December 14, 2004
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Something surprising happened tonight. My youngest told her grandmother that “dad gets drunk and yells at night.” This is her son she’s hearing about.
Somehow she never believed me or maybe she didn’t care. I think she believed that he wouldn’t have yelled at me if I hadn’t of aggravated him. I never told her how he started yelling at the kids, after I left, because I wasn’t there to yell at. The youngest is his baby, his favorite. If he’s starting in on her, then he must be pretty upset. He’s freaked out about the one in trouble.
He’s a wonderful man but he’s pretty much a drunk now. He never learned how to deal with his feelings. He stuffs them down until they erupt. Then he says horrible things, in a fit of anger. It’s like watching a two-year-old having a temper tantrum. It used to scare the shit out of me though. I would leave and go to a hotel for the night when it got bad.
It’s like everybody’s secrets are coming out. The family is unraveling. His dad was a drunk and his mother quit drinking maybe ten years ago. I can’t imagine how she must be feeling tonight. I feel like I’ve been vindicated. When I left, not only did I lose my home, I lost the only mother who’d ever been good to me. This crisis with the child who is having a hard time has brought us back together. H was in Mexico so the only way she got information was through me. We’ve been talking every day since. It will be interesting to see what he does when she confronts him.
Comments (6)
I hope something good comes out of all of this…
meaning I hope problems are solved and not a gaping hole left
there…
I have 12 siblings and my parents….we seem to be able to make
the hole and never fill it in.
Good Luck!
Sometimes things happen for better!
Sometimes you gotta grow up on the stable love of one parent because the other one is flying off in the ether somewhere. It’s not the most balanced way to grow up, but a child can draw strength through this love that they trust to be always there for them. And it can be an amazing balancer once they are grown up. You can’t fix your husband; you can’t fix his relationship to your children; you can’t fix his relationship to you. We all know that, sad but true. But you can be there for your kids, helping them cope and helping them understand that there is always love for them, that they can still believe in a beautiful world, despite the difficulties of one parent… And I know that you do that for them. It may seem like he undoes all your doing, but, no, what you give is strong, forever, enabling… (((hugs))) my friend, Brenda x0
Vindication is a good feeling.
When I left hubby #2, I knew no one understood the problems of his drinking. They weren’t there…they didn’t know. After we split up, I didn’t talk to his family. I had no idea what he’d told them or how they felt about me. When I heard he had died, I went straight to his grandmother’s house (she raised him). I found time to talk to his mother. I thought she needed to know some things, since she was blaming himself for his overdose. She and I had never been close…he’d done his best to see to that…but I have only one son, and I know I’d pay people to try to understand something like that. During one of our many talks, she told me there was a time when he’d taken out a gun, during a drunken rage, and threatened the family with it. I’d never experienced anything like that, thank heavens, but she said the one thing I needed to hear…”He was a very hard person to live with.”
My thoughts exactly.
Vindication. Validation.
I am closer to his family than I ever was. In fact I visited his mom and grandmother this past weekend, giving them their Christmas gifts and listening to them chide me, again, for not visiting often enough. *smile*
I know it’s been painful for them, and I’ve done what I could to shed light where I know they couldn’t see. But as hard as it’s all been, I’m kinda glad they were able to have a tiny glimpse of the life he and I lived…even if it’s not the most complimentary to him…
The Universe works in strange ways, yes. And it will be interesting to see how things go from here.
Peace and Love…GFW
I’ll never really understood alcoholics and why they choose to stay that way. I’m only glad I no longer have to be around it daily. And I’m glad that you don’t either.