Cheeky Sweetie

I made it.

Without getting Baker Acted or arrested for battery. Yay!

I was pretty upset when I wrote my last post.  I feel a little bit guilty for how harshly I spoke of my in-laws.  The truth is that they mostly aren’t that horrible.  They just aren’t really MY kind of people.  They are cocktails and gossip and I am bottled water and blogging.  My big problem with them has always been the way Kris has been favored over our other kids.  I really don’t give a shit if they like me or not; they don’t even know me, so if they don’t like me, they don’t like this idea of me they have created in their heads, and how is that a true reflection of me?  But it’s a lot harder to shrug off your children being slighted.

I don’t remember ever truly being comfortable at the family functions on his side.  But when his Mom was alive, she was welcoming to me, and I guess that spilled over onto the rest of them.  Other than one jerky cousin who has been rude to me from the very first Christmas dinner, (when he made racial comments to me-not even about my correct ethnicity, but that’s irrelevant), it seemed that they liked me.  Something changed when my Mother-in-Law died…..the gloves came off, the masks were dropped, I don’t know.  But suddenly I was the root of every problem our family had.  All of Kris’ misbehavior was due to my shitty step-parenting..I didn’t treat him the same..I was lazy bc I didn’t work outside the home, (never mind that I had four kids under ten at home, two not in school yet, and while I was running the house and raising the kids, Brian was sitting up at the strip club with his pal the DJ, getting stoned all day while he TOLD me he was at work.  Which meant I was scrambling to do whatever it took to keep them fed, too, since he wasn’t bringing home the bacon.)

There is a LOT of history here, and I can understand that he was the family fuck-up back then.  He was irresponsible, dishonest, and unkind toward us.  But you know, he’s not the same man now.  If anyone should be unable to forgive him for the Wasted Years, as I call them, it should be ME.  If I am able to put all those hurts behind me, and look at him as the person he is today, what right do they have to hold them against him, still?  It’s not like they were the ones pulling his weight….I never once went to his family for help financially.  The one time I went to them for help emotionally, they shut the door in my face, hard.

But, again…it sucks that they judge us based on imagined things or things that happened years ago.  Not nearly as much as it sucks that our daughters are not treated like they matter as much as Kris does, though.  That is the root of all my resentment.  When school starts, Brian’s aunt and father will drop $200 on supplies and clothes for Kris, which he loses or destroys in a matter of weeks anyway.  They don’t even ask if there is anything they could help the girls with.  We don’t expect their help, you know, but if they are going to give it, make it fair, right?  Take the three of them out and spend $50 on each-you save $50 and they all feel important.  I don’t have any expectation for them to include my own son, though it would be nice.  My mom certainly includes Kris when she does something for my own three biological children.  But at least, include your own nieces/granddaughters.

I’m sure part of my resentment from the buying of gifts and whatnot comes from the fact that Kris is so destructive, too.  Maybe I wouldn’t be so angry if he didn’t have so little appreciation for anything and everything that is given to him.  But it’s hard NOT to scoff when they drop $50 on a video game for him-when he has lost or ruined every single video game he has ever owned.  It’s hard to NOT be annoyed when they buy him a $45 backpack and he’s written all over it, stepped on it, poked holes in it, and ripped a strap off by the second week of school.  It’s hard not to take the constant replacing of the clothing and shoes and whatever else he destroys, (I am not talking about typical kid stuff-spilling of ketchup and chocolate milk and rips from climbing trees and skateboard spills.  I am talking deliberate poking of holes, deliberate rips, deliberate jumping into ponds with his new shoes on, etc.), as a personal poke at us for not providing better quality stuff, or for not just accepting it as boys being boys…I don’t know really how to explain it.  But I would bet my eyeballs that the constant stream of new stuff to a kid who trashes everything he owns, and most of what the rest of us own, too, has played a leading role in enforcing his lack of respect for property.  “Why take care of it?  Next time I go to Grandpa’s he’ll buy me a new pair!”  Meanwhile the girls, who are no angels, by any means, but who at least destroy things on accident, heh, are only noticed on birthdays and Christmas.  How am I supposed to not resent that?

There is no easy answer.  But as much as the whole situation with the in-laws sucks…the fact that Brian and I fight about it is even worse.  It should be he and I against whomever is not treating our children right.  Not me against him defending his family who is not treating our children right.  It feels like I can’t trust him, and it’s taken a LOT of grace for me to let go of all those years when I couldn’t trust him.  I have just in the last two years gotten to where I feel our family has the same importance to him as it does to me-and that enables me to feel secure..to trust that his actions will honor our family.  Now I feel catapulted into the past, where it is me, alone, fighting for our family, even against him when necessary.  I never thought I would be there again…I wouldn’t wish that loneliness on my worst enemy.

He did talk to his father on Sunday about how “we” felt.  It went pretty well, in part due to his father’s girlfriend speaking to him about it the night before.  I guess she saw it coming; wise woman.  She’ll never replace my MIL Chris, but I like her, and respect her, and I like the way she treats ALL our kids like her own grandkids.  His father said he understood how we would feel the way we do, and that he would try harder to be more equal, as well as talking to the rest of the family. I feel a lot more gracious toward the family now; Sometimes I wonder if it just wasn’t that they tried to do more for Kris because his mother isn’t around, whereas the girls have a fiercely protective mother.  But you know, Kris may not have had his mother all these years, but he HAS had a MOM.  So that theory doesn’t really hold water.  regardless of the why, now they know how we feel.  I’m willing to let it go and see if it makes a difference.  Holding on to the past doesn’t do anything for us, so if it does make a difference, it’s a new chapter.

I guess I have to accept that gesture from Brian, but it still feels too little, too late.  Why do I have to beg and plead and scream and cry and fight so damn hard for him to do what he should WANT to do on his own?  I don’t know how to resolve this anger I feel, but I can tell you this….I am extremely glad to have this BlogHer Chicago trip this month to give me some perspective, and some time away from the drama to bond with the wonderful people I have already met through blogging and the friends I haven’t yet met.

Happy Belated Independence Day.