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About a year ago sister and I put together a lot of pieces and well! what a whole we found. Dear old Mom, the martyr, was quite the drinking girl.
As is so often the case, the hard part is separating her outrageous (drunken) behavior from her awful betrayals as a sober person. Which came first, the craziness or the drunkeness?
I will surely one day tell the story, but the short of it is, she has hurt me and my siblings incredibly; mostly out of stupidity but sometimes intentionally. After years of her lies, Al-Anon helped me just reject being a part of it anymore. Which did not go over well with mother and one sibling who has a hard time being truthful with herself, either, much less the mother who always so cruelly rejected her. But on the whole, it has been a good thing. I have said my truth, I have even gotten an apology and "What can I do to make itup to you?"
Which was a good question. And a step in the right direction! Of course, at first, she absolutely denied ever doing a thing wrong. Then she claimed the cruelties she delivered to me specifically were because her relatives had done the same thing to her.
Hmm. So just pass it on to the next generation, huh? What exactly is the thinking there?
Later it all evolved to how her husband, the one who beat and humiliated us, had told her to do those horrible things.
I suppose that is possible, but it had a religious flavor to it that sounded much more like her style. In any case, she would not take responsibility.
I did have some very concrete steps 1 wanted her to take to 'make it up to me.'
1. $ for the surgery to remove the scar her husband gave me when he hit me 2. Donation to or volunteer/speak to a group that offers shelter for abused women/children 3. A visit to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Welcome ((((Here I am)))))<---(These are hug by the way),
Recently, my Alcoholic father left me a v-mail to let me know he is ending his relationship with me. As you might imagine this was an incredibly painful message to receive. In part, this message was painful because it seems to leave very little option except for me to divorce him in turn (afterall, why would I want a relationship with a parent would would divorce me?). However, since I wasn't sure what to do, I have done nothing. I have not responded to his phonecall and I am giving myself plenty of time to think and feel this situation through.
In the time since I have received his message, I have had a lot of time to grapple with how to respond. I have realized for me that I don't want a 'divorce' from him unless it becomes absolutely necessary. So what's my alternative? Boundaries. I need to get clear on my boundaries and my limits before I talk to him again. Right now, I am working both with my therapist and my sponsor to figure out how to set appropriate boundaries and limits with him. And, I am also willing to face the reality that he truly meant what he said and he has ended this relationship permenantly. In the meantime, I have safely expressed my sadness, anger, confusion, etc. to my dearest, closest friends, my Al-Anon family, and my therapist.
As you'll learn through this program, boundaries are for us (not for them)--they are to keep us emotionally, physically, and spiritually safe. A boundary might be, "If you call me screaming, I will end the conversation and talk to you another time" or it might be, "If I become upset at the family gathering, I will have an exit strategy and I will leave." Or, it might be, "If you are drunk, I will end the conversation/leave/etc.). "If you are mean to me, I will leave the room." The focus in the boundary is on what you will do to enforce your boundary. You don't even have to tell anyone your boundaries, you might decide not to announce them, but simply to act on the boundaries you have set for yourself.
I've been trying to figure out whether my dad left this message sober or not, and I don't know. Did he really mean it or was he completely pickled at the time? I don't know and I don't think it really matters. I think what matters is that I was hurt and I have a right to protect myself with appropriate boundaries. Likewise, don't think it matters at this point if your mother's hurting you on purpose or not--you have every right to protect yourself regardless.
As I have thought my own situation through, I know I am tempted to say to him, "If you want to be in relationship to me, you need to do X, Y, Z". However, I also know, through working the Al-Anon program, that the only person who I have control over is me. It's unlikely, and if he's actively drinking it's completely improbable, that he will follow through on my XYZ even if he promises he will.
Only you can know or make the decision of whether to divorce your parent. Only you know your history with her and what is best for you. However, if you don't truly want a divorce, you might try boundaries. It's a HUGE help to have a sponsor as a sounding board for this process if setting boundaries is new to you.
There are so many other things I have not even mentioned in this post ... it all rationally adds up to Yes, this is a person who has no conscience and has hurt others and herself - a lifetime of mistakes and hurt and Yes she has rejected me many times SO it makes perfect sense to do whatever it is I need to do to have self respect (which I have done and it feels good).
Yet.
I mourn and wish for parents that had actually raised me. As I raise my own children, I am experiencing a lot of anger, all over again. How COULD they? And I can dwell on how hard they have made it for me, especially now, when I have children who could use some grandparents, real actual kind loving grandparents.
But it just ain't gonna happen that way.
Blue Cloud, your story is so sad. Your father was surely drunk or off his rocker in some way. I am so glad you have a sponsor to help you through this, and you would be justified if you wanted to drop all contact with a person like that.
Some people just do not deserve respect. I am afraid many alcoholics fall into that category.
My late husband had alcoholic parents. I think technically he would have been classified as an alcholic too but he was extremely functional (and responsible) in his life and didn't drink all the time. Anyway, his dad was gone a lot w/ work & his mother was raising 4 boys on her own quite a bit. When the father returned home, his first order of business was to punish (beat) them for anything that they did wrong while he was gone. My husband was deeply hurt (emotionally) by this - he could never understand why his father wasn't more loving. And he always wanted answers from them about why they did that, why they seemed to care more about drinking than about the kids, and a lot of other things. I think there was a lot of self-pity on his part. And his situation was a far cry from yours, but I always told him that the answers that he was looking for would probably never come from his parents. They needed to come from within himself. He needed to let go of the anger - hard as it may be - for his own sake. He was only hurting himself by holding on.
I hope that you can work out some kind of resolution within yourself. If you put demands on your mother you will surely be disappointed again. There's really nothing that your mother can do to "make it up to you." I would tell her that.
I think that it must be hard for someone to admit - or even think about - how awful they have been. My A b/f never wants to hear about the stupid embarassing things that he did when he was drunk. I have a friend who was sexually abused by her father - years later she finally came out in the open with it and a lot of her family/friends don't believe her - even her own husband. And her dad refuses to admit or accept responsibility for what he did. (Kind of off the subject here).
You know, I think about our legal system, which is in part about 'making it up to' someone who has been a victim of a crime. Which is what someone who has been beaten up surely is, no matter if the violent person was a stranger or a parent.
And I bet our jails are full of people who would say "Why don't you just get over it? What's done is done."
Which does not satisfy the victim very much at all.
Therefore, the judge may remove the violent offender from society, or sentence him or her to community service, order him or her to pay restitution to the victim, etc. These things may contribute o the offender feeling some regret, or contrition, or genuinely sorry for what he has done. he or she may learn, and educate others to not do the stupid things he or she has done.
