left her husband, just after her niece's wedding. The husband doesn't know where she is, and their 20yo DD had to give up neutrality yesterday.
She was taking her dad's calls, and visiting him at their home, but he's unstable and lashing out in every direction, trying to get cousin back in the house. Only the dad is still residing in the home, btw.
It's weird.....
it feels like..... the dad is cannibalizing their children. In hopes cousin will appear....and remove him from his dinner.
For instance.....cousin had their DD at urgent care....asthma.....the sticky kind.... oxygen stuck at 88..... wouldn't go above....gave steroids and antibiotics. While in that appointment, the dad calls....DD is socialized to not upset dad. She takes his call.... doctor and mom in room....DD asks if she can phone dad back.
Dad now knows she's at urgent care. With the doctor.... struggling to breathe....on speakerphone, but insists he must make the (sadly not unexpected) announcement.... he's cancelled dd's car insurance.
Because that's what you do when you're trying to get control of your wife back. You leverage the children. Of course you do.
The son, who hasn't been socialized to make everyone feel better all the time, won't take his father's calls or visit him. He received a text informing him insurance cancelled....and it's really awful. "Hey, buddy....hey Jackie....all super sweet language, like he's addressing a young child. Actually made me feel ill, reading it.
Later, the DD ends up in stepped down ICU, where DD removed her father from her emergency contact list and announced she no longer feels safe to visit her father, bc she fears he'll do something to her, to get back at the mom.
Up to that point, she'd been Sweden.... refusing to understand her mom's choice to go no contact/in hiding....unwilling to judge her father, or cut him off.
It's interesting, the drunk dad liked to get DD drunk with him. The DD received so little care from him.....that felt like love to her. He actually asked DD to call her mum and report he'd given up drinking....
while holding a beer in his hand.
He knew shis wife would know he still drank....so why try to coax her back to the house? Where he has a gun? And privacy, behind doors?
He's also presenting himself as a newly single guy about town. Happy. So so so happy. To be rid of his sober, responsible, funny and amazing wife. "Finally."
He's edging on the Coraline movie scene where the other mother is pounding against the little door, screaming "come back, don't leave me, I'll kill you, I'll die without you!!"
Paraphrasing, but you get the picture.
The....."drunk" sounds judgy. Will refer to him as D.
D talks to my brother, and asked him to phone our cousin and tell her D stopped drinking. The man "chooses" to drink from 5am to whatever time he passes out, drun....from drinking all day. He would beg me to drive him to the store, to get beer, during family reunion. I was cooking. Cleaning. Playing with kids and he's posted up in the kitchen, drinking nonstop, worrying about running out of beer, which he did not. There were 2 cases, undrunk, left over of Busch. I digress.
Brother didn't call cousin... didn't fall for the bs. Instead, he called D back and asked if he'd really given up alcohol. D laughed, and admitted he had not. A little light hearted jape?
Brother unimpressed he'd been asked to compromise his integrity, with his cousin, but seems, still, firmly in the "let's not create drama" camp, as in......speaking about the fear D will harm or kill cousin/the kids makes him uncomfortable, so he's dismissive.
The DD's oxygen levels are up to 90, which is improvement. Cousin had new car insurance in place, for them all, before the day ended.
D no longer drives. His balance is shot, bc he's saturated with alcohol.
The neighbor men are telling cousin her life is in danger.....telling her they're willing to protect her, should it come to that. Certainly, the Ohio family is supportive and understand the assignment. Cousin's friends are alarmed and feel this woll certainly be a case of graveyard love, if D can manage it.
:: struggling with all kinds of acceptance::.
Mostly to do with my brother's (unconscious?) belief systems.....I think.
D is disdainful of women. Brother has been for years. They have that, or had that, in common. Would both vote against reproductive healthcare, if D hadn't given up voting rights. He can't do jury duty with his extreme drinking habits.
Anticipating D will use free family attorney to dick cousin around in Court, till their meager savings are gone and legal debt, all he can get, is driven up. You know...the usual "loving father" behaviors expressed by a dad with 2 kids at university. Cousin took her name off the kid's bank accounts, so D can't take those.
Oh ....and he's asking for alimony.
I realize..... I can't talk about this without some judgement.
My brother offered to hook D up with an AA sponsor, but D adamantly refuses to consider it. He's made a "choice" about drinking. It's not a "problem." Now can you call my wife and tell her I gave up drinking?
Nope. I can't release outcome or judgement.
::looking up next T appt date::.
So much destruction and destructive behavior. So much of my cousin covering for D....trying to protect children....get through another day....endure scathing shame at every social gathering.....and D telling everyone, who'll listen, he's "happy now.... hasn't been for a long time ....would never take cousin back."
Telling the children, but not an AA guy. That's the line D draws in the sand. He's calling his MIL, and cousin's girlfriends....actually propositioning the single Christian gal. Bleck.
This is an ancient struggle....trying to accept sone parents eat their young. I know they justify it with....
"What's good for me is good for the kids."
Or maybe they don't feel obligated to justify anything?
I have a problem with it.
That's clear.
And it's fairly..... visceral, yup yup yup.
The wide eyed and stupid stance, of willfully ignorant bystanders, baffles me.
No. It actually gives me the vapors.
It changes my brain chemistry.
The journey continues.
Lighter
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