How I Went NC for Five Months...Sort Of

In my last post I described the escalating emails and calls from my NM, wanting to see if she could have her grandkids visit her for 2 nights during either Nov. or Dec. of 2009.  I felt she was getting extra ugly, demanding that I’d better return her calls, and I felt she was lucky that I had even offered that past summer to visit with the kids.  Going deeper, she should feel lucky that I even visited her even in the years before I had children.  And the kids had never stayed with her without me (we’ve had the “benefit” of living in different states)—she must have been out of her mind to think that I’d leave them with her for even a night, knowing how she is volatile and obviously disrespectful of me.

In Nov. 2009 I emailed her this:

Mom,
I heard your voice mail today, and your words are very much bullying.  Just like your email below is very threatening and bullying.  I did not know that we have a business relationship so I do not know what exactly you mean by "bad business".

As I wrote to you in my email I sent you on 7/21/09 I stated that the boys do not want to visit you alone but that I can go with them or that you can visit us here.  You wrote me a mean-spirited email back and did not take me up on a visit.  The way you acted in front of them last summer is basis enough, besides everything else, to not even want to visit you again and yet I still offered. 

What you said in front of them, "Ex-Step-Father is a nice man, your mother is the one with the problem" is unacceptable.  Telling them it will be more fun to visit without me there, is disrespectful to me.  All the mean-spirited things that you say about me is unacceptable.  I cannot imagine what you have expected to accomplish.

The way you speak to Grandmother (and yes, I am aware that she is not perfect) is disturbing--the way you called her caregiver and went ballistic, the way you are nice one day to people and then mean the next, and even the way you lose your patience after being with the boys for just a day--it is very worrisome and I think you need some help by speaking to someone.

As I told you on the phone last time we talked, that this winter or whenever the time comes, I can come to FL and assist with moving Grandmother to a new place, or whatever the need may be.  If you want to talk or visit here, we can talk about safe topics such as TV shows, cooking, or what we've been up to.  Your lack of acknowledgment of my feelings after all these years of Ex-Step-Father, and other items add up to a lack of trust. 

You have had opportunities in which we've visited you in your two different homes, and you have been invited to our home to fly up and visit and you've said you were too busy.  After seeing the words that you have written to me this summer and the things you've said last summer, it is apparent how you feel about me.  You can call the boys on the home phone but a visit to your home is not going to happen.
--(My Name)

Whew, that felt good.  Then 4 days later I received this email from her:

My Dear (My Name),

I always wanted for you to have nice relationships with your relatives, including me.

I found your letter very hurtful.  In fact, you and your husband have treated me very poorly for fifteen to twenty years. I can not deal with it any more.  I am letting go.

I feel very sad, it is your sons who lose, and they had no choice.

Love your mom

  

P.S. I do not need help with Grandmother this winter.

That was a rare thing for her to sign off using the word Love.  “Letting go”?  Readers, I was relieved.  My DH was perplexed.  “What does that mean”, he asked?  That peeved him.  I was a little sad at first.  But Thanksgiving was coming and we always have fun with my in-laws.  DH told me I always had his mom and his family.  At Thanksgiving I told a little bit of this to one of my many SILs (who knows no details, only that my mom is a nutcase and our visiting DH's family at Thanksgiving speaks volumes) and she told me that I have lots of family who love me (the in-laws).  That felt good and made me cry. It helps so much having that. 

Readers, a few months before this when I drove my grandmother home and we spent 11 hours together in the car, plus three more days together, I heard many ugly things my NM had to say about me and about my GM.  I realized that my NM didn’t like me.  My NM was so mad that she couldn’t tell me what to do, mad that I married a strong man who knew her BS from day one, mad that her summer neighbors probably wonder why her daughter and 3 grandkids don’t visit.  And mad that I was getting buddy-buddy with Grandma, who has a little inheritance for my NM.

Right after that email from her, I Googled, “Daughters Who Don’t Speak to their Mothers” and found websites about NPD.  Eureka!  Wow!  I finally had a label.  I read websites for about a week or more, and then life went on and I slept really well.  It was so easy to push any bad thoughts out of my head and go off to dreamland at bedtime.

But I see now that although I was strong enough to write her that email, I did not think everything through.  I realize I did not want to be accused of, or create a scene of preventing the grandkids from speaking to her.  I didn’t address at that time that it is also not right to disrespect me, their mother, and still call them on the phone. 

Next, I will blog about how she would then call the kids every couple weeks, how they deal with it, what I say about everything to them, and why didn’t I realize that when a few months had passed, she’d get me on the phone this past Spring unexpectedly and ask again for the kids to visit her. (!!!)  Still learning, still learning, learning lots from your stories, and gaining strength from your stories.